Recent events in Greece: a warning for European (& US) workers

[Hannah Bell]

The army of over 10,000 armed police assembled last Sunday to suppress the protests in Athens is a demonstration of the brutality with which the ruling elite all over the world is seeking to defend its privileges in a period of economic crisis. In this respect, the events in Greece are of great importance for class-conscious workers in Europe and internationally.

With the country facing bankruptcy, the European Union has intervened in Greek political life to dictate a draconian austerity program. The Brussels-based EU officials have put the thumbscrews on the Greek government, repealing the country's control over its own budget “for a certain period” and restricting basic democratic rights...

The latest developments in Greece are indicative of what is on the agenda for the rest of Europe. The European financial elite is using the institutions of the EU to determine policy in specific countries, circumvent democratic rights and shift the entire burden of the economic crisis onto the population.

Due to its dependence on foreign direct investment, Greece has been especially hard hit by the international economic crisis. The country's indebtedness has reached record levels and now threatens to destabilize the euro. Leading rating agencies promptly downgraded Greece following the announcement by Prime Minister George Papandreou that the Greek budget deficit for this year is expected to total 12.7 percent of gross domestic product (GDP). Fitch downgraded the country from A- to BBB+, thereby increasing the interest payments to be paid by the Greek state. According to some estimates, the budget deficit could rise in 2010 to nearly 125 percent of GDP—solely due to the increased interest charges. Under such conditions the bankruptcy of the entire county is entirely possible.

This situation has been intensified by the greed of the Greek elite. In a veritable orgy of nepotism and corruption, the country’s two main political parties, the social-democratic PASOK and the conservative New Democracy, have handed over billions to the elite via the privatization of state enterprises. In its corruption index, Transparency International currently ranks Greece as the second most corrupt state in the European Union, just behind Poland.

Broad layers of the Greek population were already suffering prior to the economic crisis. In 2007, one fifth of the population lived below the poverty level of €4,000 per year. Around 20 percent of school leavers are unable to find work. The state spends just 2.5 percent of its GDP on education.

Now the country's huge debt burden is to be reduced at the expense of workers. The corrupt ruling elite in Greece has so far proved incapable of carrying out the economic measures demanded by Brussels, and the EU has now decided to take direct control of the state's finances. They are doing this in the closest collaboration with major European banks and the international financial aristocracy.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/dec2009/gree-d11.shtml

[arcadian]

1. Boy, that Tiger sure has found himself in a pickle...

*crickets*

[anonymous171]

2. SUPRANATIONALISM FTW!

That reminds me: we really should get on that North American Union that Dobbs was frothing over. Sovereignty doesn't surrender itself after all!

:sarcasm:

[arcadian]

4. I can't tell if you are kidding or not.

:shrug:

[anonymous171]

5. Point taken

Sarcasm tag added!

[pampango]

8. Are you saying the European progressives have been wrong to subordinate nationalism

by creating the European Union with its open borders to trade and immigration? Was it better when the French built the Maginot Line against the Germans or when Germans and French are free to travel, live and work in each others' countries?

[starroute]

9. Progressives did not create the European Union

The EU has certain progressive aspects, but on the whole it was constructed by the European elites -- once they decided that having a war every generation was bad for business -- is less democratic in its operations than its individual member nations, and is far more elitist and even aristocratic than anything in the US.

I'm far from an expert on the matter -- but I'm thinking now that it's important to learn more.

[pampango]

11. So European progressives who forced the elites to grant national health care, strong social

safety nets, progressive taxation, strong market regulation and strong unions, somehow allowed the same elites to sneak the European Union past them.

I suspect it's more likely that progressives believe that wars every generation are bad for people, not just bad for business. Indeed if progressives there have convinced the elites that war is bad for business, I wish they would teach us the trick. It's quite likely that progressives in Europe believe that the EU, with its open borders and enhanced cooperation, promotes peace and prosperity better than a collection of nationalistic countries out to outdo each other.

I also imagine that progressives enjoy being able to travel, live and work anywhere in Europe, just as we are able to do within the US. Most of them probably don't long for the days when they couldn't travel to another European country without a passport, visa, and border controls any more than I would prefer to have to go through all that to leave Ohio.

The resistance to the EU today comes from right wing parties like the British National Party, the National Front (France), and the Jobbik Party in Hungary which long for the national sovereignty lost. I don't know of any left wing parties there that advocate dismantling the EU like these right wing parties do.

[anonymous171]

12. Free movement of labor is all good and fine. That's not really what I was taking issue with

What I am saying is that it was wrong for them to create an unaccountable undemocratic institution that can directly/indirectly control member countries' economic policies. Seriously that's fucked up.

[leftstreet]

3. K&R

Depressing article

[Goldstein1984]

6. It could happen here

We have a ruling elite.

Both our political parties are spoon feeding that ruling elite.

We have corruption. We call it campaign finance and lobbying, but it's corruption, legal or not.

Unemployment and foreclosures are high.

Just look at the way the G20 protesters were dealt with in Philadelphia--tear gas, rubber bullets, LRAD.

Obama has done nothing to restore civil liberties after Bush/Cheney.

[fasttense]

7. Don't worry, if the US goes into bankruptcy, the IMF and World bank would bail them out.

Of course this bail out would only come after the federal government fires 50% of its workforce and reduces wages and pensions for the remaining federal employees, reduces Social Security and medicare payments, slashes unemployment benefits and then sells off all the assets to the uber wealthy. You know the US could sell off all their water rights to a Chinese corporation. That way, every time you collect rain water, you get fined by the IRS.

[Echo In Light]

10. Thanks for posting

[blindpig]

13. k&r n/t

[arcadian]

14. Kick

This is an important story

[UTUSN]

15. K&R #20 n/t