Greece is the canary in the coal mine of modern hyper-capitalism. Throughout the “developed” world, elites and political leaders are following the same path, using a self-created financial crisis to institute a radical destruction of free societies and create an authoritarian “managed democracy” in their places. But the extremist measures being imposed on Greece are producing a furious reaction — and a recasting of old political realities in new forms — that could also prove to be a harbinger of the future.
Costas Douzinas gives this analysis in the Guardian:
Greece is split in two. On one side are politicians, bankers, tax evaders and media barons supporting the most class-driven, violent social and cultural restructuring western Europe has seen. The “other” Greece includes the overwhelming majority of the population. It was in evidence yesterday when up to 500,000 people took to the streets; the largest demonstration in living memory. The attempt to divide civil servants (ritually presented as lazy and corrupt) from private sector employees (the “tax evading” plumbers) has misfired. The only success the Papandreou government can boast is the abolition of the old right-left division – replaced by a divide between the elites and the people.
Douzinas points out that the government is using the crisis to impose radical changes — on behalf of the One-Percenters — which go goes far beyond the already draconian measures demanded by international lenders:
Yet a representative of [the] “troika” of lenders – the IMF, EU and European Central Bank – told a Greek newspaper that they did not demand the abolition of collective bargaining in the private sector, the one measure that has led to some opposition in the ruling party. Nor did the troika demand the wholesale change in university law. It is as if the Greek elites desired the debt to orchestrate the wholesale destruction of the welfare state and transfer of public assets to private hands …This government’s mission was to replace care for others with indifference, hospitality with exploitation. They failed, and now only a thick blue line separates the elite from the outraged people.
…Youth unemployment is soaring towards 50%; Greece will pay for decades for the destruction of a whole generation. The troika will stand accused of neocolonial arrogance. It is not necessary to know the Sisyphus myth to see that measures leading to -7% growth do not reduce the deficit. You don’t need to have read Plato to understand that halving salaries and pensions means people will not be able to pay exorbitant new taxes ….
Thursday’s demonstration ended tragically with the death of a trade-unionist. The last vestiges of governmental legitimacy are gone and the government will follow soon. The democratic deficit from which political systems suffer everywhere is irreversible in Greece. The responsibility of the “other” Greece is to devise a constitution of social justice and democracy for the 21st century. This is what Greece can offer to the world.