Daily Times

Pakistani economists are quick to ape and emulate the European and the US bourgeois economists churning out their terminology and hypotheses without actually understanding the political, social, economic and class dynamics of these countries. When western economic strategists were shell shocked by the 2008 crash, their cheap imitators in Pakistan became erratic and short tempered at any questioning of the economic and historical viability of capitalism. This pathetic state of the intelligentsia and the generalised intellectual regression at the helm of society reflects the decay of the ruling classes and their state and culture.

Islamic fundamentalist and secular politicians have a false notion of the conflicts in Europe being based on religion, nationality and race. Yet the most realistic and serious conflicts and struggles in the west in the final analysis have always been and will be based on class divisions, conflicts and exploitation. Greece has been at the epicentre of an economic crisis that is threatening the foundations of Europe and the world. Today, Greece will vote in a general election. This is a big election for Greece but an even bigger election for Europe, for many reasons. Greece has fundamentally changed Europe. From Westminster to Washington, Madrid to Rome, it is being seen as a potential watershed in the eurozone crisis. Berlin and Athens remain the two poles of Europe’s fundamental argument, and a Syriza (party) victory will resonate from Helsinki to — most notably — Madrid, where the left wing insurgents of Podemos (yes we can) are hammering on the doors of power.

The Financial Times wrote on December 29: “The weak link is the risk that voters would revolt against economic austerity and cast their ballots for ‘anti-system’ parties that reject the European consensus on how to keep the single currency together. If that consensus is broken the whole delicate house of cards of debt, bailouts and austerity begins to wobble. And that is what we are seeing in Greece now.”

This echoes Lenin’s well-known statement that capitalism breaks at its weakest link. At that time the weakest link of European capitalism was tsarist Russia. Today it is, without doubt, Greece. The policies of austerity have wreaked havoc on the Greek economy and its people. Around 3.9 million people, more than one third of the population, live below the poverty line, according to official data from Eurostat. In a recent survey, 47 percent said their family income was inadequate to meet their needs, more than 25 percent are unemployed and the youth unemployment rate is nearly 60 percent. The national debt to the troika of the European Central Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the European Commission stands at € 317 billion. Public spending has been slashed and pensions have fallen by 25 percent. The GDP has collapsed by more than 30 percent since its peak before the crisis, a decline comparable only to that seen in the US during the Great Depression. Key services such as health and education have been decimated. A report in the prestigious medical journal The Lancet concluded that what was happening in Greece amounted to a “public health tragedy”.

Syriza’s programme contains a reversal of the cuts to wages and public spending, the scrapping of asset sales and a partial repudiation of the debt. It has attacked the oligarchs and their “pimps”. Syriza talks of the one billion euros that could be raised by the “Lagarde list”, which details 2,000 Greeks with Swiss bank accounts. A struggle against corruption and nepotism is undoubtedly necessary but it cannot succeed unless it is linked to the expropriation of big business interests. The moment of truth is approaching when the leaders of Syriza will have to decide. The working class and the Greek people will expect these promises to be carried out. On a capitalist basis, all roads lead to ruin. To leave the Euro would mean death by hanging, but to remain within it would mean death by a thousand cuts.

A Syriza that comes to power but goes back on its promises and makes no significant reduction in debt repayments will not last in power very long. It is this contradiction that exposes the utopian-reformist nature of Syriza’s programme. The next election would bring to power an even more right wing government, possibly with the participation of Golden Dawn. But that would also be impotent to solve the problems of Greek capitalism. It would open up a new period of political and social instability with an even greater wave of strikes, general strikes and even insurrections. Another article in The Financial Times implied that the biggest risk to the eurozone is that people will vote to reject austerity.

The unspoken assumption is that democracy itself is to blame for the misfortunes of the euro, that the people cannot be trusted to take what are known as “responsible economic decisions” and that this represents the real weak link in the whole situation. In this unintentional phrase the real thinking of the strategists of capital stands revealed in all its crudity. The smiling mask of democracy has slipped to reveal the ugly face of reaction that hides behind it.

Parliamentary democracy is a luxury that can flourish only when the bourgeoisie has sufficient resources to keep the masses in check by means of concessions, deceptions and reforms. However, the deep crisis of the economic system is daily undermining the material basis of parliamentary democracy.

In The State and Revolution, Lenin wrote: “In capitalist society, providing it develops under the most favourable conditions, we have a more or less complete democracy in the democratic republic. But this democracy is always hemmed in by the narrow limits set by capitalist exploitation, and consequently always remains, in effect, a democracy for the minority, only for the propertied classes, only for the rich. Freedom in capitalist society always remains about the same as it was in the ancient Greek republics: freedom for the slave-owners. Owing to the conditions of capitalist exploitation, the modern wage slaves are so crushed by want and poverty that ‘they cannot be bothered with democracy’, ‘cannot be bothered with politics’; in the ordinary, peaceful course of events, the majority of the population is debarred from participation in public and political life.”

Trotsky once wrote that under certain conditions, reformist leaders could be pushed further than they intend. Any attempt to sabotage the government with a flight of capital (which has already begun) might be answered with expropriation. To combat the power of the bankers and capitalists, Syriza will have to rely on the power of the working class. Such a bold measure would evoke massive support, not only in Greece but also all over Europe. A real revolutionary socialist government in Greece would be a source of inspiration for millions of people across the planet who despair of the present situation. It would have a far greater resonance than even the Russian Revolution in 1917.

The writer is the editor of Asian Marxist Review and international secretary of Pakistan Trade Union Defence Campaign. He can be reached at ptudc@hotmail.com