‘Give me your watch and I will tell you the time’: crisis and austerity in the European Union from a Bourdieusian perspective

ABSTRACT We investigate crisis and austerity in the context of the European Union (EU) by appealing to the work of Pierre Bourdieu. Evidence suggests that after the recent US and Eurozone economic crises, fiscal consolidation intensified the deterioration of socio-economic conditions in Europe. We turn to analyses versed in the Bourdieusian tradition to explain crises and austerity in relation to the domination of the financial field and the ascendancy of neoliberal policies, processes of symbolic violence and misrecognition, and struggles for symbolic power. We then apply this framework to assess the EU economic governance system and the rhetoric imposed on Member States and social partners to justify austerity. Finally, we discuss ways to confront these conditions by presenting Bourdieu’s conception of the ‘collective intellectual’, who collaborates with other social groups in order to uncover the power relations and inequalities generated by neoliberal policies and to promote alternative economic policies for social welfare.


Introduction
After the recent financial and economic crises broke out in the US and the Eurozone, we witnessed a perpetuation of austerity measures, despite the failures of the financial and banking system and the worsening of socio-economic conditions across countries. Rather these costs were 'socialised' in the form of reduced wages and pensions, increased taxation, and restrictions on public expenditure in education and health in order to rescue banks and financial institutions. This led to deeper recession, higher unemployment and poverty, and the rise of extremist groups. 1 Conditions would be particularly harsh for countries like Greece which were tied to the classic 'conditionalities' of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) loans -the triple imperative of market deregulation, privatisation, and reduction of the public sector -in exchange for obtaining the resources they needed to deal with the crisis. Certain studies offer evidence that fiscal consolidation measures after the crisis, combining tax increases and cuts in social benefits and public sector pay, intensified the deterioration of labour market conditions and weakened the stabilisation impact of social transfers in many Member States, especially in those hit most by the recession in Southern Europe, reducing prospects for macroeconomic recovery, social welfare and political stability in Europe (Avram et al., 2013;Bontout & Lokajickova, 2013;Callan et al., 2018).
Yet austerity continues. Why is this so? It seems that the EU's concerns focus on controlling public debt, enforcing flexible labour markets, and maintaining financial stability. According to Post-Keynesian approaches, 2 these policy choices reflect the principles of neoclassical economics, which have exerted considerable influence on Western governments and supranational organisations such as the EU since the late twentieth century. In neoclassical economics, governments are perceived as 'households' that should reduce debt and run balanced budgets or even surpluses, while private debts are seen as pure redistributions with no macroeconomic effects. However, as Post-Keynesian approaches stress, when the government maintains surpluses, the private sector must borrow money in order to finance the government's surplus and, at the same time, enable the economy to expand. In view of the rise in private debt and the prospects of economic crisis, the financial industry works hard to create a variety of financial products to enable working families to consume in ways that sustain the system's growth path, generating employment insecurity, household indebtedness, and inequalities in the economy. In this article, we focus on the work of Pierre Bourdieu (1930Bourdieu ( -2002, one of the most prominent sociologists of our times, who offers an alternative explanation of the crisis and austerity, particularly in the context of the European Union (EU), by introducing the symbolic dimensions of the economy, which legitimise the implementation of neoliberal policies and reproduce the power relations and inequalities generated by these policies.
Bourdieu often criticised the EU's shift toward neoliberal policies, especially in debates regarding the monetary union. According to Bourdieu (1998d), neoliberalism identifies with a utopia grounded on the desocialised and dehistoricised logic of the pure and perfect market, where abstract and narrow conceptions of individual rationality, competition and profit are considered the principal means for achieving growth, stability and welfare. Though the expansion of the market logic is presented as a scientific programme, it essentially constitutes an immense political project, which enforces through state policies the reduction of social protection expenditure, the general privatisation of public services, labour market flexibility, financial deregulation, and capital mobility within and across borders. Ultimately, these conditions converge to create social divisions and weaken the collective structures and solidarities that could challenge the pure market logic. He argues that the dominant classes of financiers with the support of influential groups in the state, media and academia are able to impose neoliberal policies by a power that derives not only from their economic capital, but also from possessing symbolic capital, which gives primacy to financial stability and austerity measures. However, via a process that Bourdieu terms 'symbolic violence' or 'misrecognition', the underlying power relations and social inequalities go unrecognised and unquestioned, and thus reproduce existing social structures. By appealing to infallible market laws and the ineluctability of globalisation forces, the dominant classes make financial profit and fiscal consolidation look natural, sensible, legitimate and inevitable, even to the many who will take on the cost of social adjustment. At the same time, Bourdieu contends that the multiplicity and plurality of worldviews among different groups and classes regarding the role of financial actors and supranational organisations in protecting -or not -social welfare will lead to a struggle for symbolic power, that is, for the power to re-assess and re-make the 'visions and divisions' of the social world.
In Section 2 we begin our analysis by briefly describing Bourdieu's analytical framework summarised by the triptych field-habitus-capital. In Section 3 we engage in an overview of more recent studies versed in the Bourdieusian tradition, which explain crises, austerity and socio-economic conditions in relation to the domination of the financial field, the relative position of major actors and countries in the European and global financial field, the impact of neoliberal policies, the processes of symbolic violence and misrecognition, and the struggles for symbolic power. In Section 4 we apply this framework to assess the EU economic governance system and the rhetoric imposed on Member States and social partners to justify austerity in the midst of recession. Though enhanced coordination and social dialogue are introduced by EU institutions, it seems that essentially Member States and social partners have little influence over policy issues at the national and supranational levels: they are merely invited to comply with the logic of austerity. In the final section we discuss ways to confront crisis and austerity by presenting Bourdieu's conception of the 'collective intellectual', whereby scholars, artists and writers, particularly social scientists, collaborate with other social groups in order to uncover the power relations and inequalities generated by neoliberal policies and to promote alternative economic policies for social welfare.

