Cesaratto on 'Monetary Mercantilism'

Sergio Cesaratto on what one might term national views on the European crisis, in particular on orthodox German views. Very instructive. He says:

It obviously makes little sense to blame Germany or any other country for the European crisis. Each dominant class joined the European Monetary Union (EMU) in its own interest or pretending to do so for its respective country. If the collective design of the EMU has failed, the responsibility is not of one single country: each national elite has made its own calculations and they should all have known that Europe was not an optimal currency area. We cannot know, of course, what would have happened to Europe or to single members of the Eurozone (EZ) without the EMU. Less excusable is, especially for major countries, not to appreciate and change national policies that are particularly inconsistent with the EMU. Unfortunately this is far from happening.

Read the rest here.