The newly elected prime minister of Greece, Alexis Tsipras,
has agreed to a four-month extension of the existing loans as dictated by the
EC (European Commission), ECB (European Central Bank) and the IMF
(International Monetary Fund), also called
the “troika”. This extension on the loans is seen by many people on the
left, especially the Trotskyists, as a betrayal of Syriza’s anti-austerity
election platform and a clear trek back to the petite-bourgeois
politic
s. The troika loans come with a list of reform measures that Syriza
needs to arrange in Greece and pass by the Greek people in order to avoid
defaulting on a 320 billion euro debt. The Greek people that are seeking a way
out of the humiliating austerity measures have now been further entrenched into
them. However, this is only a two dimensional view of the situation in Greece
and the current political manoeuvres of Syriza as offered by the left-wing internationalist critics of Syriza.
The current state of Greece, with high unemployment and
large state debt is an enormous weight for any political party, let alone a
party that even hints at being left-winged and anti-austerity. Greek economy is
also deeply entrenched in the monetary and fiscal instruments of the EC, ECB
and IMF as well as the economics and politics of the euro. In the face of the current economic situation, the first
measure and action of any political party in Greece has to be to create a
breathing space through some negotiations with capital lenders. There is an
absolute necessity for economic stability in Greece in order to begin to construct
a path out of the European capitalist web. There is a need for a solid economic
ground and a foundation for the Greek people to start to build a future towards
emancipation from economic exploitation.
Many left-winged critics, after hearing the news about Syriza’s
short-term agreement with the EC, ECB and IMF, have suddenly forgotten that
Greece has been a capitalist state and has been functioning within a web of
European capitalist states for nearly a century, and most importantly, that
socialism cannot be built overnight! Syriza, by raising the left-wing
anti-austerity flag in Greece and negotiating with Eurozone finance ministers
resulted in capital flight of up to 1 billion euros in a single day alone (20
billion euros since the elections). The Greek economy has been haemorrhaging capital
for months now: a bankrupt Greece is a catastrophic start to any possible
short-term reforms let alone a socialist state. Syriza needs to have financial
levers and tools to make short-term changes in the Greek economy for the benefit of the Greek
people, which is slowly becoming less of a reality for the Syriza government if
it does not stop the capital bleeding out of the economy.
Syriza needs to build a strong solidarity with the working
people of Greece and continue to grow its relationship with the working-class
as a power base. This in part necessitates that Syriza works towards
integrating the working-class into spheres of economics and policy creation: a
stark contrast to the people-out-of-politics which has been business as usual
for all bourgeois political parties in recent Greek history. An informed and
well-integrated (in economics and politics) working-class in Greece will be a
force to be reckoned with and it can solidly support Syriza if it chooses to
untangle the Greek economy from all exploitative tentacles of capitalism. The
election of Syriza in Greece was a welcome hope for many working people in
Greece as well as Europe as a way out of the capitalism austerity misery and
towards a future where human beings can actualize their human right to
negotiate their own lives.
The welcome hope for change can only begin to translate into
reality after Syriza has answered the here-and-now and the real time crisis facing
Greece. Only then can Syriza, if it chooses to follow the direction of true
working-class emancipatory party, begin to design and plan the Greek economy
that has revolutionary solutions to all the internal capital contradictions
(such as the main and immediate use-value and exchange-value contradiction) and
towards a socialist society.
Chia Barsen
www.chiabarsen.com
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