Bourdieu's relational approach: the triptych field-habitus-capital
Bourdieu adopts a relational approach to uncover the mechanisms that determine the interplay between agency and structure, the reproduction of power relations, and the possibilities for social change. He introduces the novel notions of field and habitus to describe the interaction between objective and subjective social structures, and combines them with a re-conceptualisation of capital to capture different sources of power emanating from diverse capital forms (including economic, social, cultural and symbolic). In this manner, Bourdieu distinctly distances himself from methodological individualism and chooses a holist approach to human action that restores individuals' ability to shape society, while being a product of that society.
In Bourdieu's analysis, the sources of power are manifold and depend on the diverse types of capital to which individuals have access: capital in its financial form is incorporated in the concept of economic capital; social connections and obligations are identified with social capital; educational qualifications are viewed as cultural capital; and a collectively recognised credit which legitimises the ownership and distribution of the other forms of capital is called symbolic capital. It is the distribution of these types of capital, their volume and structure, which determines individuals' economic and social 'conditions and positions' within the various fields, like the field of economic production or cultural production (art, science, crafts). These objective social structures are internalised by individuals through institutions such as the family and the education system, and the intergenerational transmission of capital resources. Thus, they shape the so-called habitus, which consists of a system of durable, but transposable, dispositions which enable individuals to create and apply the interests and strategies that 'maximise' the monetary and symbolic gains from the various economic and non-economic forms of capital they possess (cf. Bourdieu, 1977Bourdieu, , 1984Bourdieu, , 2005. The differential distribution of the diverse forms of capital, in conjunction with the objective and subjective social structures incorporated in the notions of field and habitus, determine relations of distinction and domination among individuals and groups in the social world. Structures of distinction and domination are reproduced via processes of what Bourdieu terms 'symbolic violence' or 'misrecognition', which make underlying power relations, and the social inequalities they foster, go unrecognised and unquestioned, deeming them sensible, reasonable, legitimate, natural, inevitable and universal. This is consistent with Bourdieu's view on the symbolic foundations of economic life. The ways agents behave and the economy works depend on certain definitions of social value, which are imposed by the dominant classes upon the dominated, in both a conscious and an unconscious manner, leading to a kind of mutual complicity between them regarding social structures and dispositions. At the same time, groups and classes are exposed to the multiplicity, indeterminacy and uncertainty of various fields (e.g. economic and cultural fields) and principles of social differentiation (on the basis of culture, ethnicity, religion, gender and nation), which leave room for reflection and change in the habitus and thus in the field that shapes it. In fact, the habitus is not only shaped by the field; it is predisposed to function as a generative principal of meaningful practices and meaning-giving perceptions of the social world. Thus, different groups and classes have different worldviews and they engage in the struggle for 'symbolic power', that is, for the power to re-shape 'the visions and divisions' of the social world, creating impetus for social transformation. The struggles for symbolic power reflect struggles between agents for the power not only to dominate the corresponding field (e.g. the economic field by possessing more economic capital, or the cultural field by possessing more cultural capital), but also to question the relative value or exchange rate between the different forms of capital and to impose the principle of social differentiation in the global social space, or the so-called 'field of power' (Bourdieu, 1985(Bourdieu, , 1987(Bourdieu, , 1989(Bourdieu, , 1998cBurawoy, 2019;Swedberg, 2011).
The concept of symbolic violence is central in Bourdieu's analysis.
Every power to exert symbolic violence, i.e. every power which manages to impose meanings and to impose them as legitimate by concealing the power relations which are the basis of its force, adds its own specifically symbolic force to those power relations. (Bourdieu & Passeron, 1977, p. 4) Bourdieu focused on the symbolic violence exerted by institutions such as the education system, the media and the state (cf. Bourdieu, 1998bBourdieu, , 2014Bourdieu & Passeron, 1977). Acts of symbolic violence reproduce relations of distinction and domination by imposing and inculcating in individuals, in a universal manner, a cultural arbitrary, which cannot be deduced from any universal principle, be it physical, biological or spiritual, but rather expresses an arbitrary power determined by the objective interests (material and symbolic) of the dominant groups or classes (Bourdieu & Passeron, 1977). These perceptions of symbolic power are reminiscent of Foucault's concept of power-knowledge, whereby knowledge is not dispassionate, but rather an integral part of struggles over power, working in the interests of particular groups (Foucault, 1995;Mills, 2003). There are also parallels with Gramsci's notion of hegemony, which is defined as a form of domination where force appears to be based on majority consent and thus social order is maintained through cultural domination (Burawoy, 2019;Gramsci, 1971). 3 For Bourdieu the state plays a decisive role in the production and reproduction of social reality, because it claims the monopoly of symbolic violence, that is, the power to officially institute, or 'nominate', the universal, or the general interest, through the word of law, or 'nomos' (Bourdieu, 2014). Briefly, the state forms an integrated social space under a commonly shared national identity by accumulating diverse forms of capital, including capital of physical force, economic capital (through the fiscal system or a common currency), cultural capital (by setting the rules for the dissemination of education and knowledge), and symbolic capital (especially juridical and bureaucratic capital). This process of concentration of capitals generates a kind of meta-capital, which grants the state control over all other types of capitals and thus the power to determine the universal. Notably, concentration, universalisation and integration are accompanied by the dispossession of local and disperse cultures; the monopolisation of state resources by the dominant, especially those representing the state; and the submission of the dominated. Thus, the state has the power to distinguish the legitimate culture, stigmatising all other cultures, while maintaining an image of disinterested loyalty to the public good. The genesis of the state follows the construction of the global social space, or the field of power, where different groups struggle for symbolic power and ultimately for the power over the state, that is, for the monopoly of symbolic violence (Bourdieu, 2014;Bourdieu et al., 1994).
