I have to admit that I was flummoxed by the political developments in Greece this week. After winning a referendum based on rejecting the Troika’s terms, Tsipras capitulated to those same terms—if anything, to somewhat harsher terms—less than a week later.Forbes
I have given up believing that Syriza was executing a straightforward political strategy—negotiate to get less extreme conditions plus some debt relief—and can now see only 4 other interpretations:The Troika’s strategy, on the other hand, is pretty straightforward to interpret: an intention to either break Syriza or (preferably) force them out to office, to be replaced by a more compliant party; and an imposition of austerity for both moral reasons, and because, as Ordo-Liberals, they actually think that hard work and reform are all that are needed.…
- One of two Byzantine political strategies;
- Absolutely no strategy and chaos that appears Byzantine; or
- They were broken by the EU and have capitulated.
It's All Greek To Me: The Politics Of Syriza And The Troika
Steve Keen
7 comments:
Greece and perhaps more to the point, Syriza, is simply no match for the wishes of US hegemony.
The masters of the universe have undoubtedly laid down the law to both the government of Greece and the EU. Naturally favoring the wishes of the Troika, it could never be otherwise.
The level of personal and political conviction required to openly defy the masters of the universe has not reached critical mass in Greece, period.
In a recent article, Steve Keen replies in the comment section that not only is Yanis Varoufakis "on board" with MMT but that "he takes the MMT lead further than it has been developed by the MMT group itself".
See: http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevekeen/2015/01/31/my-friend-yanis-the-greek-minister-of-finance/3/
Greece and perhaps more to the point, Syriza, is simply no match for the wishes of US hegemony.
Not sure that this applies here. The US — Obama called Merkel — and the IMF (Lagarde) have lobbied hard to avoid a Grexit and get a plan that will actually help Greece. The EZ hardliners are stonewalling them and not just Germany. There's a lot of public resistance to helping Greece in addition to Ordoliberalism of the eurocrats.
Consensus is that if the US doesn't get it way, it is a slap in the face to Uncle Sam and reveals that Europe is asserting it against US wishes. US conservatives will jump on it as showing that Obama is a weak president who is undermining US power.
This is not going well for the US so far.
John,
Keen doenst get it either...
too much written from him that conflicts with it... once these people in the academe write something down they can never be seen to conflict with it... they at best can be seen spinning it to seem like "that's what I was saying all along..." (which is never true...)
same goes with the advisors, the student never can conflict with the advisor... the whole thing is corrupt...
John,
Bill Mitchell's book "Eurozone Dystopia" discusses Varoufakis' views, and Mitchell basically argues that Varoufakis subscribes to European groupthink. There may be some similarities in theoretical views on many topics, as MMT is within a broader post-Keynesian body of thought. But with regards to currency sovereignty, he's not on the same page.
YV is either a very confused bugger or is the creator of a new school of economic thought: the Marxist, post-MMT, deflationary, neo-feudal, European federalist school for global depression and absolute poverty. It's the kind of trendy-weird silliness Zizek would come up with.
Friendship has clouded the judgement of Keen and Galbraith. They just can't see that YV and more broadly Tsipras and Syriza are firm European federalists. Despite all the bluster, Syriza would rather hand Greece over to neo-Nazis than exit the euro.
It is clear now that the euro is fascism's greatest asset and Syriza are laying the ground for Golden Dawn.
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