The dual mandates: Competition and social progress in the european union's hybrid economy

“ TITLE VI ECONOMIC AND MONETARY POLICY CHAPTER 1 ECONOMIC POLICY ARTICLE 102a Member States shall conduct their economic policies with a view to contributing to the achievement of the objectives of the Community, as defined in Article 2, and in the context of the broad guidelines referred to in Article 103 (2) . The Member States and the Community shall act in accordance with the principle of an open market economy with free competition, favouring an efficient allocation of resources, and in compliance with the principle set out in Article 3a. ”

“ The primary objective of the ESCB shall be to maintain price stability. Without prejudice to the objective of price stabilty, the ESCB shall support the general economic policies in the Community with a view to contributing to the achievement of the objectives of the Community as laid down in Article 2. The ESCB shall act in accordance with the principle of an open market economy with free competition, favouring an efficient allocation of resources, and in compliance with the principles set out in Article 3a. ”

“ ARTICLE 1 The Community and the Member States shall have as their objectives the promotion of employment, improved living and working conditions, proper social protection, dialogue between management and labour, the development of human resources with a view to lasting high employment and the combating of exclusion. To this end the Community and Member States shall implement measures which take account of the diverse forms of national practices, in particular in the field of contractual relations, and the need to maintain the competitiveness of the Community economy. ”

“ Such measures should have their aim both the completion of the internal market and a recognition of the regional reality to enable the outermost regions to achieve the average economic and social level of the Community. DECLARATION ON VOTING IN THE FIELD OF THE COMMON FOREIGN AND SECURITY POLICY The Conference agrees that, with regard to Council decisions requiring unanimity, Member States will, to the extent possible, avoid preventing a unanimous decision where a qualified majority exists in favour of that decision. ”

“ Member States and their relevant authorities remain competent with regard to the identification, analysis and solving of practical problems relating to the enforcement of relevant Union law on working conditions and social protection at work, and for deciding what measures to take at national level to give effect to the outcomes of the activities of the Platform. ”

“ Whilst endeavouring to achieve the objective of free movement of capital between Member States and third countries to the greatest extent possible and without prejudice to the other Chapters of this Treaty, the Council may, acting by a qualified majority on a proposal from the Commission, adopt measures on the movement of capital to or from third countries involving direct investment - including investment in real estate -, establishment, the provision of financial services or the admission of securities to capital markets. ”

“ European laws or framework laws shall enact measures on the movement of capital to or from third countries involving direct investment—including investment in real estate, establishment, the provision of financial services or the admission of securities to capital markets. ”

“ Left to themselves, economic forces would merge the world into a single competitive field, the markets of which would be supplied only from the sources where capital and labor could work to most advantage. ”

“ Two-sided competition gives a definite rule of price—the only definite impersonal rule. The theoretical competitive price is the standard to which things tend constantly to adjust themselves in an open market. ”

“ There is in competitive trade a public, a social character, which monopoly destroys. Even in a simple auction, when the bidding is really competitive, price depends far less on shrewd bargaining, on bluff, or on stubbornness, than is the case in isolated trade. Each bidder is compelled by self-interest to outbid his less eager competitors, and thus the limits within which the price must fall are narrowly fixed. ”

“ Across America, our exports support 12 million jobs that pay wages higher than the national average, and high-tech jobs supported by exports pay even more. It is no coincidence that the longest period of sustained economic growth in U.S. history has followed efforts to liberalize trade, such as the North American Free Trade Agreement and the Uruguay Round Agreement that established the World Trade Organization. Trade also leads to more competitive businesses, more choices of goods for consumers, and lower prices. ”

“ At the present moment great and important fields of industrial activity are clearly seen to be outside the competitive sphere. It must, however, be recognized that competition in the halcyon days of the laissez faire doctrine was not really free. ”

“ The laws of economics are in truth mere incidents in social evolution. Queen Elizabeth and her successors granted trade monopolies to favorites. The eighteenth-century economists enunciated the laws of competition and equal freedom as the great law of economics—the cureall for economic woes, and lo, the Standard Oil Company, employing the law of competition as its most fearful weapon, has created a monopoly as complete as any ever granted by an absolute monarch. If we lived under a barter economy, we should work out its laws. ”

“ As a maxim for guidance in public affairs, laisser faire was genuinely relevant at the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th century, when the Statute Book was cumbered with vexatious and obsolete laws. As an explanation of what has taken place in later years, or of the actual economic life of the present day, it is ludicrously inadequate. Competition, in the sense in which the word is still used in many economic works, is merely a special case of the struggle for survival, and, from its limitation, does not go far towards explaining the actual working of modern institutions. ”

“ We will promote fair competition, break regional blockades and industry monopolies, and organize and mobilize all social resources to promote economic growth. By ensuring that all government departments fully and properly execute their functions, we will create a favorable environment for development, and increase enterprises' confidence in investment, individuals' confidence in consumption and people's confidence in the development of the country. ”

“ In either case competition actual or potential is the fundamental principle by which prices have to be regulated. Where competition is enforced it is by applying some general rules that create a general market price instead of discriminatory prices, but the fixing of the price is left to the competitors. Where monopoly is accepted prices must be fixed with reference to an estimated competitive standard, that which under hypothetically free conditions would just suffice to attract and retain private enterprise and capital. ”

“ Article 123 shall be replaced by the following: "ARTICLE 123 In order to improve employment opportunities for workers in the internal market and to contribute thereby to raising the standard of living, a European Social Fund is hereby established in accordance with the provisions set out below; it shall aim to render the employment of workers easier and to increase their geographical and occupational mobility within the Community, and to facilitate their adaptation to industrial changes and to changes in production systems, in particular through vocational training and retraining". ”

