So, the Greeks have an understanding for an extension of the loan agreement. On Monday they have to present the “reforms” they will be undertaking in exchange for it.
I don’t know what those reforms will be, but I know that the agreement still gives the Troika (now called “institutions”) veto power over Greek policy. The key text in the mealy-mouthed statement is this one:
The Greek authorities commit to refrain from any rollback of measures and unilateral changes to the policies and structural reforms that would negatively impact fiscal targets, economic recovery or financial stability, as assessed by the institutions.
The Greeks also promised to pay back everything.
Yeah, Tsipras may be attempting to portray this as a victory, but it’s not.
The bottom line here is that Syriza weren’t really willing to default or Grexit. One can note that they campaigned on ending austerity, but staying in the Euro.
That was always problematic: yes, that’s what many Greeks want, so it was a political winner, but if they were serious (and it appears they were) it left them without the ability to actually negotiate a better deal.
Much has been made of the fact that Greek Finance Minister Varoufkis is an academic specialist in game theory. In the the early days he seemed serious about being willing to default. It appears he wasn’t, it was a bluff.
I’m not an expert on game theory, but I do know something about it, and about negotiation and I’ll tell you this, for threats to work they must be credible, and to be credible you must be willing to actually go through with them. Faking is never as good as sincerity. Having campaigned on “have your cake and eat it too”, Syriza was in a bad position to negotiate with Europe.
I had hoped they were negotiating to show the Greeks that no good deal was possible, then would be willing to say to Greeks “only default and Grexit is viable.” So far, it appears not.
It’s worth noting that reports are that Southern politicians in places like Portugal, Spain and Italy were pushing for no debt forgiveness. For their own political futures, they need to be able to say “there was no alternative”. But, of course, debt forgiveness would be good for all of those countries, meaning politicians pushing against it for Greece (setting a precedent allowing it for them) are acting against the best interests of their own countries. There is a word for such people, and it starts with “T”.
The Greek Communist party refused to join with Syriza in a coalition government because they expected this to happen, they have been proved correct. If Syriza does not get a very good deal, or spend the next few months making the case to Greeks for default; in other words, if they don’t turn this around, then they will have their one term and the Greeks will turn to someone else. Golden Dawn, the fascist party, came in third, but Syriza voters, being left-wing, might prefer the Communist party. We will see. Syriza, after all, is not very left wing at all.
It should be noted that we don’t know what threats were made behind closed doors. My guess is that they were very harsh: Greece cannot feed itself, it cannot fuel itself, it has very little to offer in exchange for the foreign currency it requires to buy what it needs. A default and a Grexit where the Troika and other European countries were not trying to punish it could be managed. But one where they did seek to punish it would be difficult. Syriza may not have properly gamed out how to survive in that scenario, and may have been surprised by how punitive the Troika intended to be in the case of default and Grexit.
If so, that is political incompetence (and game theory incompetence). One should always know what one’s best alternative to a negotiated settlement is.
I’ve written in the past how Greece could handle such a scenario. (Here and here.) It’s not an insoluble problem, but it does require being willing to backhand Europe as hard as they have backhanded Greece and then to get even nastier. Greece has a lot to offer Russia, for example, and Russia can take care of Greece’s fuel needs easily in exchange for Greek bases and so on, which essentially cost Greece nothing.
The key here is psychological. Greeks need to admit that their fellow Europeans do not care how badly they suffer; need to acknowledge that they are not seen as Europeans by their fellow Europeans, and need to look East and South for their survival and future prosperity.
Until Greeks get through their heads, and hearts, that the other European countries are not their friends, they will continue to suffer. Until they are willing to take the losses that Grexit and default will impose, things will continue to get worse. (Being genuinely willing to take those losses is also the only way they might be avoided.)
I note also that sheer idiotic incompetence of Syriza in not putting in place currency controls to prevent capital flight during the negotiation period. This is virtually an own-goal it is so stupid, and should bring into question just how smart Varoufkis is (or Tsipras, if he over-ruled Varoufkis.)
I wish the Greeks the best. But as with all those who have been horribly damaged by neo-liberalism and austerity, they need to get through their heads that those in charge of the policy have no fellow feeling for them; that people like Merkel, Shauble and the Germans who support them are enemies, not friends, let alone family members in some big European family which cares about all Europeans.
This is economic war, with the casualties that implies. The Germans and the ECB are treating it as such; the collaborators in Italy, Portugal and Spain are treating it as such. Until ordinary people, and the representatives they put their faith in start treating it as such, they will continue to lose.
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EmilianoZ
Every country has national myths about who they are supposed to be. Nobody is rational. Those myths help us live and make sense of our lives. I’m guessing many people would be willing to die to maintain those myths.
In their view, the Greeks are European and nothing else. They invented Europe. Europe does not make sense without them. It would be like the US without the original 13 colonies.
Not even Great Depression level hardship will change that.
Mandos
I have been watching Greece for long before this, actually, back when they were trying to join the single currency (which I thought was a bad idea).
