Syriza
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Hello from Greece and sorry for my Enflish.Α few things about syriza.-This party is constituted by various groups.Leftist groups trotskyist.maoist ,splits for the so called socialist party that ruled Greece(more neoliberal tha the labour party in England),ecologists ,ex members of the communist party etc.The cruicial role inside the party belongs to the eurocommunists that imposed to the others the ideological guideline.The theory of nikos Poulantzas the greek eurocommunist is essential for someone to understand for what syriza stands for.-Leftist in Greece didnt vote for syriza.If you see election results all other left and leftist parties gained votes! People that voted for syriza dont expect left reformism ,they are just angry and want a party to deal with the humanitarian crisis.Some figurew are characteristic .300.000 people are living without electricity! 250000 left the country in last for yers in order to survive.Some kids faint in the school because of hunger.Syriza promised to deal with that problems and to stop privitisation programmes(water.electricity etc).Moreover to raise the lowest wage from 560 that is today to 751 euros like it was in 2009.Syriza while in opposition dealt succesfully with such problems creatin the programme ''solidarity for al '' .In few words in every city of greece and neighbourhoods of big cities people of syriza(along with others) provided food ,clothes ,but also free lessons,theatre plays etc.Again sorry for my English Varoufakis is better….
Hi Theodesp,It's nice to hear from someone in Greece. I'm looking on from Japan, so am not very familiar at all with the political composition of Syriza or its ideology (nor have I read Poulantzas, unfortunately). It was clear from listening to Varoufakis that he sincerely wants to alleviate the devestating social crisis in Greece. What I objected to was the idea that this can only be done by setting aside anti-capitalism for the moment and actually attempting to rescue the bourgeoisie from its own incompetence; or what he perceives to be its incompetance, because now that he is part of the "ruling" party, he may soon find out how impervious capitalism is to rational thought. This logic of "first let's deal with these practical problems, and we can oppose capitalism later" has had devestating consequences over the past century. Whether dealing with a crisis or opposing a particular war, the activists who throw all their energy into this supposedly practical approach, leave in place the system that spawns crisis and war. And so even after the Vietnam War is brought to an end (and activists congratulate themselves on helping to end it), the next generation as the Gulf War, the Iraq War, the Afghan war (etc. etc!!). The Great Depression is later followed by our latest crisis. When are we ever going to get around to getting to the root of the problem. Must we always put it off in favor of "solving" other problems?But having said that, I fully understand the urge to "do something" in Greece and in other countries now.Mike
markusuboy wrote:The video is particularly interesting because right at the beginning he addresses the question of why he thinks it is worth rescuing capitalism from its crisis rather than welcoming its collapse (which he seems to assume is a possibility).Gives me a new tweet " #Syriza; a desperate attempt to save #capitalism in #Greece"
markusuboy wrote:The video is particularly interesting because right at the beginning he addresses the question of why he thinks it is worth rescuing capitalism from its crisis rather than welcoming its collapse (which he seems to assume is a possibility). His answer simply comes down to the idea that "the Left isn't ready for power" and that if the crisis is not remedied Europe is headed for something much worse (=fascism). So, behind all of his undeniable eloquence and erudition (and knowledge of capitalism), is a very tired reformist logic.This is the same argument Yanis Varoufakis, the new Greek Finance Minister, employed in the 2012 article from which the killer quote about what Marx didn't expect came from:http://yanisvaroufakis.eu/2012/04/04/on-keynes-marx-and-the-value-of-models-at-a-time-of-crisis-a-reply-to-david-laibman/
Quote:Why did Marx not consider the possibility that a recession, a crisis, can lead to a depression, a capital ‘c’ Crisis? Because, the answer is, he was in the business of, what David and I refer to, immanent criticism (see below for more). And what is immanent criticism? In brief, it is the following: You take the establishment theory, the dominant paradigm, and you refrain from criticising its basic presumptions. What you do is to show that, by its own criteria, on the basis of its own assumptions, the model (or theory) which the Establishment accepts as valid, produces ‘subversive’ results. Nothing upsets the Establishment more than to have something like this demonstrated; that its ‘favourite’ theory recommends views and policies which are detrimental to the Establishment’s own ideology.In practical terms, what Marx did was to take the model of capitalism that had the most kudos in his time (i.e. the theories of Adam Smith ad David Ricardo) and show that, by their own criteria, and under the force of their own assumptions, even the most efficient, most competitive, corruption-free capitalism would, unavoidably generate crises. To show this, Marx strove to demonstrate that, even if all profits were automatically saved, capitalism would periodically fall in deep holes of its own making. This was quite an achievement; one with lasting value. For it alerts us to reasons why crises occur in capitalism; reasons that go well beyond the creation of (Austrian, Hayek-like) bubbles, of a depletion in optimism (negative animal spirits, as Keynesians might have called it), of over-indebtedness by governments, corporations etc. And Keynes? Without ever having acknowledged Marx’s contribution, he instinctively understood something important about capitalism that Marx did not allow himself to dwell upon: that when capitalism digs a hole and then falls into it, it is perfectly capable of failing to climb out again. You see, the difference between Keynes and Marx was that Keynes believed in capitalism; he thought of it a little like Churchill thought of democracy (a terrible form of government but the best of all available alternatives). In fact, Keynes was eager to save capitalism from itself; to identify faults in its functioning and fix them so as to prevent crises from turning into implosions with the capacity to undermine its long term future.Marx, on the other hand, had an agenda for transcending capitalism (socialism, he called the ‘next’, more developed, phase). For this reason, his analytical endeavours were all about concentrating on a utopian capitalism (one in which, for example, all profits are automatically invested) in order to show that, even in its utopian guise, capitalism is irrational, inefficient, unnatural, wasteful.Actually, I think that Marx (and us) do do what he says. But that doesn't mean that Keynes had discovered a formula for saving capitalism from permanent depression, if only because capitalism has no such tendency.Here's the killer quote again:
