Grillo
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It's a bit hard to make out what to think of the Beppé Grillo phenomenon in Italy.
On the one hand, it's heartening to see that a radical, outsider movement can spring up (especially in conditions of media dominance). It was fun to hear a radio 5 presenter getting on his high horse the otehr day, because Grillo wopn't deal with the media he asked his reporter "So, no-one gets to put the difficult questions to him?" and confessed he found the idea of a politician who wouldn't engage in media framed debate as "frightening".
The AWL seem to analyse him as populist and filling a gap on the right:
http://www.workersliberty.org/story/2013/02/20/italys-new-right
Quote:In the course of the general election campaign, Grillo has expressed the view that there is no need for trade unions, provided workers are represented on company boards.For example. Of course, the right has populist form, and will often portray itself as speaking up for the little guy against the powerful, recuperating discontent.
Also, any inchoate movement can grow by allowing people to join by projecting whatever hobby horse they have onto it. As it stands, by these means, a commedian has seized the balance of power in Italy.
One interesting thing to emerge from the debate last night with Federico Pistono of Zeitgeist was that he was a founder member and is still an activist of Grillo's 5 Star Movement. Which means that perhaps it should be seen as more than just a protest movement, at least as far as its activists if not its voters are concerned.Pistono's reason for supporting the Five Star Movement was that it favours direct electronic democracy, which, apparently, is how its members decide its policy and which they advocate should apply to local and national decisions too. I can't read Italian properly, but from his blog and this interview it appears that he criticises Grillo for being a leader (saying that the movement doesn't need one) and outlining a detailed scheme for electronic democracy. Perhaps someone who can read Italian can confirm this.http://it.federicopistono.org/http://www.publicpolicy.it/m5s-lattivista-federico-pistono-grillo-risponde-solo-a-chi-lo-insulta-4114.htmlThe other interesting thing, but which has more to do with Zeitgeist than Grillo, is that Pistono's position here contradicted his main criticism of us, expressed earlier in the debate, because we advocated political action to get to a moneyless world of abundance (whereas he advocated lifestyle changes and decentralised self-sufficient communities as concrete examples for people to follow and as transitional to this) as it meant that he, too, is for political action. Reformist political action, but still political action. The reforms he expects the Five Star Movement to extract (they hold the balance of power) being promotion of open source (free sharing of technological information) and direct democracy. The fact that he favours a "participatory democracy" also differentiates him (favourably) from Peter Joseph's more technocratic approach.Maybe the 5 Star Movement has more in common with the Indignados in Spain than with "rightwing" know-nothing protests we've been assuming.
That is interesting, though I've seen a lot of commentary that they've been picking up rightward/populist votes.I've also heard comparisons with the Pirate Party in Germany & Sweden, but they've been foundering, partly over the question of leadership overturning the 'Liquid democracy' votes (also issues of instability of policy because of the immediate direct democracy).See here: (link)(A reminder of our recent problem, perhaps, and the need to make sure that liquid democracy is properly structured)
What particularly troubles me is Federico Pistono's (of TZM) obvious affection for Beppe Grillo’s 5 Star Movement in Italy, which he referred to a number of times last night during the debate at Head Office, "Will there be an economic collapse?"Having conducted just a little research into this movement which recently secured almost 26% of the popular vote in the Italian general election it appears that many on the 'left', including those associated with TZM, chose to vote for the 5SM, or even become 5SM activists. What we didn't hear from Pistono are the more 'right-wing' aspects of the movement, and had I realised then what I've since discovered I would have felt compelled to ask: "You’re doing political work side by side with fascists?" "A movement that wants to abolish trade unions?" "You voted for a guy who praises Ron Paul and US-style ‘libertarianism'?" — "What is wrong with you?"
There was a discussion of the Grillo phenomenon on the Week in Westminster on Saturday morning on BBC Radio 4 between a well-known Professor of Political Communication and Douglas Carswell of the Tea Party wing of the Tory party. It starts 14 minutes in here::http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01r4xw7I think we discussed the decline of political parties here once before and whether this was a good or bad thing for us.
