Syriza’s success lies in challenging social democrat approach to reform

18 comments

18 responses to “Syriza’s success lies in challenging social democrat approach to reform”

1. John Tummon says:

   February 3, 2014 at 5:00 pm

   I am a third of the way through Leo’s latest book (well he’s the co-author) on the making of global capitalism and it really does spend considerable time in describing and analysing the nature and growth of reformism in a way I have not seen or heard before. It is a truly compelling argument with huge strategic implications for our LU project and what we hope to achieve further down the line. This excerpt from his thinking is a very compressed version but well worth going through for those who don’t fancy reading the whole book or who just can’t afford it. I would only add that the partial internationalisation of Bolivarianism in South America has managed to escape the 1917 ‘socialism in one country’ trap Leo describes towards the end of this vid and we need to look at this carefully.

2. Patrick Black says:

   February 3, 2014 at 5:03 pm

   This is a most welcome and necessary airing of the singular importance of the on going political and economic developments/ructions in present day Greece,THE NEO LIBERAL LABORATORY (just as Chile was under conditions of imperialist backed fascist military dictatorship from September 11th 1973),especially focussing on the very positive,inspiring and phenomenal growth of support for Broad Left coalition party, SYRIZA.

   The Greek people could well be faced with a General election in the very near future and there is a very very real prospect that SYRIZA could win those elections and come into Government.This prospect is not be dismissed or marginalised but needs to be struggled for and would necessitate massive SOLIDARITY from The Left,Labour and Trade union movements, social movements throughout Europe and The World, as well as vital support and solidarity from progressive anti imperialist Left governments and social movements in Latin America

   This should be of great interest to members of Left Unity and should be a necessary part of on-going discussions and the development of a clear political understanding and analysis, within both Left Unity and the whole of the British Left in this country, of the present brutal global Neo-liberal capitalist offensive,of “structural adjustments programmes”,cuts and privatisation, which according to both state and corporate newspeak go by the names of innocuous sounding ‘difficult but necessary reforms’ in ‘The Age of Austerity’. Highly recommended listening and seeing to what Leo Panitch has to say. Thanks to whoever posted it up.

3. Patrick Black says:

   February 3, 2014 at 5:07 pm

   Correction: ‘This prospect is not ‘to’ be dismissed or marginalised….’

4. John Penney says:

   February 3, 2014 at 8:46 pm

   Great little interview with Leo Panitch there. He certainly covers a lot of politico/historical ground in just a few minutes.

   However in apparently setting up Syriza as some sort of “recommended political model” , which is blazing the trail for the radical Left, I can’t help feeling Leo hasn’t kept fully up to speed with the significant rightward policy lurch the Syriza Party has taken over the last year as it nears government office, as the previously ramshackle radical coalition transformed itself into a rather “top down” unitary political party. This doesn’t knock the core of Leo’s overall analysis in any way – but for those of us also seeking to build a radical Left party of resistance to the Austerity Offensive there are lots of hugely significant historical and structural differences between Greece and the UK , massively influencing the way Syriza can be expected to perform in the absolutely dire economic crisis Greece is now mired in, and , for instance, Left Unity’s current situation.

   Not beating about the bush, I think Syriza’s historically determined internal make-up , ie , heavily composed of old “Euro Communists” and a contradictory rag bag of “others” – and without most of the Greek revolutionary Left – and with the timewarp third period Stalinists of the very significant Greek Communist Party also standing on the sidelines, when combined with the sheer depth of the Greek socio-economic crisis – so far ahead of the rest of Europe – guarantees the eventual collapse of Syriza into compromise and defeat.

   Therefore whilst deserving our solidarity and support as part of our solidarity with the struggle of the entire Greek working class, it is important we , as radical socialists in the UK context, don’t put all our hopes for either the “correct party model” on Syriza – or see its almost inevitable future failure, as a general refutation of the need for a broadly based mass socialist party based on a radical transitional (ie, non avowedly revolutionary) programme of resistance and transformational demands.

   As Leo Panitch quite correctly says, even Syriza’s current “radical reformist” demands (and I expect our LU policy demands when formulated this year in line with our Conference’s agreed Aims and “statements”)are actually potentially “revolutionary” in the context of today’s struggle against the neo-liberal consensus and the surrounding context of systemic world capitalist crisis.