As I was saying on the other thread: Greeks did not give Syriza a mandate to use the weapon, and as EmilianoZ is saying, I find it unlikely that Greeks are going to decide en masse in the near future that they are actually “less European” than the French or Spaniard johnny-come-latelies. Greek nationalism is strange, conflicted, paradoxical. I will go further and say that if Syriza attempted capital controls there would have been riots and possibly a coup (they were doing all they could to avoid the ECB demanding them). There was no “own goal” there.
For me, the biggest value of this yet has been the theatre itself, which IMO is incredibly valuable if used correctly. If Spain succeeds in electing an anti-austerity government (by no means a given), it would have leverage Greece doesn’t and hopefully the emotional scruples the Greek public doesn’t. The question is, how to turn the open displays of naked thuggery into political capital before the other guys do it? It’s Podemos that has been disappointing me lately, not Syriza.
Stirling Newberry
I saw this coming from a mile away. Talk to me when they have some real radicals as in Iceland. right now Europe has a bunch of squeaky wheels who don’t want to lose so much money, and they think that hiring better negotiators will help. It won’t.
Mandos
More or less. Until Europeans are willing to pull the plug, sorry, you just gotta live with the oft-maligned 11-dimensional chess.
Greg T
As usual, excellent points, Ian. I’m going to take a more optimistic approach to these events. SYRIZA did not have an electoral mandate for a Grexit. Moreover, the Greek population needs to be prepared for what Grexit entails. You summarized it well in previous posts. I urge readers to read them and re-read them. This is the equivalent of the nuclear option and will come with great pain if undertaken.
I see Friday’s events as a tactical SYRIZA retreat. Right now, Greece is at a great disadvantage versus the Eurocrats. The troika can smash Greece by shutting off ELA. This limits what they can achieve in the short run. What Tsipras did is buy time. Time to prepare the population, time to consider options. Moreover, time to turn eastward. Getting Germany to grant an extension was a win, and a lot more than corrupt pols like Samaras would ever do. SYRIZA needs to convince the voters this is a bridge to a long term solution. We’ll see if it works out without Grexit, but I think that’s where this is ultimately going.
Watch what happens in these four months. Tsipras is scheduled to visit Putin in May and the Chinese are very interested in obtaining Greek ports. If Tsipras is smart he’ll apply pressure to the U.S. by dealing with the burgeoning BRICS bloc.
Dean Flemming
Neither a borrower nor a lender be?
However: Give to every man that asketh of thee; and of him that taketh away thy goods ask them not again.
If thou at all take thy neighbour’s raiment to pledge, thou shalt deliver it unto him by that the sun goeth down:
guest
I’m no expert, and we’ve seen too many so called leftists working hand in glove with the IMF and ECB and whoever to betray their people. But I don’t think this passes the fork test yet (I still see a little moist batter on it). Definitely the Germans and banksters will overplay their hand again, if not by Monday, certainly within 4 months. And four months from now, certainly the Greeks will get an eyeful of what Europe things of them, unless they deliberately shut their eyes. And hopefully the Portuguese, Spanish and Italian people will be paying attention too.
I certainly did not understand the dangers of the Euro way back when, even when it was explained to me (I didn’t think the smart money would be so dumb as to let those asset bubbles develope). But I never understood the attraction of the Euro either, except for those who spent a lot of time having to convert their money to various currencies. And it was very strange how certain countries seemed to have got railroaded into the Euro by their elites when the referendums did not go the way they were intended.
It certainly makes the conspiracy theorists seem, if not fully sane, a lot less insane than those complacent folks who gobble up the conventional wisdom.
Dan Lynch
Re: mandates. FDR was not elected on a mandate to engage in Keynesian deficit spending, To the contrary, he promised to balance the budget, and accused his opponent Hoover of being a spendthrift!
To this day the American public opposes deficit spending. 74% support a balanced budget amendment — I guess they want to eat out of dumpsters like Greeks?
Look, the public does not understand economics, never has. The public needs to be led, needs to be given hard choices on particular issues. The choices need to be laid out in terms that the public can understand — do you want to eat out of dumpsters? Do you want your pensions cut? Your taxes raised? Your public lands sold to oligarchs? Or do you want to try plan B?
Re: Greeks feeding themselves. I’ve never set foot in Greece, but some googling suggests that Greece imports energy, machinery, and medicine, not food.
There is no indication that Syriza WANTS to exit the Euro, mandate or not. Yanis’ head seems full of ivory tower dreams about reforming the EU. He does not seem to understand that the EU is working exactly the way it was intended to work, and that he is attempting to negotiate with psychopaths, who only respond to power, not to logic or compassion.
At this point the best case scenario is for the Troika to reject Syriza’s “reforms,” forcing a Grexit despite Syriza’s best efforts to brown nose the Troika.
grayslady
No matter how much Greeks may like to think of themselves as “Europeans”, they aren’t Europeans and never will be. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing. “Europe” is simply a geographic designation. The tribal identification by nation states within Europe is enormous, which is why a single currency was always a losing idea.