In the 1990s, the establishment of the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU), the European Central Bank (ECB) and the Eurozone was described by most as functional developments in the process of European integration. Bourdieu often castigated the shift in EU policy priorities from a vision of a united Europe that promoted social welfare and cohesion toward one that centred on lasting growth, investor confidence, flexible labour markets, and restraints on public spending. The neoliberal rhetoric was supported by major financial actors and institutions, mainly the German Bundesbank and the US Federal Reserve System (US FED), whose free movement postulates or/and anti-inflationary objectives were reflected in the structure and policy of the EMU. It was also reinforced by policy-makers, politicians, journalists and scholars, who heralded a technocratic orientation to economic policy and integration as one that would apparently absolve agents from resolving debates on normative -social and political -grounds by making way for the objective and indisputable, and thus the efficient and infallible laws of the market. For Bourdieu, the social cost of adjustment to the new competitive realm is transferred to workers, who are called upon to sacrifice now for the benefits of tomorrow in the form of reduced wages and social protection, and increased taxation and debt. He sums up austerity in the phrase: 'Lend me your watch and I'll tell you the time' (Bourdieu, 1998a, p. 48).
Put differently, the neoliberal policies and austerity measures have reconfigured the relative values and the distribution of the diverse forms of capital, and have altered the differential capacity of certain groups to impose their vision of the social world through the fields of cultural production. As we discuss in more detail in the following section, the dominance of the financial field, supported by education, the media and the state, has played a crucial role in these transformations by accumulating diverse forms of capital, both material and symbolic, which enabled it to conceal the inherent flaws of the financial system and to legitimise individual interests for material growth at the expense of social priorities for development and welfare.

The rise of financiers and the fall of the welfare state
In his study of the housing market in France in the 1970s, Bourdieu (2005) describes the role of financiers in the ascendancy of neoliberal policies. There was a shift from public financial assistance in housing to private credit under the pressure of the large construction companies and banks, which had been the main beneficiaries of the new forms of credit. Bourdieu argues that financiers took the lead in this debate due to the development of a rare 'habitus', which manifested in individual traits of ambition, audacity and enthusiasm, and was socially determined by the accumulation of diverse forms of economic, social, cultural and symbolic capital. Briefly, financiers had access to: the high economic and professional status of their families; elite bodies and reform commissions; the top echelons of the state apparatus in key areas such as financial assistance, building standards, property law, and taxation; diverse educational qualifications and training, especially in a kind of technically-based knowledge of rationalised, formalised procedures which seemed objective and innovative compared to the practical knowledge of administrators in the old subsidy regime; and other social agents in cultural production -scholars, researchers and journalists -who promoted economic theories and methods heralding the universal, objective 'natural laws' of the market. Within the new system of needs, which values property and the apparent 'freedom' it brings, households ended up living beyond their means, relying heavily on bank credit and sanctions. This constrained their access to capital resources and their capacity to partake in collective projects of political struggle that would have placed the social order under scrutiny in the public sphere. Boyer (2000Boyer ( , 2014 applies Bourdieu's framework to delineate the conditions under which competition-led growth has been replaced by financial-led considerations during the 1990s. He argues that a major contribution came from academia where mathematical and statistical methods were used to invent models for determining the prices of more modern financial products such as futures options. These new markets promised high risk and easy profit in view of the considerable information asymmetries between quants and buyers. Investment banks, which manage portfolios, were able to capture a growing market share in these new financial sectors and crowd out commercial banks, which specialise in deposits and loans. In light of the absence of a public authority that would regulate these transactions in order to ensure their transparency and monitor the risks they entail for citizens (both buyers and bystanders), Wall Street took the lead as rule-setter and financial lobbies convinced the state that only complete deregulation of these markets will help us reap to their fullest the benefits of these novel financial instruments. At the same time, Boyer adds, accounting methods used by non-financial firms have changed as historical cost principles (evaluation of assets based on past transactions and prices) have been replaced by fair value and mark-to-market techniques whereby the value of assets depends on estimates of their current market prices. This made evaluation susceptible to price fluctuations in the market, but also created opportunities for greater profit that were appropriated by Wall Street. Notably, we could say that changes in the methods used to determine the value of financial products and firms' assets, as elements of cultural capital, affected investors' perceptions not only of how to count, but also of what is worth counting, which legitimises the profit-seeking behaviour of financiers and endows them further with symbolic capital.
