Friday, February 13, 2015

The Importance of Being Grecian Earnest

The challenge to, and the predicament of struggle in Greece is not one of "good" or "bad;" nor of  "electoralism" versus "anti-electoralism;" nor of parliamentary, or ministerial, cretinism vs. anti-parliamentary popular power (in this last case, not yet). 

The challenge is to identify the forces that  are driving the conflict in Greece.

1) Is the situation in Greece, the predicament of capitalism, and impoverishment of the population,  part and parcel of an overall international capitalist predicament-- which is made manifest  by overproduction, impaired accumulation, declining profitability--  that can only be resolved through either a) the abolition of capitalism or b) destruction, and on a large scale of the means of production and living labor-power?

2)Or is it the case that Greece represents an isolated condition, amenable to solutions outside the establishment of dual power by a class opposed to capitalism and the bourgeoisie?

3)Can "anti-austerity" be decoupled from anti-capitalism?  Can the welfare of the population be restored without repudiating, in its entirety, the debt obligations of Greek capital?

If (2) or (3) then go right ahead and jump on the Syriza bandwagon.  Join the Syriza party.  Lobby for a position in the Syriza government.  Pretend Syriza represents something like Chavez in 1998, not Chile 1973, while Venezuela itself tumbles backward towards 1973.


But if the answer is (1), then Syriza is, on the basis of its organization, policy, and program, an obstacle and will, as all of its "popular power" predecessors have, only serve to enable 1(b).

February 13, 2015

1 comment :

  1. The points you raise are developed here: http://dialectical-delinquents.com/?page_id=8609#comment-175767
    (a re-print of an email discussion between some of the TPTG and a guy connected with Gurgaon Workers News - I've just added some recent additions to this discussion)

    But, surely, even if you believe 2 and 3 it's still possible to want the abolition of all this fundamentally irrational moronic set of social relations we call "society". I don't believe 2 and 3 are possible - at least in this epoch. But, given a worldwide revolution, an anti-austerity form of totally globalised Keynesian capitalism (one which abolished the current nation-state form of capital) would once again be on the agenda, as a means of heading off the abolition of the whole system. If only as some form of utopian "hope". And the mentality that looks towards the authority of an external solution to misery helps such a possible agenda.

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