“ ARTICLE 199 All items of revenue and expenditure of the Community, including those relating to the European Social Fund, shall be included in estimates to be drawn up for each financial year and shall be shown in the budget. Administrative expenditure occasioned for the institutions by the provisions of the Treaty on European Union relating to common foreign and security policy and to co-operation in the fields of justice and home affairs shall be charged to the budget. ”

“ Article 26 Integration of persons with disabilities The Union recognises and respects the right of persons with disabilities to benefit from measures designed to ensure their independence, social and occupational integration and participation in the life of the community. ”

“ This Article shall not prevent any Member State from maintaining or adopting measures providing for specific advantages in order to make it easier for women to pursue a vocational activity or to prevent or compensate for disadvantages in their professional careers. ARTICLE 7 The Commission shall draw up a report each year on progress in achieving the objective of Article 1, including the demographic situation in the Community. It shall forward the report to the European Parliament, the Council and the Economic and Social Committee. ”

“ The Community and the Member States shall foster co-operation with third countries and the competent international organizations in the field of education, in particular the Council of Europe 4. In order to contribute to the achievement of the objectives referred to in this Article, the Council: - acting in accordance with the procedure referred to in Article 189b, after consulting the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions, shall adopt incentive measures, excluding any harmonization of the laws and regulations of the Member States ”

“ In the present social organism,—as developed in the course of mankind’s historic evolution up till now,—economic life occupies an unduly large place, and sets the peculiar stamp that it has acquired from the machine-age and modern capitalism upon the whole social movement. It has come to include more than it should include in any healthy society. In the present day, trafficking to and fro within the economic circuit, [69] where only commodities should traffic, we find human labour-power, and human rights besides. ”

“ And in the capitalistic processes of the modern age something has been turned into a commodity, which the worker feels must not and cannot be a commodity.
If it were only recognised what a fundamental force this is in the social movement amongst the modern workers: this loathing that the modern worker feels at being forced to barter his labour-power to the employer, as goods are bartered in the market,—loathing at seeing his personal labour-power play part as a factor in the supply and demand of the labour-market, just as the goods in the market are subject to supply and demand. ”

“ The point is, that through this interchange of rights and commodities, “right” itself is turned into a commodity, when the source of “right” lies within the economic life. The only way of preventing this, is by having two sets of institutions in the body social,—one, whose sole and only object it is to conduct commodities in the most expedient manner along its circuit, the other regulating those human rights involved in commodity-exchange which arise between the individuals engaged in producing, trading and consuming. ”

“ So far as socialism involves a similar theory, the same objections may be urged against it, but this word is generally used to cover the proposition of substituting the governmental for private and competitive management. Now, it is the testimony of nearly every competent observer that governmental management is less economical, less energetic, and less plastic than private management. ”

“ The intolerable bureaucracy of collectivism is wholly an imaginary evil. There is nothing in the nature of Socialism as it is understood to-day by its adherents which would prevent a wide extension of personal liberties in the social régime.
In the same general manner, we may summarize the principal functions of the state [187] as follows: the state has the right and power to organize and control the economic system, comprehending in that term the production and distribution of all social wealth, wherever private enterprise is dangerous to the social [Pg 295] well-being, or is inefficient ”

“ And I find it hard to see how we can reconcile the intermittency of competitive employment with the unremitting demands of a civilised life except by the intervention of the State or of some public organisation capable of taking very wide views between the business organiser on the one hand and the subordinate worker on the other. On the one hand we need some broader handling of business than is possible in the private adventure of the solitary proprietor or the single company, and on the other some more completely organised development of the collective bargain. ”

“ Society as a whole has an interest in the outcome of the individual's economic struggle. It cannot see men starving or driven into crime. Moreover, when competition is the rule of valuation, it, like all valuations, partakes of the quality of those choosing—wise or foolish, good or evil. [13] And tho competition is the rule of democracy in economics, yet democracy cannot permit the economic vote of a vicious or of a foolish group to stand, where the goods, services, and prices resulting offend the prevailing public judgment and social conscience. ”

“ In particular the lack of industrial training in our public schools is a prolific cause of dependence in our complex industrial civilization.
(4) Defects in government, permitting corruption on the one hand, or failing to check economic or sanitary evils on the other hand, are manifest causes of poverty. Indeed, inasmuch as government exists to regulate the whole social order, wherever it fails to perform this work properly some economic distress must ensue. ”

“ Strict observance of the European Union framework, the integrated macro-economic surveillance, in particular the Stability and Growth Pact, the macroeconomic imbalances framework and the economic governance rules of the European Union, should remain the first line of defence against confidence crises affecting the stability of the euro area as a whole. ”

“ Society is impregnated with the idea that competition is no longer efficient and sufficient as a guide. From all sections of the country come reports of rate commissions, boards of arbitration, gentlemen's agreements, combinations and legal actions against restraint of trade.
With the narrowing of the competitive sphere the question as to what is a just, accurate and scientific standard of measurement for wages, prices and rates becomes increasingly important ”

“ Hence, our test of ethical economics is social well-being. Let us subject the working of the strongest economic force to this test.
Industrial competition does not engender a struggle for existence, but rather a struggle for subsistence, and generally a struggle for a subsistence of a particular kind. Where the standard of living is high and the wages of the workingmen correspond to it, it is obvious that, other things being equal, the laborer who is well fed and well clothed will produce more than if under-fed and scantily clothed. ”

“ It can not be too often repeated that political and social freedom are unattainable unless and until economic freedom has been attained—but this is not a concern of either sex or class. In order to live, women, like men, must eat; to eat, they, like men, must labour; to labour, they, like men, must have opportunity. Control of men’s and women’s economic opportunity, therefore, means control of their livelihood, and control of men’s and women’s livelihood means control of men and women. Real freedom, therefore, does not come in sight of either men or women until this control is abated ”