In such an environment, Boyer observes that the need to stabilise the return to capital exerted further pressure on the state to promote labour market flexibility and free movement of capital globally, leading to the abrogation of processes of collective bargaining and trade unionism; the establishment of tradable pension funds in place of pay-as-you-go systems; and the reduction of social protection in general, such as minimum wages or unemployment benefits. What is noteworthy is that the new finance-led growth regime, and its subsequent crisis, produced a concentration of capital, and thus of economic and political power, in the hands of the few who profited, while weakening citizens' ability to confront the dominant classes, to voice their needs at the policy-making level, and to reinstate objectives and policies for social welfare. However, it should be clear that, as mentioned above, the dominant classes are able to impose their interests and strategies by a power that derives not only from economic capital, but also from symbolic capital, which makes reliance on credit look natural and inevitable even among the dominated who are bound to suffer the losses. Bourdieu called it the switch from a savings morality to a credit morality (Swedberg, 2011), which is fostered not only by academic practices or market deregulation, but also by the implementation of financial literacy education in public schools (cf. Arthur, 2011). Lebaron (2010) focuses on the critical role of central banks. By using geometric data analysis techniques, a method commonly used in empirical studies versed in the Bourdieusian tradition, he tries to explain and compare the actions, discourses and policy priorities of central banks in relation to the social trajectories of governors and council members of the dominant central banks in the world. He argues that central bankers' behaviour is considerably influenced by the differential distribution of the economic, social, cultural and symbolic capital, which they have accumulated through their life-course from their family, education system and professional environment. The differential distribution of these resources also depends on the social structures of the field, either the field of a specific central bank (characterised by the hierarchies institutionalised within it, as well as the national social and political context within which it operates and has authority), or the global social space of central banks (dominated by the major players worldwide, including, among others, the US FED, the ECB, the Bank of Japan and the People's Bank of China). In his global analysis, Lebaron (2010) discovers a change in the context of policy-making where traditional political and legal considerations -which safeguarded the debate over social priorities and welfare objectives between various interests and groups, values and institutions -are giving way to the financial world, its commitment to the management of scarce resources for the maximisation of monetary profit, and its faith in the sheer calculation of private costs and benefits in determining public policy.
In the context of the EU, Lebaron stresses that the Eurozone is an institutional construct that not only represents the Anglo-Saxon norm of monetary economics shared by the US FED (independence of central banks and their anti-inflationary stance), or the institutional and intellectual aspects of the ECB determined by the Maastricht criteria and the Bundesbank's ordoliberalism. 4 It also reflects the historical struggles between classes and groups within the EU, including Member States and social partners at the national and supranational levels especially with regard to the structure of EU institutions and the process of unification. To deal with this clash of interests between dominant and dominated classes and groups, and to shield the financial credibility of the Eurozone and the EMU, the ECB, and especially the Governing Council as the core of the monetary elite, must demonstrate strong regulatory commitment and restrictive behaviour. To this end, Council members' actions are underscored by academic and political legitimacy. Academic legitimacy enhances Council members' symbolic capital and derives from their strong educational capital (in the world of economics as the scientifically dominant field in the sector), coupled with renowned careers within the central bank. Political legitimacy is offered by the governors of the national central banks, giving further symbolic power to the ECB and its policies, even though they might prove ineffective in stabilising the economy and preserving social welfare within the EU. 5 Therefore, stricter budgetary discipline and austerity measures are bound to persist after the crisis, leading to deeper recession and weaker potential for recovery. Generally, we should note that a currency functions as a powerful symbol for integration into a unified political, economic and social entity. Similarly, the Euro is not a mere technical fix enabling market transactions, but a source of symbolic power for building a kind of European citizenship, which underpins the creation of an integrated, single market and the EMU (Théret, 1999). Grenfell (2014) follows Bourdieu in conducting a field analysis of financial markets after the 2007/2008 crisis. Rather than concentrating on the structural morphology of the field as Lebaron does above, he turns to the capital conversions taking place within it. Firstly, he reminds us that in worlds of early industrialisation, the financial sector of a country traditionally centres on the exchange of stocks and shares, which are used by companies to raise finance and increase production, and whose prices depend on the profitability of the company. Investing in these titles also carries an aspect of honour in terms of both the buyer and the seller as individuals and groups get returns from the dividends issued. Money is the lubrication of the system and there is actual production, production of material goods. However, in the latter decades of the twentieth century, there was a massive growth of financial markets and more and more money was needed to fuel this growth. Till 2008 large amounts of finance -mostly from Asia, the Middle East and transition economies of Eastern Europe -had entered the markets at the City of London, Tokyo and New York, which were the most important financial centres in the world. At the same time, other markets were establishing themselves as their amount of business grew substantially, such as the emerging and promising stock markets of the Asian Tigers.
Neoliberal economics contributed considerably to this growth by supporting the liberalisation of markets. This not only allowed for the global expansion of trade. It also helped to disconnect finance from its traditional links with production, so stocks and bonds became ends in themselves and dominant players in financial markets gained sufficient power and autonomy to become rule-setters. Thus, confidence is all. When confidence is absent -due to bubbles in the financial and housing markets; the circulation of more money above the level of actual production; the lack of controls and safeguards in cases of default; or the structuring of regional and global financial systems such as the EMU on the basis of dominant economic and political interests -then there is need to feign confidence. According to Grenfell, even though financial markets are more virtual than real, their logic of practice is based on a temporary belief in the reality underpinning financial operations. Thus, debt literally gets re-presented as profit (or, we could say, mis-represented as profit); the future collapses to the present; speed gives the impression of a stasis; and heterogeneous products are pooled into the same investment vehicle constituting a single source of debt/profit.
Indicative of this 'misrecognition' are the festive sentiments expressed and shared by statesmen, scholars and journalists worldwide every time Greece received permission to sell bonds in the open market after years of international financial isolation, and the country's government bonds were 'snapped up by investors in sign of confidence' (Wearden & Smith, 2014). But this essentially meant that a highly-indebted country was signing up for more debt! Furthermore, Whalen (2011) illustrates how regulatory actions in the form of so-called 'guidance' were proposed in the US before the 2008 crisis in order to address concerns related to the repercussions of financial innovations, especially in the subprime mortgage sector. The proposed guidance induced financial institutions to underwrite loans and qualify borrowers on the basis of full-debt service payment by verifying their income, assets and employment. However, these interventions encountered considerable resistance by the financial industry, which, adopting a neoliberal rhetoric, claimed that the low default rate on mortgages proved the reliability and the stability of mortgage markets, so such regulations were unnecessary and would only undermine economic growth, the competiveness and flexibility of the US financial system, and consumers' chance to homeownership and a better living. In the end, these assets and other derivatives (such as mortgage-based securities and collateralised debt obligations), far from being sources of innovation, stability and freedom, proved to be 'toxic', affecting economies worldwide and contributing to the Great Recession.
