I think this paragraph from Paul Mason, written yesterday, is poignant:
If Syriza falls, and a pro-IMF technocratic government takes its place — which it will have to because the traditional parties are in disarray — the lenders stand ready to inject all the cash and structural funds and possibly even quantitative easing money they are denying now. They have said this.
I think this should be read alongside what I wrote yesterday, with which I suspect Paul would have some sympathy:
[This] is the politics of punishment. It ... shows that this whole crisis is manufactured and wholly artificial.
It is a game bankers are playing to show who us who is in control.
It is a ruse to show that debt is above democracy.
It is a device to show that states must bow to banks.
It is contrived to show people matter less than money.
Remember all that, whatever the outcome.
The truth is that this is about ending a left wing government.
And it is about imposing neoliberal dogma.
And in that context remember that the rise of neo-feudalism and its opposition to the possibility of left wing government, even if democratically elected, is a recurring theme I and some commentators address on this blog. It seems it is in action here.
Worry. Not just for the Greeks. Worry for us and our possibility of choice too because whenever, it seems, democracy rears its head now the IMF technocrats raise their heads.
The IMF says it knows neoliberalism destroys well-being. But it does not walk the talk. It's path is very different. The truth is it always preserves banking elites at cost to ordinary people. And implicit in that is a threat to democracy that looks to be very real indeed.
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Absolutely spot on. The bankers and their neoliberal cohorts have cowed a Labour movement that is now helpless to uphold left of centre principles in the face of threats and honestly a hocus-pocus banking babble the terrifies MP’s unsuitable and unconfident in their roles so unable to represent people who need them.
Well, fortunately we can vote to leave the EU next year, or the one after that. By then Greece will have already been forced out. The irony is that what the punishment of Greece demonstrates is that it is not possible to have reflationary, demand-led policies at a national level and to remain a member of the EU. Yet so many of those who support Greece and Britain remaining in the EU say that they support socialist policies. There’s a lot of cognitive dissonance about.
Have you noticed that Greece’s crisis is from being in the euro, not to EU?
We could have the EU you want, but not with a single currency
L:et’s stick to what’s true
Quite
I agree, this is about so much more than unemployment rates, the Greek peoples national debt and the ability of their government to repay that debt. This is about making a statement to the world and demonstrating what happens to countries who get any funny ideas about breaking from policy and asserting itself as a democratic nation. This is about the followers of neo-liberal policy asserting their beliefs on the people of Greece who have dared to elect a government who does not conform with that is acceptable by the neo-liberals.
But this has happened so many times before in resource rich south American & African countries. The IMF send in their economic hit men to create a crisis in the target nations economy and the World bank are conveniently on standby to provide the finance, introducing British & American companies to build the infrastructure, provide and run the energy supplies, telephone networks etc. Always part of the deal is to install an “appropriate” government, as approved by the IMF and financiers.
There is nothing democratic about the process. As supporters of democracy, we know the policies we want, we know how we ant things to run and we already have a pretty good idea of the structure of a truly democratic society. The big question for us, is with powerful bodies such as the IMF and world bank keeping an eye on everything, how to we get our policies and ideas enacted? That is the biggest challenge for those of us working for real democracy.
Yes, agree. It was well documented by Naomi Klein in “The Shock Doctrine”.
I’ve not read that one. It’s also in “Confessions of an economic hit man” by John Perkins, a former hit man himself
THE WORLD IS A YANK!
What I find most depressing is that the bulk of public opinion never gets beyond basic debt morality to see what is going on. Once upon a time our landlords were our feudal masters. Now it is the banks. How did that happen? Once upon a time our feudal masters minted coin. Now it is the banks. How did that happen? For a few years in between we almost had democracy. Once upon a time castles were the grandest buildings in the land. Now it is the banks. We know how that happened. When the money supply needed for our transactions is available to us only as debt, whoever owns the debts owns us – until we say no.
Isn’t it really about keeping EU banks afloat? If the Euro falters then most of the big banks in Europe totter, even without the QE money?
A powerful and apt description.