Professor Richard Wolff: Greece Needs Our Solidarity in Its Struggle Against Austerity

[marmar]

Greece Needs Our Solidarity in Its Struggle Against Austerity

Friday, 03 July 2015 00:00
By Richard D. Wolff, Truthout | Op-Ed


Not for many years has the issue been posed as clearly as it will be on July 5 in Greece's referendum: European capitalists, the political leaders whom the capitalists' money controls, and the austerity they together impose will be judged by the people most savaged by that austerity.

The Greek people were informed that the financial maneuvers made by Europe's biggest banks, biggest industrial capitalists, and the usual political elites (shamefully including Greeks and "socialists&quot in 2008-2009 would absolutely require massive losses of Greek jobs, incomes, property, and financial security for many years to come. Recycling Margaret Thatcher's words, they were told "there is no alternative." Other Europeans (and Americans, etc. too) were told the same although their austerities were less bleak (so far).

After all, slaves had to suffer from the mistakes of their masters and the crises of slave systems - and likewise serfs had to suffer from their lords' mistakes and feudalism's crises. So workers must now absorb the costs of capitalism's crises and capitalists' mistakes (including the documented crimes of the biggest banks). Workers must suffer the capitalists' use of the state to bail themselves out of their crisis and then, via austerity policies, to shift that bailout's costs onto the general public. This, the Greeks were told, is what must be.

The Greeks have thus provided a convenient but urgent test case. European leaders believe that workers in capitalism's old centers (Western Europe, North America, and Japan, especially) now must accept declines in their standards of living. Capitalism is abandoning them to make higher profits in Asia, Latin America, etc. - capitalism's new centers. Savaging the Greek workers' standards of living (and, if needed, a few other countries' workers' too) teaches a double lesson. The first is, "decline is your future - get used to it." The second is, "be glad your decline is - deservedly - not as bad as that of the Greeks." ...............(more)

http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/31714-greece-needs-our-solidarity-in-its-struggle-against-austerity

[dumbcat]

1. The Greeks should reject the Euro's terms and

repudiate the debt.

[hill2016]

2. most likely

what happens would be the ECB would stop financing Greek banks and all the banks will collapse.

[dumbcat]

3. Then they can start over

that's the point.

[hill2016]

4. ok

but let's be very clear what you're asking for

total economic collapse.

[dumbcat]

5. and a clean restart

Should be interesting to observe. It may prove the PTB wrong.

[mythology]

10. I doubt it would be interesting for the Greek people to go through

You do understand that Greece can't afford to continue basic functioning and their private economy would most likely collapse into rubble throw even more people into poverty?

[dumbcat]

13. Sometimes that's the only way

to get change. Some people even call it "evolution in action." Harsh, maybe.

We will see what happens.

[ReallyIAmAnOptimist]

7. Joesph Stiglitz to Greece creditors: abandon austerity...

"They (creditors) have criminal responsibility."

Austerity has already shrunk their economy by 25 percent since 2010.

There's also Icelands example.

And no one is even talking about how much of the debt is the result of bank-fraud (governments were sold junk banks knew were junk).

http://time.com/3939621/stiglitz-greece/

[Fuddnik]

9. Iceland at least threw the criminal bankers in jail.

[mythology]

11. Iceland has access to one of the most valuable natural resources in oil

Greece does not.

Additionally Iceland wasn't part of the euro and so didn't have to create and legitimize a new currency.

[daleanime]

6. K&R.....

[Comrade Grumpy]

8. I hope there is a resounding "no" vote on Sunday.

[Oilwellian]

12. Excellent piece

K&R

[libdem4life]

14. Germany Rises yet again...Greece forgave their WW2 debt. The US is equal austerity partners.

Make no mistake, we're next. Forget the 1-99% argument. The people will starve. Plain and simple. Anyone here go for that?