Actually, the fields of cultural production (the kind of knowledge and language they use) and the endless reconversion of economic capital into symbolic capital, can empower the financial field and preserve relations of domination, in spite of the structural weaknesses inherent in the system. On the one hand, symbolic forms of domination tend to wither away as objective mechanisms are constituted within the social space, which produce the disenchanted dispositions needed for their development. On the other hand, the progressive uncovering and neutralisation of the ideological and practical effects of these mechanisms, especially under conditions of crisis and inequality, should determine a return to forms of symbolic violence (Bourdieu, 1977;Swedberg, 2011). In Bourdieusian analysis, the autonomy and dominance of the financial field are a result of a whole labour of 'symbolic inculcation', in which journalists, intellectuals and citizens participate in both conscious and unconscious ways (Bourdieu, 1998a). Scientific journals and public debates present neoliberal policies for market liberalisation and a minimal state as a natural outcome, justified on the grounds of progress, reason and science (economics in this case), making austerity a necessity even if it has solemnly failed to deliver social welfare.
In this context, national authorities become susceptible to the risk of speculative assaults by investors wielding massive funds, especially in the case of left-wing governments, which are expected to support market regulation and public spending (even if they do not in actuality) (Bourdieu, 1998a). Within the state apparatus, financiers or, in Bourdieu's terms, persons with a habitus derived from the financial field, are placed at high-government and ministerial posts (as in the case of Greece after the 2010 crisis) and consecrate neoliberal policies by issuing and underwriting legal statements and formal agreements that confirm their commitment -or word -to the stability of financial markets. This is also true for private corporations that provide credit ratings for countries and potentially fuel speculative assaults against governments, without anyone really questioning who or what gives these institutions their information, credibility and authority. All in all, financial actors are considered as being more effective in managing markets and governments, despite their failures that sunk the entire globe into the worst recession after the 1929 Crash. Apparently, confidence in the virtual must be maintained by all means and at all costs.

Socialising EMU: Member States in dialogue or under surveillance?
In an attempt to 'socialise' the EMU, the EU governance system supports dialogue with social partners in the planning and implementation of economic and social policies at the national and supranational levels. In this section we show that the rhetoric of social dialogue may be concealing pressures for compliance of Member States and social partners with neoliberal policies. We can obtain a view of how social participation is perceived and practiced within the EU economic governance framework by following a Bourdieusian analysis and examining the phrasing -or the wording -of the relevant documentation (e.g. regulations, reports) which foresees the relational structures among participating parties.
The crisis brought to the fore the structural weaknesses of the EMU. The European Commission locates the problem in the insufficient attention policymaking bodies had paid to its unique structure: the EMU combined a single monetary policy with national fiscal policies, alongside mechanisms of soft coordination providing inadequate safeguards against macroeconomic shocks; intergovernmental imbalances; regional divergences in competitiveness and growth; and destabilising spillover effects across Member States (European Commission, 2012). The EU decided that it was necessary to further coordination in the area of economic and social policy in order to ensure growth and stability at the supranational, national and subnational levels. To this end, in 2010 the EU introduced as part of its economic governance system the European Semester, where Member States discuss their budgetary and economic plans with their EU partners throughout the year on the basis of a set of indicators, namely the Macroeconomic Imbalances Procedure Scoreboard (MIP scoreboard). The MIP scoreboard includes a set of external and internal macroeconomic indicators, especially in relation to competitiveness and exports, public and private debt, financial sector liabilities, and housing market bubbles. These indicators are used by the EU institutions to assess Member States' macroeconomic situation and to provide policy guidance for employment, growth and sound public finances. In case of serious imbalances, the EU may require Member States to prepare a complete macroeconomic adjustment programme, which is followed by a period of post-programme surveillance. To illustrate, due to high public debts, Cyprus, Greece, Ireland and Portugal received financial assistance and entered an economic adjustment programme, which included a combination of increases in direct and indirect taxes (taxes on income, property and the VAT rate), as well as reductions in pensions, social benefits, civil servants' wages, and public expenditure in health and education. These requirements were set by the supranational tripartite committee of the European Commission, the ECB and the IMF (European Commission, 2014).
The 2012 Blueprint for a deep and genuine monetary union calls for an integrated framework for the surveillance, regulation and supervision of economic policies consisting of: a systematic ex-ante coordination of major economic reforms; a stronger dialogue with the Member States to enhance national ownership; the introduction of contractual arrangements to be agreed by the Commission and euro-area Member States; and financial support attached to (and conditional upon) the implementation of these contractual arrangements (European Commission, 2012). During the European Semester, the Commission collaborates with Member States to monitor their macroeconomic situation based on the MIP Scoreboard. The Member State subject to economic adjustment due to macroeconomic imbalances must submit budgetary plans, in addition to the so-called Economic Partnership Programme with details regarding its commitment to fiscal-structural reforms aimed at reducing public deficits (European Commission, 2014). The Blueprint states that fiscal-structural reforms require further coordination and surveillance over a broad range of economic and social policies affecting national budgets, so Member States must also promote convergence in areas like employment by increasing flexibility in labour markets (European Commission, 2012). It stresses however the need to revise the Treaties in order to incorporate and legitimise the procedures and obligations emanating from the expanded system of EU economic governance. Notably, in this integrated system, the Blueprint reserves a central role for the IMF, which partakes in surveillance procedures and financial assistance packages for Member States (European Commission, 2012).
