[lbo-talk] [pen-l] Varoufakis' new memoir

[James Creegan]

I read both Varoufakis's memoir and the LRB review. What strikes me is that, just as Tsipras prolonged negotiations in the vain hope that the Troika would make concessions, so Varoufakis clung to Tsipras in the equally vain hope that he would begin show some backbone, after it became more than clear that he had none. There is throughout the book almost no mention of any effort to mobilize the Greek people against the Eurocrats, mainly I think because there was none.

Jim Creegan 

 

 
-----Original Message-----
From: Marv Gandall <marvgand2 at gmail.com>
To: Socialist Project <SocialistProject at yahoogroups.ca>; Pen-L Economics <pen-l at mail.csuchico.edu>; LBO <lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org>
Sent: Thu, Feb 22, 2018 2:48 pm
Subject: [pen-l] Varoufakis' new memoir

Worth reading in the latest New York Review of Books - economic historian Adam Tooze on Yanis Varoufakis’ account of Syriza’s capitulation to the troika.

As Tooze notes, “it was clear that the creditors had no intention of making the least concession. Why did the Greek government not simply walk away?

“Why did it stay at the table in a doomed attempt to reason with the Eurogroup? 

“Given his identification with the left, Varoufakis is haunted by these questions. 

“It is the struggle to answer them that makes his frank memoir not only engrossing but an important contribution to the library of modern politics, as a case study in the limits of radicalism and the forces that hold the status quo in place.”

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2018/03/08/yanis-varoufakis-modern-greek-tragedy/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=NYR%20Varoufakis%20Carrington%20Black%20Panther&utm_content=NYR%20Varoufakis%20Carrington%20Black%20Panther+CID_caf75038ff25213c0caf63226b4f932a&utm_source=Newsletter&utm_term=A%20Modern%20Greek%20Tragedy

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