Greece has two natural attributes: strategic geographic location and warm water, deep water ports. Those are political advantages that can be turned into economic advantages–just not with Europe. Greece should be forming alliances with countries where these two attributes provide the country with a strong hand for bargaining and the opportunity for economic well-being. Time for the Greeks to reclaim their dignity and their sovereignty before “Europe” turns Greece into a failed state.
zot23
I wonder if this could still be a strategy for a longer term default. As Ian noted, the first one to try and leave the EU gets their head chopped off. What about the second or third ones? Going to the wall for such punishment only works if it shocks countries enough to discourage that choice again. If they are still willing to risk it, you’ve already used your best trick so to speak. Could Greece be trying to lengthen out the pain long enough for one of the other PIGS to have to default?
Would not be the worst strategy, though the more likely answer is what Ian and Stirling are saying (leaders are just deluded.)
Mandos
If we are talking about raw power and not the details of morality, Greece, bluntly speaking, needs to mend its nationalistic fences with Turkey and accept that it has lost Northern Cyprus. That would permit it to reduce its military expenditure and forge strategic cooperations in the Mediterranean sea with another local power that actually has moderately related strategic interests.
This is actually deeply connected with Greece’s attachment to the EU and the euro. It’s a major stalking-horse issue. If it can recognize that Germany is actually currently a greater threat to real existing Hellenism than present-day Turkey is, it has a viable way out of this. The rush to put both Greece and Cyprus in the EU, the Eurozone, etc, was all partly related to the conflict with Turkey and the emotions that surround it.
Mandos
For those of you, however many, who read German, here’s Thomas Mayer in FAZ, who is no friend of Greece’s position, declaring Varoufakis the winner in a manner which I mostly agree with:
http://www.faz.net/aktuell/wirtschaft/mayers-weltwirtschaft/kolumne-mayers-weltwirtschaft-athen-gewinnt-13442151.html
I don’t have time to translate it but maybe Google translate might do a good job. (Its biggest problem with German are all those funny particle verbs.) But the basic summary is that Greece has pushed the Eurozone as a whole a step further in the direction of a transfer union, which Germans abhor.
Greg T
“Re: mandates. FDR was not elected on a mandate to engage in Keynesian deficit spending, To the contrary, he promised to balance the budget, and accused his opponent Hoover of being a spendthrift!”
Leaving the Eurozone is not a move to be taken lightly. It can’t be compared to FDRs decision to deficit spend. All that did was break from prevailing economic/political orthodoxy. If Greece leaves the Euro, it will put Greek society on the equivalent of a war footing. Greece would be used as an example for any other upstart anti-Euro nation. It would be strangled and starved, left to fend for itself without the ability to feed its population, or to obtain oil. Without hard currency and no access to western capital markets, it could not buy what it needs. In view of that, it’s understandable why Greece would attempt to solve its problems within the Euro structure first. It may not be possible. If the hardline countries, mostly Germany, think there is manageable risk in letting Greece leave, it will do so rather than acceed to Greek demands.
Greece must use the time to formulate a coherent plan for exit, one that involves turning to Russia and China for assistance.
Mandos
I have a feeling that at some point they are going to demand and get the policies they support, and then suffer the consequences. The American political system has what is to me a problem: high latency between the bad wishes of the populace and their implementation. That means that the public can persist in irresponsible positions until a political eruption that would be much worse than if the bad policy had been implemented forthwith.
Russ
GregT writes: “If Greece leaves the Euro, it will put Greek society on the equivalent of a war footing.”
Exactly what short of that do you think will suffice if anyone is to break free?
Mandos
“Exactly what short of that do you think will suffice if anyone is to break free?”
The problem is, Greeks have not (yet) decided that they want to break free.
Bodacity of Dope
Tsipras is turning out to be the Greek equivalent of Obama.
Mandos
Like I said on the other thread, y’all are stuck in a rut of snatching defeat from the jaws of any situation, ever. At this rate, the Jedi you’re looking for will never arrive.
Greg T
@Russ
Tsipras and Varoufakis want a reconsideration of the entire Eurozone project. They want to move it from a currency union ( and a tool for German hegemony) to a broader political and fiscal union. Its a fundamental reconsideration of the tenets of the system.
Failing that, a Grexit will be the only choice. I basically agree with you. I think Syriza is taking time to get there, that’s all. If it becomes a sellout party like PASOK or New Democracy, it will break up before long. What comes after would be anyone’s guess.
Mandos
I have no idea what’s going to become of Syriza, Tsipras, or Varoufakis. All I know is that up to now, given the parameters, they did much better than their predecessors. Meaning, they didn’t win, but up to this moment (we’ll see Monday what’s left), they did the best they could with the very real constraints around them.
Pelham
So the Greeks have refrained from any rollback of current measures. But for how long? If it’s for the four months of this agreement, it may be worth waiting to see what happens in June.