Despite pleas for furthering coordination within the EU economic governance system, there are no provisions in the Blueprint for the active participation of social partners and civil society actors in the system of national policy coordination. The European Commission makes an attempt to remedy this in its 2013 Communication on strengthening the social dimension of the EMU (European Commission, 2013). Under the Treaties, as well as the Employment and Social Investment Packages, the EU is obliged to pursue social objectives in the areas of employment, social protection, social inclusion, education and health, especially in light of the socio-economic consequences of the financial crises and fiscal consolidation. To achieve these goals, one of the major requirements for the Commission is strengthening the role of social dialogue in developing supranational and national strategies through the involvement of the social partners. The dimensions of social partnership envisioned by the Commission are presented toward the end of its 2013 Communication. New forms of dialogue are introduced, where EU institutions (the Commission, the ECB, the Parliament and the Council) communicate with social partner representations at the EU level and exchange views on political and technical matters, while EU social partners organise a debate with their national affiliates in order to give their opinion on economic and social policy reforms. Notably, discussions are based on the scoreboard of key employment and social developments, which appeared for the first time in 2014, in order to integrate the social implications of macroeconomic imbalances. Finally, the Commission stresses that the diversity of national practices and the autonomy of social partners must be respected within EMU governance.
Overall, social partners seem to participate in the process by exchanging views, communicating opinions, and debating with EU institutions and other social groups within various official and informal intergovernmental and national forums, making the EU accountable to social priorities and welfare considerations. However, it becomes questionable how far social partners can monitor and influence EU authorities under the existing governance framework. For instance, the Commission's Communication identifies as manifestations of solidarity and responsibility the concerted acts of EU institutions and social partners in the pursuit of two major priorities: (1) 'making social budgets more efficient and effective', or 'increasing the efficiency, effectiveness and adequacy of social protection systems'; and (2) 'improving the resilience of labour markets to enhance employment and competitiveness by increasing flexibility and mobility in factor markets ' (European Commission, 2013, pp. 8-9). These priorities are consistent with the framework set by the MIP economic indicators, the Stability and Growth Pacts, the Treaties, the Blueprint, and the Alert Mechanisms, which recognise only the auxiliary contribution of social indicators, such as employment and poverty, in the reading of the MIP scoreboard and, more importantly, in the dialogue with Member States about macroeconomic imbalances, as well as economic and social policies. Moreover, the EU has apparently forgotten past declarations of 'flexicurity', which combines mobility in the labour markets with security of workers in terms of incomes, insurance and training, by submitting unilaterally to the flexibility element. And, as Tridico (2012) argues, the flexibility agenda of the labour market, fuelled by the finance-led model of growth, has led to poor wages and income inequality, with a direct impact on the recent economic crises and global imbalances. Thus, one begins to wonder how Member States and social partners are expected to actively participate and deliberate with EU institutions in order to promote social objectives in a context where their voice and actions are already constrained. One might even argue that social partners are simply invited to reinforce the legitimacy of policy-makers' neoliberal agenda.
There is further indication that Member States and social partners have limited scope for manoeuvre in applying policies other than those dictated by the existing EU governance system. The discerning reader would have noticed the manipulation of words like surveillance, supervision and regulation, along with words like collective strategy, partnership and dialogue, which are used in the same context, though they can be considered to have opposing meanings. To illustrate, by simply consulting a dictionary, 6 we note that the concept of surveillance, which tends to dominate in EU documentation, implies an asymmetrical or vertical relationship that involves 'the close observation or supervision maintained over a person, group etc., especially one in custody or under suspicion'. On the other hand, the concept of dialogue is associated with a more or less symmetrical or reciprocal relationship that is linked to 'a frank exchange of ideas, spoken or written, for the purpose of meeting in harmony' or 'with a view to reaching an amicable agreement'. It could be argued that for groups to function, rules must be set. However, if rules are unilaterally determined by one entity and imposed upon others, as implicated by the rather passive role reserved for social partners and Member States in the governance system, then they contribute more to an environment of surveillance, where deviators are stigmatised and governance turns into a mechanism of polic-ing rather than policy-ing.
Therefore, Member States with macroeconomic imbalances are subject to control over internal affairs, high interest rates, tough austerity programmes, or even the payment of fines, while social partners resisting fiscal consolidation are quickly categorised as the culprits of labour market rigidities, wasteful public spending, stagnation and instability. As discussed in Section 2, processes of concentration, integration and universalisation by the same central powerhere the EU -become precursors to dispossession, monopolisation and subjugation. The EU is considered a union of sovereign states, which, according to the Treaties, maintain authority in critical areas of governance, including security, the fiscal system and education. However, it enters the struggle to build a meta-capital and gain the monopoly of symbolic violence over Member States and social partners, which may resist the neoliberal ideology supported by powerful groups operating at the supranational and national levels.
These powerful groups may include actors in the supranational bureaucratic, juridical and political fields 7 by setting and monitoring the rules for market mobility and flexibility foreseen in the EU Treaties, regulations, case laws and policy reports (see, for instance, Georgakakis & Rowell, 2013). Other powerful groups have been reinforced within Member States. According to Bourdieu (2014), the state-building process within European countries grants them their own meta-capital by concentrating political capital at the national level and economic capital within cities. However, due to the differential distribution of the diverse forms of capital across Europe, induced by cross-border mobility, the concentration of resources, and the reinforcement of transnational cities and their networks, certain countries may exert more influence compared to others, especially upon the principles and practices of European integration. In Section 3, we discussed in more detail the emergence of powerful financial centres in the European and global space, which are mainly situated in the industrialised world and influence the transnational dissemination not only of financial capital, but also of neoliberal ideologies and policies, even among countries that traditionally adopted models of market regulation for social welfare. Notably, those aligned with neoliberalism see national states as obstacles to the free functioning of the economy, while the supranational state is reduced to a bank, transferring the burden to workers across countries (Bourdieu, 1998a).
