Prophet of gloom

Press, 3 February 1979, Page 15

Prophet of gloom

The Disintegrating West. By Mary Kaidor. Penguin ... Books. 208 pp. $12.95.

(Reviewed by Jenny Phillips) The Cold War, detente — what next? Conflict between the United States and Europe, according to Mary Kaldor of the University of Sussex. In a disturbing exercise, she examines the growth of the international corporation and its effects on what she describes as the crumbling nation state. She argues that capitalism needs a single world authority in order to guarantee the liberal conditions for international corporate expansion. A single European Government would challenge America’s role as this world authority, and the role of the dollar as standard currency.

Plunging economies, she claims, will force the Europeans finally to unite. But the stresses and strains of keeping thhese very disparate states together will mean that the European Government is a militaristic one. Ms Kaldor views the United States’ gio' 1 struggle with the Soviet Union as a kind of necessary ritual, which is

why there has been no major European war in the last 30 years. Investments by American corporations overseas cause the overseas economies to thrive while the economy of the United States wilts. A European Government, providing maximum conditions for such investments, could create a heady situation. “The Disintegrating West” sees two possible futures: A European union and possible trans-Atlantic conflict: or prolonged economic crisis, in which peripheral European Governments embark on austerity programmes, with United States-backed bans and repression. To justify a growth in the armed forces sne predicts a resumption of the Cold War. A third possibility — a recovery in Western Europe spurred by United States loans — she views as only temporary. She acknowledges that none of this may happen. But it is an interesting analysis and food for thought. Forthcoming events are mentioned; it will not be long before they are past events and the book will ‘be dated. Predicting the future is a perilous business, as many a journalist (after an election) will testify.