Jessica
I am not ready to write off Syriza. If they are going to take such extreme measures as Grexit, and then be forced into being the poster child for an anti-neoliberal rebellion (and thus be singled out for further brutalization), then they will have a much better chance of succeeding if they are seen by their own people to have been forced into it. There is a limit to how far ahead of their own people they can go, particularly in a country with a history of military dictatorship and strong ties between their own military and precisely the outside forces that wish them harm.
This does not mean that they have the courage and desire to do what is necessary. Only that it is not clear yet.
On another note, yes FDR campaigned as more Hoover than Hoover, but the economy – which had seemed to be recovering – collapsed dramatically between election day and inauguration day (in March in those days). It was only that which created the opening that enabled (and required) the start of the New Deal. Even then, much of what we think of as the New Deal came later on as events unfolded.
The political crisis caused by long wait for inauguration was so severe that a constitutional amendment was passed to move up future inaugurations to the January 20 that we are now familiar with.
Not that any of what I just said lessens the anti-humanity evil of what Obama did not do with the slightly lesser crisis=opening for change that he faced.
On yet another note, the Icelandic example is somewhat overrated. They were certainly not as craven as the Irish, but much of the crisis was still placed on the back of the Icelandic people, who then turned around and put the crisis-makers back into government. To ask comparatively small nations to take on the evil Leviathan that is global capitalism on their own is just too much. As much as it is understandable that people with the social conscience to see the overall picture wish that someone, anyone would.
If I were Syriza and the time came to really roll the dice, I would go with the Chinese. That would be much more of a game changer than a deal with Russia would be.
Stirling Newberry
The next move is to the right.
Badtux
Thinking about the Greek situation reminded me of some monetary facts about capitalism. Capitalism requires inflation. Capital requires inflation not only in order to draw money out from under mattresses into circulation where it can be used to facilitate trade in goods and services (its primary purpose, otherwise we’d all barter), but also, and this is important, *to deal with inequality*. Without inflation, all the resources in a capitalistic economy become concentrated into fewer and fewer hands because it becomes a zero-sum numbers game where one person’s profit is another person’s loss. And in this case, where the Eurozone is in actual *deflation*, those fewer and fewer hands appear to be French and German, leaving the rest of the Eurozone to utter impoverishment and serfdom.
It is thus a mathematical impossibility for Greece to both remain in the Eurozone and escape utter impoverishment and loss of sovereignty. There are no — zero — routes away from that fate as long as the ECB, in thrall to France and Germany, continues to maintain anti-inflation policies that guarantee that there will be at least a significant minority of Eurozone economies that are the losers in the zero sum game that the Germans have set up. The sooner Greece realizes this and exits the Eurozone, the sooner they can begin to reconstruct their nation using the 25% of Greeks who are currently unemployed. Sanity, alas, appears to be in short supply on all sides right now…
Tsigantes
Writing from Athens, and Greek, I only say that Mandos, Greg T. and Jessica in her comments about Greece and Iceland are RIGHT ON THE MONEY. Thank you all of you for articulating it so well.
Please note, Greece CAN feed herself, and is a food exporter.
@Grayslady: please note that “Europe” is a greek word, from a greek myth (Evrope, the bull) and that therefore the other European nations are free-riders on the back of this 🙂 Also, a less anglocentric education might have provided you more insight into the origins of European history in which the origins of Europe lie in the Greek world and Byzantine empire (which lasted in its last droplet to the 14th century), was taken up by the Romans and spread north to what is now modern Italy, Spain, Portugal, France, Belgium and England. These romanised countries are still the heart of European civilisation to which the non-romanised countries attached themselves and aspired to emulate. Further, the romanised vs non-romanised countries constitute a still extant cultural split which has not gone away and is everywhere in evidence today. Meanwhile Russia looked west from the enlightenment onward, though its original christianisation & acculturation was through Byzantium. This separates from the non-Romanised group.
As for any turn toward Russia, that is completely out of the question right now: surely you have noticed what NATO is up to in Ukraine? Greece and Russia are historically close and there are many existing ties & further possibilities. Nothing more is required at present.
V. Arnold
@ Tsigantes said;
Also, a less anglocentric education might have provided you more insight into the origins of European history in which the origins of Europe lie in the Greek world and Byzantine empire (which lasted in its last droplet to the 14th century), was taken up by the Romans and spread north to what is now modern Italy, Spain, Portugal, France, Belgium and England.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Bingo! Americans are particularly provincial and in general, the public education system is just pathetic.
I’ve spent the last 12 years abroad and have re-educated myself away from the brain washing propaganda that indoctrinates everything.
Well posted and said Tsigantes, cheers…
@ Ian
Thanks for the upgrade for signing in, much more better 😉
Russ
Greg, it sure looks to me like it’s bound to break up. I’m not sure what the basis of Syriza even is. It’s a standard political party which is not based upon a movement foundation, never laid the groundwork, is most definitely not seeking to build dual power. But all those are necessary.