To highlight the structuration effects of powerful economic centres, Bourdieu (2014) uses the term 'domination effect' coined by François Perroux (see also Poupeau, 2015). For Perroux (1950Perroux ( , 1971) the economy is characterised not only by a network of exchange, but also by a network of forces at the firm, national and global levels. A domination effect is present when one economic unit (for example, a firm or a nation) exercises an irreversible or partially irreversible influence on another through its relative dimensions in global supply and demand; its bargaining power in fixing the conditions of exchange; and its place in the whole scheme of its operations. The space within which relational structures are formed among economic units is not bound by its spatial-temporal limits, such as a firm's or a nation's territory; rather it is understood as a process of constituting space, or spatialisation. Perroux (1950) argues that economic integration taking place through market exchange and competition of individuals and groups, including nations, may lead to the emergence of dominant economies, which become major centres of economic and political activity and thus condition trade relations and the structure of dominated economies, beyond the rules signed and incorporated in agreements among national or international entities. Furthermore, to explain how these structures of domination within and across nations are reproduced, Bourdieu uses Benedict de Spinoza's concept of 'obsequium', understood as a respect paid not to individuals, but to the social order (Spinoza, 1951cited in Bourdieu, 2014. In fact, he points out that this kind of respect is (unconsciously) shared even by the most critical of us, because by respecting the social order, by submitting to the universal, we ourselves become respectable; if we reject the game of the 'obsequium', we will be expelled from the social world.
Overall, though the creation of the integrated, single market based on principles of market flexibility and free movement is presented as a technical, apolitical feat, which will ultimately deliver stability and growth, it is essentially a symbolic one, constituted and arbitrary at its core. The EU, through the power of official nomination, the 'nomos', is trying to impose a cultural arbitrary and to ensure logical and moral conformism to the principles of the integrated, single market. 8 Apparently, market de-regulation requires extensive regulation to suppress all collective structures which could challenge the neoliberal programme (Bourdieu, 1998d). A genuine social dialogue would have involved all actors, including Member States and social partners, who would share responsibility, instead of pointing fingers at one another, and create a forum, where they could openly and actively question current policies and discuss alternative solutions to crisis and austerity. Alas, European citizens continue to suffer from the cost of social adjustment and are sidelined from public debate and decision-making processes. The decline in people's confidence toward EU governance institutions 9 and the rise of right-wing extremist parties in national parliaments across Europe, are not things to be overlooked and are certainly no less important than growth, competitiveness and debt. Therefore, policy-makers have to re-think what they are doing. Bourdieu offers considerable attention to processes of practical knowledge, reflexivity and dialectical exchange between all interested parties in society, in order to create a truly effective partnership that will confront the crisis and austerity. We discuss these processes in the following section.

In lieu of conclusions: struggles for new policies aiming at social welfare
In this article, we have argued that global developments related to wage restraints, job insecurity, inequalities, poverty, social unrest and the rise of extremists have been associated with the repercussions of the crisis coupled with the implementation of austerity policies. The Bourdieusian analyses outlined above attributed these developments to the dominance and symbolic violence of the financial field, despite its inherent weaknesses to sustain development and welfare.
In this context, as Bourdieu (1998a, p. 40) rightly observes, 'economic policy is not necessarily economical'. Therefore, he invites all critical forces in society, including intellectuals and trade unions, 'to insist on the inclusion of the 8 Interestingly, most EU policies are now promoting an environment-friendly, culture-oriented and knowledge-based economy, which respects diversity, locality and a quality of life. However, it could be argued that this shift in EU policy will continue to reproduce power relations and inequalities, if symbolic goods are seen as a means to serve the market rather than broader social objectives. A stimulating analysis of symbolic goods from the perspective of social and institutional economics can be found in a special issue of the Review of Social Economy (2004, Vol. 62, Issue 3) (see also Dolfsma, 2008). 9 https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/. social costs of economic decisions in economic calculations ' (1998a, p. 39). He argues against a narrow, short-term economics heralding the primacy of financial profitability, and supports an 'économie du bonheur', or an 'economics of happiness ' (1998a, p. 40), which accounts for all kinds of profits and costs, individual and collective, material and symbolic. By setting social participation and welfare as the ultimate standards of economic activity and policy, Bourdieu wishes to overcome the false dichotomy between the economy and society, between economic and social policy.
Of course, he does not disregard dominant classes' ability to safeguard their privileges -and neoliberal policies -by using the various forms of capital they possess in order to seek for theoretical justification of their interests in knowledge and science (Bourdieu, 1998a). However, this is the field where intellectuals are seen to have precedence in uncovering and challenging the neoliberal ideology. According to Bourdieu (1985Bourdieu ( , 1987Bourdieu ( , 1989, professionals in the field of cultural production, such as academics and particularly sociologists and social theorists, provide a theoretical mastery or an objectified representation of the social world. Therefore, they can give power to the truth that resides in the practical knowledge of dominated classes and groups, but has been suppressed by the dominant. This can be achieved if they work toward unravelling the 'symbolic violence' that justifies -or, as Bourdieu would say, 'consecrates' -policies of austerity on the basis of a fallacious perception, whereby governments and social partners are the sole culprits of crises by intervening in the economy and distorting the efficient functioning of markets. Such an interpretation simply diverts our attention away from culprits that lie within markets, where financiers' efforts to make more money out of money spill over into the economy and negatively impact development and welfare.
