This is in no way to suggest that there is any direct connection between de Man's planism and the current European Community. The crisis of the eurozone, however, appears to have produced a number of the knee-jerk reactions that characterised the political thinkers of the 1930s in face of a similar crisis, to the extent that we are in danger of repeating their mistakes. Prominent among these appear to be a mistrust of democracy, and a trust in the ability of elites, mainly economists and other technocrats, to deal with the situation at a political level. 

The most recent phase of the eurozone crisis has illustrated this in stark terms. Under pressure from the centre, democratically-elected governments have been expelled from office in Greece and in Italy. As Stephen Foley put it in the Independent on November 18, 2011, "by imposing rule by unelected technocrats, Italy has suspended the normal rules of democracy, and maybe democracy itself". Economic "experts" have been parachuted in, over the heads of the elected politicians. Italy's new government of technocrats is headed by Mario Monti, who though Italian is clearly a product of the European machine, and is pleasing to the Community. In Greece, the EU clearly believes that the indigenous politicians are not to be trusted, and it is even being suggested that teams of outside "monitors" should help to direct operations in Greece on a semi-permanent basis. In all this, the people are being ignored, and their sense of frustration is leading to violence and to the possibility of a breakdown of Greece's democracy (which has always been fragile, from the civil war of 1946-49 onwards).

All this is ironic, in view of an answer I received some years ago, in the late 1970s, at a public meeting at the time when Greece was being considered for membership of the EU. I asked, from the floor, why a country that could be of no economic advantage to the Union, and probably a burden to it, should be being considered. Sir Brandon Rhys-Williams, a leading europhile, replied from the platform that the considerations had not been purely economic, and that one of the main reasons for admitting Greece was because this would serve the cause of democracy in that country (the dictatorial regime of the colonels, 1967-74, had only recently ended). Yet now, some 35 years later, democracy appears to be very low down on the EU's list of priorities for that unfortunate country.

It could be argued, in the present situation, that desperate circumstances justify desperate measures; but what has been happening is in fact merely a rather more obvious manifestation of already existing trends within the European Union. It is not as though economists have a good record as far as the reliability of their theories, their forecasts, and their practical solutions to problems are concerned. Yet from de Man's Plan onwards, the elevation of the economic technocrat into a political role for which he or she is unsuited has been a major part of European political thinking. It is high time for the relative roles of politicians and technocrats to be re-evaluated.