Syriza
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The interesting question is whether they'll be able to drive forward with free electricity, healthcare, susbidised food and an end to evictions. These are 'cheap' measures, tha leave the basic system intact, but do seem to rely on non-commodity relations.
I'm sure folk here know anyway, but Paul Mason is a good source for following this developing and fascinating story. You can see his blog and his Twiiter feed here:http://blogs.channel4.com/paul-mason-blog/As for Alan's suggestion that "no money" is the solution, I think that's precisely what the EU was threatening Greece with – it seemed no solution to them!
Perhaps, Stuart, when pressed by factors outside their control as events indicate might happen…like the Russian Revolution situation – a system of "war communism" might be an option and lets not forget that even in developed nations when capitalism is at war it suspends some of its its operating laws, and this will be forced upon the Greeks and the position of rationing will be raised…to each according to needs, the young, the old, the sick, the vulnerable…will be discussed…and then a solution on how to provide this is offered….from each according to ability…But then those authoritarians of autarky such as some sort of Nazism or North Koreanism will step in so ideology and battle of ideas will always be important …If you haven't read it, i recommend Pieter Lawrence's Final Conflict as an example where socialilism is established less by politics and more by necessity being the mother of invention….But who knows for sure how it will pan out ..We can speculate that the most probably scenario is that Syriza will fall in line and impose austerity …as i think it was you who said it on another thread and another context …make them eat shit BUT with some sugar on it to make it a bit more palatable…I don't think we should be recommending to the Greeks just how much sugar should be added to the shit.
You folks should love this. The FT's reply to Paul Mason and Varoufakis, on "funny money":http://ftalphaville.ft.com/2015/02/23/2119868/greek-funny-money-no-thanks/
I thiught i got the title wrong…Last not Finalhttp://www.amazon.com/The-Last-Conflict-Pieter-Lawrence/dp/1419647970I know you got a heavy reading list…but some light reading for the holidays….perhaps you yourself might consider writing your own novel some day…or begin with a few short stories such as Richard Montague did with his General Immunity Serum in Within The Systemhttp://bookstore.trafford.com/Products/SKU-000154540/Within-the-System.aspxGIS taster at http://brandulph.net/gis_1.html
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/02/26/the-death-of-social-democracy/By an American Green Party member buti thought it offered a few insights…something he should apply to his own politics.
Quote:Returning to Marx, if constructing for the future and settling everything for all times is not Syriza’s (or Podemos, etc.) task, then what is to be done? A party like Syriza – supposedly a “Coalition of the Radical Left” – that wishes to develop radical, even revolutionary class consciousness must be honest with its membership and voters. To explain the reforms are difficult, if not impossible in the current circumstances, that they would fight for them anyway…To turn a phrase: there is, however, no alternative. Greece is presented with the challenge, and the possibility, of being at the forefront of the new class struggle, which will require abandoning the illusions that reformism has a chance of success and stability in this era, and building the radical alternative. Otherwise Syriza will be turned into just another dead social-democratic party, enforcing the structural demands of capitalism while claiming to want the opposite.I don't think Syriza can be fairly accused of "betrayal". They sought election on an anti-austerity programme and got a mandate from the electorate to try to negotiate less onerous terms from the EU. Most of those who voted for them will have done so to strengthen their negotiating hand in this (much as trade unionists vote for strike action in the government-imposed strike ballots here). They won't have been expecting Syriza to bring about revolutionary or even radical change in Greece just some mitigation of austerity. It's the leftists, inside and outside Greece, who have illusions on this score and are accusing Syriza of betrayal but of what they, not the Greek electorate, expected of them. Of course the Syriza government can't end austerity. Withdrawing from the EU and setting up a state-capitalist siege economy (which most of the leftists want in effect) wouldn't end austerity either. In fact, it would probably make it worse.
Here is confirmation that the Trotskyists alternative to the current austerity in Greece is a state capitalist siege econmony:
Quote:So what should Syriza do if the Troika puts a knife at the throat of the new government and demand 'submission or Grexit'? Syriza should without any hesitation appeal to the 'popular verdict'. Either by means of a referendum or with new elections (if a political crisis results) in which Syriza should put the question squarely in front of the Greek working people: Keep the euro and the memoranda or go for a national currency and pro-workers' policies.If Syriza goes ahead with such a bold counter offensive then the Troikians, inside and outside Greece, will suffer a crushing defeat!Exiting the euro on its own will not solve the crisis of Greek capitalism. The re-introduction of a national currency must by necessity be combined with bold socialist policies: like capital controls, state monopoly of foreign trade and democratic public ownership of the big corporations and banks – and a class internationalist appeal to the workers of the rest of Europe.As if leaving the EU, re-introducing a national currency, capital controls and a state monopoly of foreign trade would end austerity. It's more likely to make it worse.Presumably this is what they are advocating for Britain too, though I've not seen it spelt out so explicitly.