Regarding what other commenters said about the people not wanting a Grexit, if true that’s a measure of the failure to build the necessary movement consciousness. Of course support for such radical policy can often be built in real time when the previously cynical people see someone actually DOING something. If you believe in Leadership (as anyone who believes in representative government must), then you have to avow that Leaders are supposed to lead. In a crisis like this the worst idea imaginable is the old government-by-focus-group, government-by-poll. Any true citizen of Greece either supports Grexit or is ready to support it as soon as they see it happening. As for needing to look “forced into it”, how much more force could anyone need to show than what’s already been deployed against Greece??
It’s really something to see “radicals” and radical-tending progressives now embarking upon the exact same 11-dimensional chess idiocy with Syriza that the regular “progressives” disgraced themselves with in the case of Obama. There’s really no end to this fundamentally unpolitical celebrity cultism, is there?
I especially like those who were gushing endlessly about their high hopes for Syriza and today are sputtering, “OF COURSE they couldn’t have accomplished anything!”
Mandos
No, there is no necessary connection between “Leadership” and “representative government”. In fact, I would argue the opposite: real existing representative government is always designed to distribute responsibility, while keeping the appearance of “Leadership”.
Then I would suggest that you would be shocked to find that there are many Greeks who are not “true citizens of Greece” as by this definition. Believe it or not, many Greeks still feel they have something to lose. The unemployment rate is 25%, not 75%. There are even Greeks who are explicitly neoliberal!
This is demanding other people hold your revolution for you.
11-dimensional chess. It’s real. Live with it, love it.
A lot of what I’ve been calling “guns-and-butter” progressive, such as are found in high concentrations in these parts, seem to think as a matter of faith that the Obama experience means that there is no “11-dimensional” chess. No, what actually happened was that the American left long before Obama stopped playing it. There is a huge, Puritanical prejudice against games of image, a refusal to acknowledge that the appearance of something even if the reality falls short is a valuable tool in itself. There’s an unwillingness to exploit the gap between political appearance and physical reality.
The right has no such qualms. Here’s hoping that the European left is not so foolish. Get over your Obama-trauma, it’s so 2009.
Who was doing this gushing? I for one think that Syriza has accomplished the maximum of what I expected them to accomplish, and that it is hardly nothing. Now they just have to survive.
Mandos
More from German media. Tsipras and Varoufakis still popular with the Greek voter as of Sunday even if parts of Syriza are discontent:
http://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/soziales/griechenland-syriza-anhaenger-glauben-weiter-an-tsipras-a-1020006.html
I only bring up another German link because Varoufakis has become a semi-eroticized villain figure in the German press, the physical embodiment of everything that Germans (at least the press and a large portion of public opinion) dislike about Greece and want to punish in Greece, but with an underlying almost-lustful envy. So to German media, it is very surprising that Varoufakis could be popular with anyone anywhere.
On the other hand, Greeks know that their desire to keep the Euro puts them in a weak position, so they did not really have a strong expectation that austerity would be reversed by the Syriza government. They just wanted negotiators who weresn’t obviously negotiating to save their own hides and the hides of the oligarchs to whom they are connected. So a conventional bourgeois old-school social democratic party who seems to really mean it, even if they are playing with a bad hand, suffices for now. The honeymoon won’t last forever, obviously, but here’s where it is now.
Greeks are not the radicals you’re looking for. But, as European countries go, they’re what you’ve got.
V. Arnold
@ Mandos
I don’t agree with what you say; and you say a lot.
What qualifies your opinion?
I don’t think anybody knows exactly what’s going on at this time. Syriza is an unknown quantity at this time in the negotiations.
I think those that presuppose to know; know nothing.
Mandos
I am following the European press in three languages (English, French, German) and have been following Greek/Cypriot/Turkish politics off and on since the late 90s. I am of course just another moniker on the internet, so I do not expect people reading me to believe me just because I write something.
I have said nothing so far about what is going on inside of Syriza except what is reported. But Syriza is not precisely a unique political coalition in the world.
Greg T
You might be right, Russ. After the Obama bait-and-switch, movement progressives have a cause for concern that SYRIZA is more of the same. We’ll find out soon enough.
I think there’s a chance of a good outcome for Greeks if it can be demonstrated to pro-Euro Greeks that good faith negotiations with a German-dominated Eurozone are impossible. This four month interlude should make that clear. SYRIZA is a hodgepodge of leftists/ youth voters and defectors from the intellectual and moral bankruptcy of the traditional parties. You are right to question Syriza’s moral fortitude. I’m withholding judgment for now.
Tsipras also has a chance to use the emerging BRICS bloc as leverage against German intransigence. If he fails to use it, then he’ll have demonstrated he’s just another banker tool.
Xco
We appreciate your concern.
It is noted, and stupid.
