Internationalization of Capital, International Division of Labour, and the Role of the European Community/Comments

When the European Economic Community (EEC) enters tariff and trade negotiations, it attempts to bargain as an integrated unit. However, each member of the EEC has individual economic goals and unique divisions of labor that are rooted in the 19th century beginnings of the industrial revolution. This predominance of the national economy is stronger than any unification force at the regional level. Even within the EEC, 2 current trends are undermining that organization's strength: 1. members are reshaping their means of production to become more globally competitive, and 2. international divisions of labor are becoming much more important to nations than are interregional divisions, as in the EEC. Donges agrees that the EEC is suffering a serious malaise, but argues that the role of US pressure is overstated. Rather, much of the problem lies in the EEC's leading institutions, which have lapsed into supranational bureaucracies. Grjebine adds that economic recovery in the EEC will depend on: 1. a reduction in the propensity to import, and 2. circumvention of renewed inflation.