> I concur. Anyway, in the 1970s Greece was along with Italy and Portugal
> part of that "unsettled" zone of European capitalism...
> despite democratization, not much has changed, right? The CP is still
> wedded to Stalinist orthodoxy and is drab and conservative, but still has
> some real roots in the working class and trade union support. I'm not sure
> about the current political orientation of SYRIZA, but compared to the rest
> of Europe they are quite vibrant. I'm also not sure if all that
> "petit-bourgeois rock throwing" pushed people towards the "law and order",
> but from the last election results it didn't seem that way. I don't see
> much of an alternative opening up in Greece. If shit hits the fan and the
> center-left can't impose austerity and there aren't forces strong enough to
> the left to really rock the boat and the country enters into another prolong
> period of chaos.... what happens? Chaos until the right wins a mandate in
> the next elections?
Guy Rundle, an Australian writer I happen to think is a legend, is in Athens and has been writing daily reports for Crikey, unfortunately subscriber-only. But you might find this summary from the Overland site interesting, he comes to similar conclusions to yours.
http://web.overland.org.au/?p=3605
[...]
For Synapsismos, the first pro-European Greek party, the shift is particularly piquant. Papandreou, who stared down the PASOK old guard by resigning his leadership during Opposition, and then recontesting it, has effectively transplanted much of their argument to the heart of his party. The party can justly say that the EU/euro – with its unelected central bank dictating policy – is not the social Europe they had in mind in the 1970s. But as it's the only Europe on offer, their critique of PASOK, and their strong association with the now-abated anti-globalisation movement of the 2000s has left Synapsismos with no clear message to give.
But their problems are nothing compared to the KKE, whose Leninism was reinforced by the departure of Synapsismos in the first place. On the one hand, they may be in a position to gain some support from the spectacle soon to take place – ECB regulators poring over Greece's financial records like administrators over a bankrupt company, and an effective surrender of Greek sovereignty over its own economic policy to the EU as a condition of being bailed-out (or gaining guarantees for its repayments). They can charge that the crisis does not originate from an inefficient public service and dodgy finances, as much as it does from the huge interest rates Greece now has to pay on its loans, product of the financial markets talking up the prospect of a Greek default in late 2009.
Yet absent of any other model of development aside from international financing, many Greeks – including many who would have been left nationalists a generation ago – appear willing to accept whatever conditions Europe dishes out. Entry into the eurozone made capital cheaper, and so the change in Greek everyday life was rapid and noticeable for many. The KKE's manifesto on its website is out of another era, angrily defending the developmental record of the USSR, and reflecting at length on the nature of need and desire, work, labour and life activity. Everyone else – well, those who can afford it – is shopping at Marks and Spencers.
But the Left's turn may yet come – and that is what makes Greece so fascinating. Papandreou's decision to use the metaphor of the 'weak link' in affirming a positive vision of European capitalism was a canny way of preventing it being used against him, and soon. For the plain fact is that the form of development that euro-isation promoted has been uneven in the extreme, emphasising consumption and doing damage to core export industries and tourism through price rises.
If Greece is now restructured – ie has an austerity program imposed – by the ECB, then the economy as a whole will be deflated, while consumption continues, exacerbating inequality, and detaching many people from the smooth PASOK vision. Whether the beneficiaries of that would be the KKE, or the hard-right anti-immigrant Orthodoxy Party remains to be seen. If Greece is simply a laggard on an existing European trajectory, it is more likely to be the latter.
However, the KKE is betting that this isn't the case, and that the 'weak link' argument is more than mere rhetoric. If they're correct then Greece is not on the European trajectory to a post-political malaise, but a point at which the contradictions of a consumer-reliant orientation of development, a reliance on finance capital, come into contact with a populace that has not yet lost its conception of class contradiction, and suspicion of the state.
Indeed, it is this aspect of Greece that Papandreou is playing up – Greece as the unpredictable wildman, the Zorba of Europe, all the while believing that it is not the case, that it has been tamed. Central to this were the days of demonstrating, occupation and rioting that consumed the country in December 2009, after the death of a 15 year old, Alexander Grigoropoulous, shot by police in Exarchia. The demonstrations and the killing itself had numerous facets, not least a major generational divide in the country, which has a soaring youth unemployment rate (around 25%), while many in an earlier generation enjoy the projected jobs that are contributing to the current deficit – and enjoying the new fruits of consumption in the euro economy. But the events were discontinuous with the wider struggle, rejected by some on the left as a disorganised tantrum.
[...]