Mandos
*BOOP*
(Lambert, is that you?)
karenjj2
i’m inclined to give the new Greek gov’t the time to organize and install its own people in the functional parts of the administration before leaping to any conclusions.
negotiating a 4-month extension of a bad deal that includes $3 billion interim funding does give the new administration the time it needs to “look over the books,” install people that brought Syriza to power against long odds, and conduct negotiations with countries that will make mutually beneficial agreements. yes, talking with Russia, China and Turkey are probably in the mix.
Russ
Greg, I judge them, like I judge anyone, only by actions, given the scope of someone’s power to act. If each time someone has an opportunity to run a big risk for a big reward they cave in and slink away (assuming they weren’t liars in the first place; but it sure looks like the Syriza leadership might be more afraid of unleashing radical forces for change than they are of the “Troika”), nothing will ever change and humanity is on its terminal descent to total enslavement.
Mandos, I am most certainly not demanding anyone hold my revolution for me, as you spew amid your concern-trolling litany of idiocy. I’m doing all I can to propagate the ideas for it right here, thank you, in addition to looking for any moves toward it elsewhere.
Mandos
Syriza did not have the opportunity to run a “big risk for a big reward” in that sense unless you think it is OK for them also to take a risk they had basically promised the public not to take in order to achieve office.
Xco
Ah. The “we lost, but we lost beautifully” school that so enamors the congressional Democrats. Somehow politicians are always honour-bound representatives of the popular will when they get elected on a neoliberal plank and always responsible and independent leaders who must live in the real world when they get elected on anything contrary.
Ian Welsh
Greece exports, grains, fruits, fish and olive products (essentially). It imports vast quantities of meat.
Greek agriculture is inefficient and subsidized by the EU.
In the case of a Grexit, the ability of Greece to afford imports will plummet. If Grexit leads to an exit from the EU (50/50), then it also loses the subsidies.
If Greeks are willing to drastically reduce their meat intake & stop exporting their food, then yes, they can probably feed themselves (with great effort). In such a case, however, their exports tumble massively and they have a variety of other problems.
Jessica
Greece also exports highly educated people to northern Europe. I wonder how those Greeks are looking at this. To what extent are they happy that someone is standing up somewhat against the conditions that forced them to leave? To what extent are they afraid of what the rest of the EU may do to them if Greece exits not just the Eurozone but the EU as well?
Russ
Mandos, you’re either lying or, most likely, a complete ignoramus about what Syriza promised and what the Greek people are ready to support if they were to see a strong leadership actually DOING IT.
http://histomatist.blogspot.com/2015/02/where-is-syriza-going.html
http://www.leninology.co.uk/2015/02/syrizas-mauling-at-eu-negotiations.html
According to the poll cited there 80% supported Syriza’s electoral promises to refuse to extend the “bailout” and to refuse to negotiate with the Troika on that, the exact promises they broke almost immediately.
And yes, a citizen is unwilling to knuckle under to tyranny and will seize the opportunity to break free of it or destroy it, while one who meekly surrenders, let alone collaborates as you do (at least by internet trolling, and who knows what else you do), is no citizen.
Mandos
1. You are projecting US politics onto the rest of the world. This is always an error.
2. The neoliberals who run the show have set up a very large and elaborate system of rewards and punishments (mostly punishments) for deviation from their agenda, all designed to look very right and natural. This particular episode has exposed in much greater detail how artificial the punishments really are (“comply with structural adjustments or we’ll your bank accounts instantly worthless, never mind there’s little connection between the two”). In this system, compliance has slow negative consequences, noncompliance has drastic negative consequences.
Most of the population (in Greece and elsewhere) is as yet not willing to undergo the drastic short-term consequences — although I haven’t seen if anyone has taken a Grexit poll as of this past weekend, so of course that could change — in the hopes of medium-term improvement, return of sovereignty, etc. So naturally that is how politicians behave. The very system of having career politicians rising through a hierarchical system means that they are by their very nature not usually “leaders” but followers of sources of support of various kinds. Careerist politicians are careerist.
“Progressives” and “radicals” have not done the work of preparing the population to accept or band together to make more drastic solutions possible. So it should not be surprising that even progressively-minded politicians balk at pulling down the temple, as it were.
I actually don’t know if Syriza is particularly inclined to deliberately create the conditions for a Grexit, and Yanis Varoufakis has explicitly said in the past he’s against it, but there are Syriza factions who are for it. I am inclined to think that the “right” answer is a properly-designed single currency (ie, not based on Maastricht, which was obviously conceived to be a neoliberal straightjacket to the extent that even the US dollar is not). But that too is currently just a dream and not going to happen any time soon.
Mandos
Syriza promised that they could overturn austerity while staying inside the EU and the Eurozone. Even your own links say this. There was no claim by Syriza that they would leave the Eurozone. In the appointment of Varoufakis as finance minister, who had said a long time ago that he would NOT recommend Grexit, it’s even more clear.
You have no idea (and certainly, by the way you’re writing, no idea better than I!) what the Greek people are willing to support if they had a Strong Leader. Maybe Glezos is the Jedi you’ve been looking for?