Pablo Iglesias the secretary of "Podemos" is already flirting with the US government. http://www.eldiariointernacional.com/spip.php?article4023
I found this article started of well, placing the Greek Syriza in the context of austerity economicshttp://dissidentvoice.org/2015/06/the-class-logic-behind-austerity-policies-in-the-euro-area/#more-58665It emphasises the importance of class in the economic crisis of Greece but sadly the solution is going to be a siege economy for Greece and we all know who the winners will be.We are perhaps witnessing the beginning with the very recent refusal to fulfil debt repayment scedules and the propaganda appeal to be treated with dignity.
Interesting and revealing article by John Milios who has been mentioned before on this thread. He has studied Marx's theories of crises and rejects underconsumptionism (that crises are caused by workers not having enoughor coming to have less purchasing power) and says so in the opening paragraphs and in footnote 2. But then he says something odd:
Quote:Austerity does lead, of course, to recession.Logically, in view of what he writes immediately before and after (about recession conditions eventually restoring profitability), he ought to have said the opposite and which is in fact the case : that a recession leads to austerity. I imagine that he puts it the other way round in order to be able to argue (along with the underconsumptionists!) that ending austerity is a way of ending the recession.Later on he criticises Yanis Varoufakis, the Greek Finance Minister (and someone else who has studied Marx but not so deeply), for accepting 70% of austerity and for telling a meeting on Greek bankers on 22 April:
Quote:The era in which a government of the Left was by definition contrary to the milieu of entrepreneurship has passed. if we get to a point when there is growth, we can start talking again about conflicting labour and capital interests. Today we are together.So, while Milios advocates clobbering the capitalist class, Yaroufakis is in effect saying that the way out of the recession is through capitalists investing for profit and if the price of getting them to do this is a reduction in working class living standards through 70% austerity, then so be it (and anyway they've got us over a barrel).Actually, given capitalism, Yaroufakis's policy is the more realistic. Milios's would just provoke an even bigger recession. What a cruel dilemma for the Syriza government: either cave in by accepting at least 70% austerity or go down fighting and make things worse for the working class that way instead. A dilemma that reinforces our view that socialism is literally the only way out that won't involve the working class suffering.
The posts seem to talk of the technical and political merits of Syriza in their relation to the -World Bank-IMF etc but dont take in the bigger World picture of the implications in relation to the World Take-over by far-right capitalism with only Putin standing in their way . Several years ago some neo-cons in the US said they were going to bring down the EU by attacking Greece financially by calling in their loans as they went on to do as they said the EU was competition to the US . They have acheived it also in another way by this new ""trade Treaty " which is the biggest con on the working class imaginable . Big business making profit that the 99 % of the public cant change by asking their politicians to do something about as profit comes before government legislation. IE=the NHS making a profit that goes to big business . With Putin out-thinking the US by stopping South Stream and building Turkish Stream this again upset the US (the EU doesnt matter as it obeys the US) Putin wants to build a pipeline to the Greek border and with Greece,s approval build a pipeline through Greece from which Greece will get a handsome rental of a billion or so and then onward to Macedonia which the US has started to cause unrest because it doesnt like Putin,s move to reach Serbia and beyond . Their own (EU plans are still "pie in the sky " ) So the US will put pressure on the EU to come to some agreement with Greece even though they dont like it . But as of now the Greek Government has knocked back agreeing to the latest offer as it wil reduce pensions for the poor etc. So we have Putin making an offer of Billions to Greece as well as getting it into the Russian led financial help organisation to help it through this period of depression as to me Austerity is a fine word for Depression . Who will win ? the East or West ? time will tell.
I'm faintly bewildered that there isn't even the beginnings of a solidarity mvoement with Greece, surely the left, if it were any force at all to put its money where its mouth is, should be organising across Europe in the defence of Greece in the light of the likely effects of default.Varoufakis remains a confident communicator, this peice:http://yanisvaroufakis.eu/2015/06/18/greeces-proposals-to-end-the-crisis-my-intervention-at-todays-eurogroup/Is a stark reminder of what the 'small numbers' being discussed by commentators here mean in practice:
Quote:Our alleged backtracking on ‘pension reforms’ is that we have suspended the further reduction in pensions that have already lost 40% of their value when the prices of the goods and services that pensioners need, e.g. pharmaceuticals, have hardly moved. Consider this relatively unknown fact: Around 1 million families survive today on the meagre pension of a grandfather or a grandmother as the rest of the family members are unemployed in a country where only 9% of the unemployed receive any unemployment benefit. Cutting that one, solitary pension is tantamount to turning a family into the streets.
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