It is now abundantly clear that the Greek crisis has been but the iceberg tip of a deep and deepening crisis of capitalism in Europe and indeed the world. It is an all embracing economic, social, political and ideological disaster.
The usefulness and apparent humanity of the capitalist system is being questioned by millions of people searching and working for an alternative system embodying many of the fundamentals of socialism. This is certainly the case in Greece, where the Government, the State and the cosy two party system cannot subdue and control the popular resistance. The promise of the European Union and a eurozone paradise has turned into an extended nightmare for the people. The EU and the Euro was not created to help, but to plunder the weak and the underdeveloped in southern, and later, eastern Europe, to bolster its capacity to compete with the then mighty US dollar for world markets and super profits.
The so called generous EU packages to Greece were directed not to increasing the country’s productive capacity but to destroy it and to increase, on credit, consumption of goods made largely in Germany. The Greek debt — a small fraction of which is owed by almost all advanced capitalist countries — is owed predominantly to German, French and Greek banks and most of the loans given to Greece go straight to these lenders with huge interest. It is only the banks and not Greece that have bail out guarantees from the EU Emergency Fund fed from the public purse.
The frantic efforts of stitching up a Government of “National Unity and Salvation” in Greece (and other countries) is not even a short term answer, as the whole EU and eurozone system is collapsing. Incidentally the new government in Greece, (and in Italy) is headed by a Eurocentric banker, the nominee of the lenders. It is a government put together to execute without any hesitation, the draconian austerity measures dictated by the eurozone masters to ensure the interests of the local and foreign plutocrats at the expense of the working class and popular masses.
Most Greek people are visibly and militantly opposed to the measures the lackeys of imperialism have signed up to against their expressed wishes as demonstrated in huge rallies and strikes. The people are denied any opportunity to have their say even through the much touted democratic ballot box. An election may be held after this puppet Government signs off to the Eurocrats and their bankers, the people and the country’s sovereign rights. Greece is in effect a country under foreign economic and political occupation, facilitated by the Greek capitalist establishment and the two party system that sustains it. A troika of representatives of the EU, European Bank and the International Monetary Fund would now be permanently based in Greece overseeing every detail of Greece’s compliance with the conditions of the loan. If these conditions are not met in full and ahead of time there will be no loans.
The sacrifices demanded from the people for another dose of sickening medicine are horrendous, and condemn generations to no future, and the country to negative growth for several decades. Productive forces are being destroyed at an unprecedented rate. Unemployment has risen to 18 per cent and up to 40 per cent for those aged between 23 and 45 years. Hundreds of small and medium businesses are closing every month.
One third of public employees have been put into reserve, (under the constitution public servants cannot be sacked yet), with proscribed annual employment of 13 weeks at $25 a day, a quarter of their normal rate. Awards and collective bargaining are legislated out and private contracts are a hundred times worse than Howard’s Work Choices.
Working hours and working life are extended. Education and health, always the poor relative, are starved of funds and are increasingly privatised while the remaining public property – services and land – are up for grabs at fire-sale prices with German companies in the driver’s seat. Wages and pensions have already been cut by up to 30 per cent and superannuation funds are being raided by banking and other financial institutions, with worse to come.
At the same time the cost of living is rising. GST on many goods went up from 13 per cent to 23 per cent, income tax went up and extended to catch people with as little income as $6000 per annum down from $14000 last year. The family home will also be taxed and if people cannot pay then electricity will be cut off. This brought an instant reply by Unions that they will never cut power to a pensioner or working class family home. At the same time the big tax evaders and others responsible for the Country’s plight continue to enjoy all sorts of legal protection.
The blame game suggests that the Greek people are responsible for the mess, of squandering good money, of lazing in the sun. But now the time has come to pay: it’s the classical ploy of condemning the victim. For the great majority of the Greek people have never seen, let alone pocket the “big money”. They work twice as hard and long as their German counterparts and live a life of chronic austerity.
Of course there are those who did profit and still do and usually never turn up for work. The Greek rich are filthy rich, as they are in all exploitative societies. But what is of perhaps greater significance is the massive and sustained resistance of the Greek people combining the spontaneous and the organised, demanding a break with the present socio-economic system and the EU link, often referred to as the “wolf’s lair”.
Hundreds of thousands of people demonstrate almost daily. They come from all walks of life and spread all over the country and across all generations. Even forces aligned politically with the two major parties, PASOK and New Democracy, are taking to the streets. The battle cry of “We did not cause the crisis and we cannot and will not pay” finds near unanimous support among the people and strikes fear in the capitalist establishment in Greece and their European masters. Committees of resistance are being formed in many cities, towns, suburbs, work places and schools. A leading role in this resistance is played by the left, which refused to fall for the pseudo-dilemma of being either with the EU and the Euro or face the catastrophe of accepting the austerity measures determined by the government of “national salvation”. In the first place there are the militant unionists and the Communist Party of Greece — the country’s third largest party — with a huge influence over the working class, popular, youth, women’s and student movements.
The smaller Left and Radical Forces Coalition and the Left Party are very important contributors in this resistance and in the call for a debt write off, an immediate election and non-acceptance of the austerity measures. The CPG has been most consistent in opposing the Country’s entry into NATO, the EU and other aggressive and oppressive alliances. Greece’s territorial sovereignty is continually threatened by Turkey, a NATO ally. The left above all and the CPG in particular, call for people power, and an end to exploitation of the people and the building of a mass movement to get there.
Workers and Peoples Councils would be the foundations of such a society. Working and producing for the common good, and most certainly for the working class and the popular masses. They highlight, and continue to struggle for Greece to develop its own resources and to become a country of producers as against one of consumers. The best resource initially are the Greek people, who could be assisted and encouraged to regain the countries self efficiency — and export capacity — in agricultural and animal production, cotton, some minerals, shipbuilding, new technologies, and of course Greece’s natural wealth: sun energy. Free of the European ties and the expansive Euro, Greece can trade competitively with countries of its own size near and afar from its borders. Such fundamental change will not be easy or without costs.
But compared with what is on offer now many people, not only from the left, believe it is, by far, a better and long-term alternative. Some may ask, can something like that be achieved now or in a short time? If not, why build the dream? In Greece and elsewhere, questions of fundamental change are as much political and ideological as they are practical. The vision for a non-exploitative society and how it will work, especially when people suffer, inspires history making struggles and outcomes.
* George Zangalis is the President of the National Ethnic and Multicultural Broadcasters’ Council.