…in the belief that they could do so without the ECB pulling ELA, or the (entirely reasonable) expectation that Syriza would not actually be able to keep its promise regarding a true end of austerity. However, 74% of Greeks did not want to “proactively” leave the Eurozone:
http://one-europe.info/grexit-part-ii-the-greek-perspective
Now these negotiations have made it very clear that Germany and the “T-word” politicians in Spain and Portugal will definitely pull ELA. I haven’t seen a new poll on the matter, other than that Greeks are still supporting the Syriza approach, but it could be that that realization will lead to increased support for leaving the Eurozone, that the special Strong Leader that you’re hungering after will actually arise and cause Greeks to be the people who pull down the neoliberal edifice for you, and …
Excommunication of the bulk of the populace for insufficient radicalism is a well-known left-wing failure mode, as is the wishful thinking that a strong leader will arise, the desire to elect a new electorate, etc, etc. The only cure is more 11-dimensional chess!
Thomas Lord
Ian. I think that if your read on these events is accurate, then you should be able to point to elements of SYRIZA’s platform which it can not fulfill as a result of these negotiations.
I submit you will find none.
Yes, if SYRIZA wants to abandon its own domestic program and engage in heavy deficit spending it has promised to consult with “the institutions” but SYRIZA is also under an electoral mandate not to spend that way. The sort of domestic policies SYRIZA has said all along it wants to enact to end the humanitarian crisis do not require deficit spending — do not alter the fiscal condition of the state (other than perhaps to the good).
SYRIZA has not promised to run absurdly high primary surpluses or to stick to any point of the now-dead memorandum that it wanted to reject.
Yes, the immediate outcome is not a write-down of debt but this was never stated to be the aim of these first talks. These talks were to buy time for longer talks.
It appears that Greek banks will be kept liquid for now, not least because European powers are acknowledging a “grexit” as very threatening to the entire European project.
SYRIZA has said from the start that “there is no plan B” and I think that is probably true. Nevertheless, an uncontrolled grexit would swiftly bring Greece humanitarian aid. What would be Europe’s and NATO’s response? To try to blockade the country? To try to evict the Greek government by force? What will be the reaction across Europe to this? Can anyone control it?
That is the key point of leverage SYRIZA has been using. It is a kind of M.A.D. doctrine.
It seems to me that the outcomes of negotiation in a M.A.D. situation are never one side humiliated and forced to submit to the other but, rather, a kind of detente with plenty of euphemestic cover for issues not yet agreed upon but which do not require immediate resolution.
That is what SYRIZA said beforehand they would try to achieve. I think it is what they achieved.
> “I note also that sheer idiotic incompetence of Syriza in not putting in place currency controls to prevent capital flight during the negotiation period. ”
In light of what happened to Cyprus, why should SYRIZA impose capital controls? So that the money of Greek citizens can eventually be confiscated by Europe?
The medium-term cure for the liquidity problems of Greek banks is trust building and restoration of depositor confidence. The short-term cure is to keep ECB having skin the game in the form of emergency liquidity support.
Russ
I’m not the one calling for Leadership, it’s you and most others who keep looking for “representatives” to take over the political sovereignty which is so odious to you and which you abdicate. That’s part of where the pathology of wanting immediate gratification in the form of an “alternative” political party comes from. I was merely pointing out what people need to do if they insist on going that route and really hope to achieve change that way.
And that includes having the moral courage to lead and to regard the people who want to break free of tyranny as the real constituency, rather than crying crocodile tears over those who are too timid and venal, as is done by concern trolls like you. This is never anything but a pretext for “caving in”, which really means heading hard to the right as soon as ensconced in office, as such con artists like these always intend to do. They’re always most afraid of whatever grassroots energy they tapped during the campaign and move fast to squelch it.
Of course you’re really for the austerity regime, as all your comments demonstrate.
Wells Fargo Must Die
Wanting something and having it are two different things. As we learned in the US, we are all for free markets as long as the money is flowing. When it stops, so much for free market ideology.
There will be no changes in Greece until the misery is sufficient for revolution. That time has not yet come and probably won’t. The Europeans will do just enough to keep them from taking down their banks and the Greeks will continue to hope for something better with a new election as we do in the US.
Syriza has only played its first poker hand and folded straight away. They have not yet walked away from the table and may yet play a few more stronger hands. But until they are ready to at least float a rumor that they are going to print their own currency, they have had it. However, given that they seem to simply be trying to tell a morality tale and hope for sympathy, it seems they have little to offer.
I suspect they are all for change as long as it is exactly the same just like the rest of the world.
Xco
No, I’m observing a bloody obvious pattern of behaviour.
Of course. For instance, Americans use natural numbers to count ballots, everone else uses quaternions.
(Bolding mine.) You’re trying to have your cake and eat it too, “bracketing out” the ferocious external coercion on Greece in making your case that the Greek people are fine with austerity. Most bank tellers aren’t willing to undergo the “drastic short term consequences” of not handing over the bag of money either, but I suppose you’d point the finger at the personnel department for not putting enough effort into indoctrinating them in the Bushido code. In short, you’re still dancing around Russ’s original point:
Of course support for such radical policy can often be built in real time when the previously cynical people see someone actually DOING something.
