ABSTRACT
Now capitalist convergence, not communism, seems to haunt the politics of Europe. While governments in the European Union try to orchestrate their macroeconomic policies, the EU Commission promotes policies to harmonise social provision. Giant multinational firms standardise their markets and extend their operations across Europe. Organised labour and the business elites unite at European levels to promote their own trans-European agendas. Businesses themselves adopt new managerial styles and policies to reorganise operations, and employee relations; threatening to sweep away the older, local practices. Aspiring to eventual membership of the EU, the new regimes in the excommunist societies also seek to copy commercial institutions from their older capitalist neighbours. Against all these and related changes, social and political protests have emerged in many European countries. Protests which are often based on fears that national particularities will be lost through a pan-European convergence. How much of this projected and feared convergence will take place?
