A question: perhaps nowhere is the interests of global capital better represented than in the IMF. If that’s a fair statement, what does history tell us about the choices of the IMF when it comes down to a choice between a victim defaulting or avoiding such default by easing off on austerity? You mentioned Greece. Against the face of formidable citizen protest the Greek govt is proposing not tax hikes or nationalisation but round after round of benefit cuts and privatisation. Germany (and Co) aren’t going to blink first, even if in the short-term a Greek default might set financiers back.
The ruling class leaders may not want a default, but if they got to severely kneecap the populace in the bargain, why wouldn’t they take it?
The ruling class has ideological commitments too and are not profit-maximising automatons, I would say - consider Doug and Seth’s post y’day about Bill Gates’s propaganda in favour of KIPP when in fact KIPP is using more money, *his* (Gates’s) money! (It is of course most likely true that their ideological commitments *are* profit-maximising in the long-term).
—ravi