Mandos
Who said that? Who said that the Greek people are “fine with austerity”? No: it is exactly that they prefer not to be shot by the bank robber, and they currently (at least as of this last few weeks) believe that that shot will be more painful than just handing over the money.
I didn’t realize that was his original point — with the “of course”, I assumed it was a throwaway remark of doctrine. This is an old dream: that within the heart of each citizen there is some kind of latent desire for the correct, freedom-bringing True Action that merely needs someone willing to apply to catalyst to bring it out.
I’m sorry to inform you that there is no Santa Claus. Forcing a Greek exit will involve a lot of immediate suffering for many Greeks — yes, more than the immediate consequences of continuing austerity — and very many of them will blame Syriza for bringing them to it, rather than acquiescing to the troika. The Greek (and other Southern European) publics have to come to the conclusion on their own that pulling the plug is the only option, and the real point being danced about here is that they have not yet done so, despite there being ample voices telling them they should.
Mandos
Well then I guess we have been talking past one another. If you evaluate Syriza as an alternative political party, then what I am saying is that what it has done is the closest to a good job that a political party could do in the system as currently designed. If you are saying that inside “conventional” political institutions, it is generally not possible to implement radical means for change, then I would agree with you.
If you want to talk about public consciousness outside the framework of “normal institutional politics”, then that is a different matter. However, the actual mechanics of currency, etc. still exist inside “conventional” institutions and are subject to their logic.
So now we’re talking about “leadership” and “leading” again? “Moral courage” and all that? It’s confusing!
Yes, this is the standard excommunication, as heralded and expected by words like “real constituency” (the Vanguard?). The implication is that those who are not “courageous” by your standards are thereby not entities of interest whose choice not to exercise “courage” leaves them out of your regard. I, on the other hand, do think that people who are not courageous have a democratic right for their “cowardly” political choice to be respected, until such time as they choose otherwise.
Because “conventional” political institutions couldn’t get rid of austerity “nownownow”, you immediately view those who practice conventional politics as functional traitors. That is why the left fails at conventional politics again and again — it can never sustain an alternative for long enough without getting disappointed — and yet, it has not come up with an alternative to them.
Russ
You sure are fixated on “the left” and its failures. Is that where you get your crackpot “hardbitten” excuses for cowardice and collaboration, from prior disillusionment? I didn’t say a word about the left. I was talking about first principles, simple human principles without which no one, left or otherwise, can accomplish anything.
This includes the principle that while people may have a right to choose to be tyrannized in their private lives, no one has the right to choose economic and political tyranny for others who want to fight it. In case you didn’t notice, the people of a society are tied together that way, and far from my being a “vanguardist”, you’re the one trying to justify a negative vanguard which you think has the right to force everyone to wear the same chains. So I guess, to put it in your terms, it’s a “vanguard” either way, and each must choose which to join.
But it’s typical of propagandists like you to implicitly assert the status quo as normative and that only dissidence is “activism”. On the contrary, the status quo comprises an aggressive, extremist activism on the part of corporations, their kept governments, and anyone who supports their assault on the people. So to phrase it another way, one must choose one activism or the other activism.
That’s the basis of the principle I expressed on who constitutes the bona fide citizenry.
But then, the polls show that 80% wanted the “Memorandum” to be rejected, so in this case it’s a moot point anyway. You’re wrong from any point of view.
Mandos
Then I would say that your first principles are not correct.
Also, 11-dimensional chess is a term that came from the very bitter debates about the aftermath of the Obama election and brings with a whole lot of implications with which many people (myself definitely included) did not and do not agree. It’s a term that is meant sarcastically by its users, and I choose to reverse the sarcasm.
On the contrary, if the majority wants to remain tyrannized they will do so and drag the minority who dissent with it. If the minority doesn’t like it, it should strive to found a separate polity, where it no longer has to contend with the opinion of the majority to accept tyranny. The notion of a “negative vanguard” is plainly ridiculous; there is no symmetry.
Those who have the guns make the rules and define what is normative, inertial, and the status quo. It should not be suprising that the “inertial” state under capitalism is the continued accumulation of resources by those who have more capital.
Of course 80% wanted the Memorandum to be rejected. The question is, did they want the Memorandum to be rejected at the risk of a Euro-exit? There is so far no evidence that that is the case. They wanted to have their cake and eat it too, but in immediate terms, when faced with the choice, they were more willing not to eat the cake.
This could change in Greece, but it was never likely to be immediate. If it didn’t happen right at 2010, you can imagine the kind of inertia there is!
Xco
And again the “technocrats” zoom straight down the memory hole…
markfromireland
Lengthy analaysis from the British Daily Telegraph AKA The Torygraph here: Greece vs Europe: who blinked first in the bail-out battle?
mfi