   In the UK, fortunately, we have a lot more breathing space , timewise, because of the relative strength of the UK economy, and no timewarp mass Stalinist Communist Party to divide the working class with is sectarian vanguardism – AND we have at least the opportunity to permanently engage key elements of the revolutionary Left directly in our project. It is also the case that corrupt and neoliberal and politically bankrupt as the Labour Party is today , Greece’s social democrats, PASOK, with its always corrupt ,nepotistic , innate “clientelism” and collaborative mindset ,represents a much less historically mature , ( ie, stable bourgeois democratic) political culture than the UK one – being still deeplyprofoundly scarred and shaped by the dire , socially divisive, experiences of Ottoman colonial rule and Nazi occupation and its various Far Right governments before and after 1945. Greece has never really achieved the status of a stable bourgeois democratic nation state – despite the democratic window dressing whilst in the EU. Under pressure the society already is fracturing , and will continue to fracture – with Syriza , because of its composition and its surrounding historical context, incapable of unifying the required class forces to drive the looming struggle in the required revolutionary direction. Time and history is simply not on Syriza, or Greece’s , side. We, and other radical Left parties emerging across Europe have more time to get our act together. We need to use that time constructively.

5. VN Gelis says:

   February 4, 2014 at 10:05 am

   The collapse of the two main bourgeois parties that dominated Greek politics since 1974 would have created a political vacuum. That was filled by a 40% abstention and the rise of Syriza. Its rise wasn’t/isn’t conditional on any class victories, but only defeats. So it is a support based on desperation rather than any challenge to any neo-liberal consensus. The massive monetary internal devaluation (in the form of pensions and salaries) faced by Greeks and a rise in unemployment surpassing the 30’s ensures there will be no going back to old style capitalist reforms. Wages will reach Bangladeshi levels and pensions will become Chinese (ie non-existent), Syriza wont be able to arrest that process only because it does not seek a break with the EU, for one cannot realistically have an economic policy dictated from Brussels (which sets the neo-liberal agenda). Attempts at maintaining unity without even providing some reforms (even those of 1980’s PASOK) will end in abysmal failure only because the hopes of the population are greater due to the extent of the social crisis which has continued to get worse and worse despite all the govt pronouncements of the economy being a ‘sucess story’ ‘turning the corner’ ‘return to growth’ etc when what is occurring is a legislitative assault for mass repossessions of homes and a tax war aiming to wipe out all economically active people…

6. John Tummon says:

   February 4, 2014 at 1:57 pm

   VNG seems to be right, to me, that no radical left wing government within the EU can achieve radical reforms without leaving it, unless of course it has its own central bank and is outside the Eurozone. Even so, there would be massive capital flight during the election campaign if polls indicated a good possibility of a radical left wing victory, even in those countries,like this one, that ar eoutside the Eurozone and have a central bank. That is the problem of a structurally adjusted world, which did not exist in the post-World War One era of revolutions and attempted revolutions and was only half-built during the 1945 – 71 period.

   I suppose what I am saying, then, is that Eurozone membership is only a formal bar to radical anti-capitalist policies & that any such government nowadays would see all or most of the accumulated surplus value taken from past & present generations of workers & peasants here and in the global south vanish overnight, i.e. the country would be bankrupt and unable to trade. That is globalised capitalism’s Catch 22. Apart from Venezualan oil, I just don’t know how Bolivarianism got around this; if anyone does, then it should be part of this debate.

   • John Penney says:

     February 4, 2014 at 7:53 pm

     I assume that in quite rightly highlighting the undoubted major problem of hugely damaging “capital flight” taking place in a state as soon as a radical Left election victory looked possible , plus all sorts of other speculative market attacks – on the currency for a start, you aren’t saying that therefore it is impossible to stand up to the power of globalised capitalism, John.

     For me it is the core reason why once a radical Left , but nominally “reformist” government enters into the process of even fairly limited radical action to rein in the powers of , in the UK context particularly, the financial sector , and the imperatives of the Austerity offensive generally, – it will be faced with such a capitalist market backlash that it will have to either immediately retreat into total accommodation with the neoliberal globalised agenda – or be drawn into deeper and deeper radical transformational action. Hence the false distinction made by some “Leninist” groups in this era of capitalist crisis and globalised capital flows in setting up a rigid distinction between “radical reformist” and “revolutionary” political programmes and action.

     In the Greek context, Syriza’s core problem , apart from the overwhelming “biggie” of being the leading radical Left political “vehicle” for implementing the required highly confrontational radical socialist policies in a state with an already bankrupted tiny economy – where the financial capital base has already “flown the coop” to London and other capitalist safe havens – far ahead in crisis terms of the rest of the EU, is that it was always a weak , deeply internally fractured ramshackle political formation, with compromise rather than confrontation built into its historical roots and leadership DNA.