Quote:Marx was right: capitalism cannot be civilised by means of some benevolent government that applies the right dosage of fiscal and monetary policy at the right time.The appendix at the end of this long, essentially factual article on Syriza from an ultraleft group has another killer quote from one of Syriza's leading economic advisers, the John Milios mentioned earlier in this thread:http://internationalist-perspective.org/IP/ip-texts/text_on_syriza.pdf
Quote:The transition from capitalism to communism is necessarily related to the abolition of value form, i.e. money and commodity, and the form of enterprise. (John Milios, The critique of political economy as a critique of the Left, Thesseis #101, 2007)markusuboy wrote:And there is also a video worth watching titled "Confessions of an Erratic Marxist." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3uNIgDmqwIWatched some of it. The man is either a complete idiot or a typical lying politician."We must rescue capitalism" says the 'Marxist' Greek finance minister. Capitalism is the cancer so we need to rescue it. Doh!! lol
Just realised that 13 years ago we gave a relatively favourable review of a book of which John Milios was one of the authors:http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/2000s/2002/no-1174-june-2002/book-reviewsNow he's taken on the job of advising a government how best to run capitalism when, from his study of Marx, he must know it can't be run to benefit wage and salary workers.
According to an article on Syriza I read in French, the Financial Times described Syriza's election victory as a "vote insurrectionnel", an "insurrectionary vote". On the surface this sounds like an oxymoron but, if you think about it, it's what the socialist election victory could be described as (and more correctly than Syriza's). I wonder whether we shouldn't start using the term. But I've not been able to find the actual reference in the Financial Times.Maybe this should have been posted on the thread about "Is This How Capitalist Rule Will End?"
They only have a few days that they won the election, and they are already compromising and bending over to the capitalists of the European Union.Just give them a few months and they will be completely sodomized by the capitalist class, and soon you will see the workers going to the streets to protest against them.Right or left are two wings of the same bird known as capitalism
And the fact that Nigel Farage supports them speaks volumes.
That's probably because UKIP's equivalent in Greece, the "Independent Greeks", are in a coalition government with Syriza. It's not so hard to imagine leftwing anti-EU people going into coalition with UKIP to form a government to negotiate the UK's withdrawal from the EU. The late unlamented No2EU used to use the same sort of anti-EU arguments as UKIP. The Scargill Labour Party still does.
Oh, i know some have been waiting for Chomsky's pronouncement upon Syriza and Podemos and his view is likely to irritate some here.
Quote:Syriza is by today’s standards a left party, but not particularly because of its programs. It’s an anti-neoliberal party. They are not calling for workers’ control of industry…They are not even traditional socialists. That’s not a criticism; I think it is a good thing, and the same with Podemos, which basically is a party that’s rising up against the neoliberal assault, which is strangling and destroying the peripheral countries.I don't understand why you say Chomsky's view will irritate some here. It seems a reasonable description of what the Syriza election victory represents, i.e. a vote against austerity, but not for socialism or against capitalism. I suppose we could argue as to whether or not this is a "good thing". Maybe not, but it would have been a worse thing if they voted again for those who had been administering austerity to them.Chomsky's view is more or less the same as that of a Greek group whose article was published on the Marxist-Humanist website
Quote:The working class and the petty bourgeoisie vote for SYRIZA was a revenge vote against a right-wing government whose harsh austerity programs had disastrous effects on their lives and had pushed them to depression and suicidal tendencies. It was a vote against the politics of fear that had promoted not only the police repression of struggles but also numerous daily, small and depressing “civil wars” among the workers. It was a vote against the constant and monotonous propaganda of “there-is-no-alternative” dogmas.The vote is one thing. What the Syriza government will be able to do is another thing. After all there-is-no-alternative-under-capitalism. The Greek group are not very optimistic either:
Quote:The gradual adjustment of SYRIZA to realpolitik shows that, after pruning out most of its positions which are considered unacceptable from the standpoint of the dominant neoliberal capitalist strategy in the Eurozone, and by keeping and maybe enriching the most harmless ones such as those concerning the so-called social economy, it can transform itself into a “fresh” and rather competent manager of the capitalist state.Competant or not, a manager of the capitalist state is all it will be able to be.
ALB wrote:I don't understand why you say Chomsky's view will irritate some here.I suspect for the reason that there are some here who appear to see Chomsky, like Brand, as some kind of inspiration for the socialist movement, and hang on his every word.
I don't waste my time reading or listening to Noam Chomsky. A so called Anarchist who supports state capitalism, he is just another icon of the left wingers
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