Generally, the collective intellectual, as the concerted acts of scholars, writers and artists, can produce and diffuse instruments of defence against symbolic domination, which these days tends to arm itself with the authority of science (Bourdieu, 2002cited in Poupeau, 2014. Put simply, a collective intellectual is one who uses her knowledge to fulfil her public role in developing more effective and realistic forms of social mobilisation and emancipation of social classes and groups, instead of leaving them to their own devices or studying them as an intellectual curiosity. In fact, it is these groups of scholars, writers and artists that can build effective political action by appealing to different discourses and alternative ways of thinking. This could then enable them to develop a discourse of freedom that would protect their right to question the existing social order and preserve social welfare. Bourdieu suggests a modest conception of the collective intellectual, which, on the one hand, lays no claims to establishing a political line, because the ambition is to unveil the mechanisms of domination that mire alternative propositions and ways of thinking expressed by existing social relations; on the other hand, it creates the possibility of a convergence between organisations and collectives that already reject forms of expert knowledge which serve powerful political and economic interests in the state, the economy and the media (Poupeau, 2014). For Bourdieu this requires that scholars, writers or artists overcome the false dichotomy between scientific/artistic autonomy (that promotes science for the sake of science, and art for the sake of art) and political engagement (that can compromise intellectuals' freedom to criticise prevailing powers). It also requires that they deal with pressures to accumulate economic and social resources for preserving their personal living standards and professional status: demands to publish in certain journals, to secure research grants and funds, and to participate in conferences and the media operated by dominant interests can threaten free scientific and political expression 10 (Bourdieu, 1996; for an in-depth discussion see Bourdieu, 1973).
In the EU context under study, Bourdieu makes notable suggestions on what intellectuals of different European countries can do to overcome the oppositions that divide them, so they could organise collectively and create a veritable 'internationale of intellectuals'. In his words: 'we only have a chance of achieving real communication when we objectify and master the various kinds of historical unconscious separating us, meaning the specific histories of intellectual universes which have produced our categories of perceptions and thought' (Bourdieu, 1996, p. 344). To demonstrate, he describes that intellectuals must develop the capacity to recognise the effects of external and internal power structures on foreign colleagues' statements and argumentation, e.g. Stalinism, Nazism, the events of 1968, or generally conditions of censorship experienced more or less in politics, economics and academia (Bourdieu, 1996). That is, we should get to know each other's history. For example, in the outbreak of the Eurocrisis, it was nescience that made it easier for statesmen, scholars and journalists to portray Greece as Aesop's lazy and imprudent grasshopper, who is condemned to a morbid fate as a result of his own choices (see Kitromilides, 2013), only to overlook that for many years this region has been replete with civil conflicts, military dictatorships and foreign intervention (taking the form of foreign lending as well), compelling it more than often to a morbid fate and circumventing the people's true needs and concerns. Thus any theory and policy applied to improve economic performance should be read and 10 Notably, digital technology, including social media and the internet, is considerably changing the scene for the field of cultural production. There are a number of recent studies versed in the Bourdieusian tradition that show how these new means may constitute an alternative (virtual) social space of scientific and political action, but also another source of inequality and domination (see, for instance, Tanczer et al., 2020). Though this is an important topic, it is beyond the scope of our present analysis. Here we stress the idea that academics now have a heightened public responsibility due to the expanding use of and reliance upon digital means, not only in research, but also in our daily communication and transactions, particularly if we consider EU policy priorities for 'smart growth' and 'digital networking', or Member States' interventions for social distancing during the coronavirus pandemic.
interpreted against this historical background, in order to overcome oppositions and misconceptions, and to increase people's participation and trust in collective visions and processes of unification. Yet Bourdieu asks: why are intellectuals uncommitted to social struggles? Because, he replies, 'when they revolt, it is still because . . . they think they are not receiving their due in relation to their competence, guaranteed by their qualifications' (Bourdieu, 1998a, p. 43). In other words, even when intellectuals take part in debates in the public sphere, they more than often focus on taking up another high post in the state apparatus or getting greater coverage in the media with interviews and tributes to their work, which enhances their own economic and cultural capital, and thus their professional and social position, and cultivates an image of the 'expert' often condemned by Bourdieu (see Bourdieu, 1998a). If intellectuals do not reject this image and actively participate in debates regarding the principles and practices of European integration and economic governance, then it is unlikely that the underlying rationale and context of austerity policies will ever be discussed and challenged, furthering the deterioration in socio-economic conditions and the loss of citizens' confidence in the EU.
Our challenging times call for intellectuals who will acknowledge their public responsibility in questioning the current state of the economy, unravelling the structures of domination, and proposing ways for social change. We need more active participation by scholars and social groups in the discussions of European Semesters if a true EU-partnership is to be achieved, one that would honour its promise to deliver the human values of peace, solidarity and well-being to populations across the globe. In fact, we can speculate that the current coronavirus pandemic and the ultimate need for social distancing could as well be rooted in a kind of 'social' distancing imposed by neoliberal policies, which separate the 'economic' from the 'social', undermine social participation and welfare, and thus threaten the global population's health and livelihood. As a response to the pandemic, the European Commission seems to be revising 'old ways' and proposes more expansionary policies to strengthen Member States' healthcare systems and national economies by using all available funds from the EU budget, creating new solidarity instruments, and applying the full flexibility of the EU fiscal rules in collaboration with the ECB. 11 It remains to be seen how events will unfold and how the EU will fulfil its commitments at the European and global levels. Evidently, it has now become a matter of life and death that we mobilise all social forces and promote alternative economic policies in anticipation of the imminent crisis which is expected to be worse than the financial crises of the previous decade.