     We, in the UK Left Unity case, have to fervently hope and I think plan on the basis that, a continued deepening European-wide economic and social crisis, whilst probably not arriving soon enough to rescue Greece from total ruin and probably eventually an authoritarian government, will eventually result in radical political developments in a large number of EU states simultaneously – such as to give us on the radical left collectively the basis to tackle the major issues arising from capital flight, currency speculation, general economic sabotage, and the overall the neoliberal basis of the EU. There are a wide range of capital control mechanisms and methodologies to prevent capital flight and stabilise currencies, and even secure the repatriation of at least some domestically-based exported capital – depending on how radical ( and ruthless) a Left government with mass working class support is prepared to be to defend itself in what would undoubtedly be an economic war of attrition with international capitalism .

7. John Tummon says:

   February 5, 2014 at 10:59 am

   John, you say that “there are a wide range of capital control mechanisms and methodologies to prevent capital flight and stabilise currencies, and even secure the repatriation of at least some domestically-based exported capital”, yet Bush I froze $214 million in Yugoslav assets in 1991, just like that, as Tommy Cooper used to say, and you yourself refer to the Grrek funds which have already flown. Can you back this up?

   Capital controls haven’t been used for such a long time and, from what little I know and have read, international trade law has been consistently reinforced since the 1950s to make them unworkable. These assets are no longer backed up by gold or in the over-leveraged accounts capitalists hold, so they exist mostly as notional wealth on computer screens and as title deeds lodged, nominally, in tax havens way beyond the reach of any government. A finger on a touch screen is all any capitalist needs to safeguard their funds in Wall Street, Hong Long or Shanghai.

   Of course I believe in standing up to global capitalism but we need to move towards a more robust way of so doing than hoping for the simultaneous creation of a number of radical EU states able to solve these problems. ou don’t show how strength in numbers makes it any easier to cope with the touchscreen nature of modern capital transfers.

   Again, I would like to know more about how the Bolivarians managed to achieve relative and growing autonomy from US Imperialism. these are the links I have found so far on this:

   https://monthlyreview.org/2009/09/01/learning-from-alba-and-the-bank-of-the-south-challenges-and-possibilities

   http://www.americasquarterly.org/hirst/article

   http://rabble.ca/news/2013/08/alba-latin-americas-groundbreaking-alliance-solidarity-and-mutual-aid

   http://links.org.au/node/693

   http://www.cuba-solidarity.org.uk/cubasi_article.asp?ArticleID=162

   What seems eveident to me from reading through these links is that Latin America’s ability to pursue a partially autonomous path rests on an allaince between a long-standing autarchic state – Cuba – which has got used to being outside world capitalism and an oil-rich state – Venezuela – that was already in radical Left hands. Since Venezuela had real economic wealth in oil, the seizure of assets and capital flight was not crucial.

   Where are the parallels in Europe and what do we hav eto learn from this? Could we rely on Venezuela and get loans from ALBA?

   • John Penney says:

     February 5, 2014 at 3:52 pm

     The issue of implementing capital controls and a raft of other essential measures to limit the damage from capital flight and currency speculation is taken up in the excellent strategy document “Building An Economy For The People: An alternative economic and political strategy for 21st century Britain” by a group of radical Left economists in the orbit of the Communist Party of Britain (with which I have no political connection whatsoever I can assure you ) viewable at http://www.manifestopress.org.uk , specifically on pages 25 and 26. These serious academic economists certainly DON’T think it is impossible for a determined Left government to introduce measures to fight off the power of international capital to thwart radical reform. Their 60 odd page proposal is well worth a read .

     I’m unconvinced that the “Bolivarian!” populist/ progressive nationalist experience has very much to teach us . It could well be that , apart from the relative autonomy from US power that Venezuela’s oil wealth gave and gives it, that it was the relative buoyancy of basic commodity prices which gave some Latin American countries under populist governments the temporary ability to “cock a snook” at the power of US imperialism. The current economic/currency crisis in Argentina under its populist neo Peronist government reveals the underlying vulnerability once the commodities boom ended (as China’s export led boom runs out of steam). we also always need to remember just how corrupt, inefficient, clientelist and top down, the typical “Bolivarian” populist regime actually is. Not really a political role model for the democratic radical Left I suggest.

     Just as an aside – there is a brilliant short article in today’s Private Eye, page 34, on the “In the City” page titled ” Echo-nomics” demolishing the Tory propaganda “narrative” that the economic crisis is over and happy days are here again . In fact the article details how very close the world economy is yet again to a major financial crash – possibly triggered this time by a crash in the Chinese financial bubble. I recommend it to all LU members as a source to refute the “happy days are here again” nonsense pumped out 24/7 by the mass media.