Interesting, and much as I'd hope we'd behave: going to parliament as rebels and not reformers (although I'd hope we'd refuse to wear the ties). Of course, that doesn't mean that their politics are laudible, but it still remains an interesting phenomena, and one worth watching. Admittedly, it will lead to further elections, so will their 'revolt' keep going?…
Here is an analysis of the Five Star Movement (M5S) by a comrade from Italy (part of a longer article for the Socialist Standard):M5S complains that the State is disjointed from the citizens, that the Constitution (which represents the bourgeois law) is not applied, and that the State’s cost is far too high and does not match with its efficiently. Here the middle-class in crying out for legality through the M5S. Of course this message is also appealing to workers, who have experienced years of abuse from the political class. M5S also proposes that the salary of the members of parliaments be in line with the national average salary; this point has been seen as socialist, but in fact is just a sign that when a capitalist economy is in crisis politicians should get the blame too. Nothing socialist there! We think that the capitalist system itself should get the blame and not only their servant politicians.An interesting proposal is to make available to all citizens with an internet access via the live steaming of public meetings. This is not direct democracy, but the principle that workers could participate more closely in political debates is interesting. Following the same line, there is the proposal that new laws should be online three months before they are approved to get citizens’ comments. It is not clear if these comments will be enough to change the proposed laws or even stop them, but again the principle of participation is interesting. M5S asks for referendums without a quorum condition and for the obligation on Parliament to discuss laws proposed by a people’s initiative. All these efforts to make the Parliament more accessible to the workers are welcome, however very limited they are by the fact that economic power will be still in the hands of a few who will be influencing the political world anyhow. A more transparent way of doing politics in Italy is the main reason why the M5S got such a large vote . The middle class and even in some cases the upper class rely on the bourgeois legality of the Constitution and the current political system was not representing them. The M5S political platform includes several points about sustainability. Unfortunately, capitalism is not sustainable so to try to reconcile this with the health of the planet rises contradictions by definition. In terms of economic policy the M5S wants to introduce class actions, abolish the dummy corporation system in stock exchange, and abolish the so-called Biagi’s law which proposes that workers with temporary contacts have no rights for holidays, sick leave or maternity leave, and restrictions on their pension payments. Article 18 of the Workers’ Statue (Statuto dei Lavoratori, 1970) says that an employer ought to have a fair reason to fire an employee. Several governments have wanted to modify it, so allowing the employer to fire their employees quite easily, to create what they call “flexibility”. Grillo in his blog proposed that this article should not be changed but that instead the taxes on enterprises should be lowered. The fact that the M5S is against Biagi’s law and does not want to change Article 18 was a crucial point to gain votes from the working class. In principle not changing this article is good. Unfortunately the real problem is that the worldwide free labour market has considerably reduced the working class’s bargaining power. Instead of hoping that lower taxes on enterprises would solve the problem workers should get involved in international movements to fight against capital. Instead, M5S national reformism seems to be the preferred way. Moreover the M5S tries to contrast the anarchic nature of capitalism by proposing to forbid the closure of food and manufacturing industries which have the internal market as their main market; the banning of cross share-holdings between the bank system and the industrial system; that financial advice institutes should share responsibility for losses; that a limited salary be established for the CEOs of corporations in which the State is the main shareholder; abolition of stock options; abolition of state monopolies such as Telecom Italia, Autostrade, ENI, ENEL, Mediaset, Ferrovie dello Stato. This is the part that seems to interest the Occupy Movement. M5S wants to reduce the public debt so as to reduce the costs of the State. As the Italian State costs a lot, the money will also need to come from somewhere else. Benefits to unemployed people are also mentioned in M5S’s programme.M5S reached political power rather quickly as an anti-establishment movement, this because in Italy politics, corruption and crime are so interconnected, and public opinion, influenced by bourgeois ideology, can no longer stand it. In economical terms, the M5S response is a Keynesian mixed economy, with the old illusion that government intervention will be able to control or even cure the anarchic nature of capitalism. Unfortunately, the mixed economy already proved to be ineffective in taming capitalism. But can the M5S at least get rid of corruption and collusion? We shall see. It may be interesting, form the social science point of view, to notice that reformist movements are becoming more and more hybrid and not linked to the former fashions, such as left and right. The internet has become a powerful media for people organization, but still people need human contact and public speeches to get convinced. For many people representing the old establishment, this has been a real revolution. For the working class this is yet another reformist movement. The Italian bourgeoisie is in such bad shape that this quite moderate movement, which aims at a capitalist system regulated by the government with no obvious links with the organize crime, seems to be asking a lot. The need to apply bourgeois legality is so urgent that voters from all sides were attached by the M5S. Workers voted the M5S with the hope that cuts to cost of the State and the abolition of Biagi’s law could improve their condition. Unfortunately, capitalism does not have a good face or a bad face, it follows profit. And although it is very appealing and needed to kick the old politicians in the ass, the situation for the workers is unlikely to be improved by M5S political reforms.
Grillo likes Farage and UKIP:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/10862817/Nigel-Farage-is-no-racist-says-Italys-Beppe-Grillo-in-defence-of-possible-Ukip-alliance.htmlHow is this possible? Doesn't he realised that they are not much more than breakaway Tories? If he doesn't some of the others in the Five Star Movement seem to.
ALB wrote:Grillo likes Farage and UKIP:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/10862817/Nigel-Farage-is-no-racist-says-Italys-Beppe-Grillo-in-defence-of-possible-Ukip-alliance.htmlHow is this possible? Doesn't he realised that they are not much more than breakaway Tories? If he doesn't some of the others in the Five Star Movement seem to.If one reads some of the stuff that's posted on TZM's facebook page (urm, that's the 'official' one as distinct from an 'unofficial' page which allegedly has been "taken over" by interlopers) a significant number of its 'supporters' not only favour Grillo (following in Pistono's footsteps) but even think that voting for UKIP (amongst other reformist outfits) somehow provides a step towards an RBE. Don''t even think about asking for a rational explanation. However, it simply confirms and underlines just how many confused notions are held by some of those associated with TZM.
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