     • John Tummon says:

       February 6, 2014 at 11:34 am

       Sorry, John, but I just read through pp25-26 of ‘Building an Economy for the People’ and ALL its suggestions assume a Left government is already in power and can do these things as the government. It does not deal with what the outgoing government does and does not do during an election campaign it expects to lose or what capitalists and fundholders do. Didn’t Left Unity’s November Conference vote not to go into a coalition, which is a long shot but might be the only way a radical Left party could suddenly get into government without capital flight having alrady happened. Even so, the trouble then would be persauding something like the Labour Party to adopt these capital controls, which would be hard anyway but even harder if we were a small minority within said government (if we were more than that, capital would hav fled).

     • John Penney says:

       February 6, 2014 at 3:41 pm

       Its quite true, John, that the “building an economy for the People” proposal doesn’t deal with the short interregnum period for capital flight between a Left party being on the verge of electoral victory, and it actually getting into office and being in a position to implement radical restrictions and controls.

       However , apart from the large numbers of rootless , non-dom, superrich who undoubtedly would immediately extract their misbegotten hot loot from the London banking system and flee with it to more hospitable climes, the fact is that all the car plants, skyscrapers, in fact the entire capitalist physical asset infrastructure in the UK can’t be bundled into containers and shipped abroad overnight !

       Nor can the huge numbers of rich people who hope to continue to carry on their business activities in the UK market simply up sticks overnight and flee, even if they can press a button and in the short term send their money abroad . A radical Left government would have plenty of personal and business sanctions to impose if necessary , including even imprisonment, and banning from carrying on future business in the UK , to ensure that the degree of capital flight and general economic sabotage, was containable.

       Harsh and radical measures would undoubtedly be required to stabilise the situation. But if we haven’t the will to do that – we’ve lost before we begin. Precisely the radical and iron determination signally absent so far, as VN Gelis, says, in the various collaborationist Greek coalition governments so far – as they personally ship their own corruptly acquired personal loot out of Greece into the tax havens abroad – and generally dance to the tune of international capitalism.

     • Nick Wright says:

       February 8, 2014 at 6:27 pm

       ‘Building an economy’ from Manifesto Press is an intervention in the pre-election debate and is helping to shape thinking about what a Labour government might do. It is not a programme for a revolutionary transitional government. The objective conditions for such an eventuality are a long way off. In fact, such a scenario is impossible to conceive off short of a crisis deeper than the one presently enveloping Greece.
       To carry through these proposals is a big ask given the present correlation of forces inside Labour and the extent of its detachment from the working class movement.
       Of course, any such Labour election platform would come under heavy attack and most immediately, threats of a SDP type-split.

       And any Labour government that took such an approach would have to rely on wide popular support for its approach, indeed it would have to mobilise such forces.

       This is the political dynamic of any programme that begins to breach the neo-liberal consensus and the EU strait jacket.

8. VN Gelis says:

   February 6, 2014 at 9:48 am

   Capital controls were re-introduced after the Russian collapse of 1997-98 and so they were in Argentina in 2001. Foreign companies seeking to do trade in those countries had to purchase an equal amount of goods from indigenous producers sell them on the world market or in the country they did business in before they could repatriate their profits. Technology exists to be able to track at the point of sale and entrance of all goods in and out of a country. The political will is required. That is what is lacking.

   Within the Greek context now. Its national airline has been shut down, it no longer has direct routes to major countries and China and Russia alone could fill up the annual tourist numbers. Agricultrure if allowed to grow (would need to leave the EU for that!) could supply the tourist industry with all the products required. That is the only way out of this crisis in terms of growth within a capitalist context. A socialist context would turn the economy on its head ensuring production was made on need via democratic planning methods. The techology is already in place for this. We do not require 5m individual units in everything ie washing machines, dishwashers, cookers etc. Nor do we require to produce food and wait for it to be sold. We could quite easily type in on a tablet our demands for the week and it could be produced thus eliminating 25% waste or ensuring those who have nothing, get something at a minimum level.

   Forcing the Greek shipowners to register their business would require international cooperation (shutting down of offshore banking areas) and implementing a minimum wage enforceable with fines that bankrupt businesses if they dont implement them and stopping the further expansion of the EU to Asia are preconditions of an alternative geopolitical strategy, whilst leaving NATO and its policy of bankrupting small countries by forcing them to buy weapon systems it does not require.

   But to do this you have to be committed to go against the banking cartels that rule the world and their transnational corporations. As long as you dont you will continue to face economic and national disintigration until the country known as Greece is broken apart and its population is scatterred around the five corners of this globe (a process currently underway like in Ireland) due to youth unemployment which is reaching almost 100% (officially around 65%).

9. John Tummon says:

   February 6, 2014 at 7:04 pm

   John, the bodies, the offices, the ofice furniture & computers and the factories of capitalists are not going to be worth 1% of what the buggers have in banks and ofshore accounts; that is where their fortunes reside and the residual surplus value torn from the labour of generations of us. What are we going to do to reclaim that – threaten them with torture until they phone their banks and offshore lackeyes and tell them to send the money back? Maybe we could hold them in prison until such time, but the USA would just send in hit squads to ‘liberate’ them. What leverage could we generate in such circumstances – that is the key question, because nearly all the paper wealth would have gone.

10. John Tummon says:

    February 6, 2014 at 7:17 pm

    John, I have just checked and found that the global super-rich elite had at least $21 trillion (£13tn) hidden in secret tax havens by the end of 2010, according to a major study. The figure is equivalent to the size of the US and Japanese economies combined. How would we get hold of Britain’s share of that and the rest of what would disappear in a matter of seconds? Capital controls are all very well once the horse has bolted, but getting the horse back into the stable is the real game changer.

11. John Penney says:

    February 7, 2014 at 3:52 pm

    I’d be the last person to suggest the issue of “capital flight” and speculative undermining of the currency – and other disruptive sabotage acts by multinational businesses (eg, starving the UK of fuel, as oil tankers mysteriously fail to dock at Milford Haven), facing an incoming and in office Left government isn’t a huge issue.

    I’m reading Leo Panitch’s excellent analysis of global capitalism at the moment – reaching the Callaghan Labour government of 1976 – and the blatant intimidation of that government by the Us and its creature institutions – by only offering IMF help during its “Sterling Crisis” if it dumped all its “Alternative Economic Strategy” radicalism and imposed strict wage controls and cuts in public services. Of course the leading Quisling Labourites were only too happy to roll over and obey their capitalist masters.

    It’s a vivid demonstration that, even more today, an even marginally “radical” Left agenda would provoke such a backlash from the forces of the US-led globalised capitalist market that a Left government (hopefully in concert with other radical Left governments in Europe and elsewhere) would very quickly either have to capitulate to capitalist neoliberal orthodoxy or would be driven significantly leftwards to more and more radical measures.

    Whilst personally having no neat definitive solutions to the capital flight and currency manipulation problem bound to face an incoming Left radical government, it is clear that such a government with a mass support base would have to have large teams of “special advisors” (“Commissar SPADS” ?) ready to enter the relevant key institutions of the state on day one (eg the Treasury, the Home office, etc) to take effective control away from the Quisling permanent officials who, as Panitch’s book makes very clear, serve the interests of US-Led globalised capitalism – not the UK national state.

    It also strikes me that as it became clear that a majority Left government was the likely outcome of a General Election, teams of Left Unity party representatives would have to do a comprehensive tour of the banks, hedge funds, etc, to “lay down the law” and its personal and business legal and future trading consequences if these institutions engaged in activity which could be seen as detrimental to the interests of the UK economy, prior to the imposition of new restrictions and structures by a new Left Government.

    But overall , I have no doubt that to attempt to implement a programme even half as radical as that of the 1945 Labour Government in the very different circumstances of the fully globalised neoliberal capitalism of today would provoke outright economic warfare with the international capitalist system. But that’s just the way it is, and would be. Part of our planning task in the many years ahead before that is a real issue is surely to create an appropriate “grand operational plan” to establish what legal and operational procedures and systems and legislation a radical Left government would require to minimise and tackle the very important issues we are discussing here.

12. Robboh says:

    February 8, 2014 at 11:03 pm

    Well lets not exaggerate, they only got 25% of the vote, and this in a country whose conditions are much worse than our own. Really they should have got 50% plus and be the government, why they didn’t tells a lot about the electorate, not just in Greece but in other European countries.

13. Jacob Richter says:

    February 24, 2014 at 3:43 am

    Left Unity should seriously consider these proposals for maximum “predistribution,” five economic reforms to be fought for: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/five-economic-reforms-millennials-should-be-fighting-for-20140103

    Jobs guarantee program / Employer of Last Resort
    “Social Security for all”
    Land value taxation
    Sovereign wealth funds
    Regional public banks everywhere