Would Greece be any worse off if it's "Socialist" government had defied the IMF?

"Austerity" was in the offing no matter which way things went in Greece.  If there's no money, there's no money.  But by choosing default, Greece could have come up with Greek solutions, and rebuilt an economy within a decade or two.  The end result would not resemble what Greece was before; but then, that wasn't based in reality anyway.

By choosing the bailout, they secure themselves the same position they occupied when they were part of the Ottoman Empire; just as when Ireland went the bailout route, they secured for themselves the same position they occupied under the British Empire. 

Other people that are not Greek, that are not Irish, now dictate domestic policy to puppet legislatures. 

Don't think that it stops here.  The war against democracy, the war against freedom that the Financial industry has declared on us is well underway and we are losing it-- not just in Greece, Ireland and shortly Portugal, but everywhere.

Or, a lot of people would be working for a lot less.  That's not much different from the bailout "alternative".  The bailout isn't there to keep people being paid or employed, it's sole purpose is to protect the financial world. 

There's no easy way out; the real choice is between poverty without self determination, which translates to permanent poverty, or poverty with self determination where there is light at the end of the tunnel.

The five foundational beliefs that keep the middleclass on the side of their masters, even where they/we pay the lions share of the bills for steadily diminishing returns, are the firm beliefs:

that (A) public deficits/debt are exactly like private ones (except perhaps in bankruptcy);

that (B) "we" are (all) "overtaxed";

that (C) the "free market" (and those who manage and/or invest in it) is a more objective and "efficient" arbitor of wealth creation(distribution) than government (always);

therefore (D) wealth can and should be managed (exactly) the same in the public sector as (it's supposed to) in the "private";

because (E) money/credit is more real than that which it's supposed to represent -the core monetarist doctrine/superstition-- "profit" being the only measure of economic health.  

Until they/we seriously start to question all of this we'll remain struggling little bugs circling around a side eddy in a drying tidal pool, while the real economy rushes by us.  The three biggest blockages IMV are the debt/taxation/self regulating market mantras.  All three have to be undermined and overturned in the public consciousness before we can regain some control over our collective productivity and spending.

Post-Marxist dogma won't help however.  Most of it's almost irrelevant to where we are now.

ikosmos wrote:

600 Billion Euros of money of Greek capitalists in Swiss banks isnt' dogma ... it's a fact. And that's almost twice as much as the Greek debt.

Quote:

The line of struggle of the KKE and the class oriented movement has made a special contribution to the conflict with capital and the anti-people policy as it clarified from the beginning that the crisis, the deficit and the debt are a product of capitalist development, of the strategy that supports the monopoly groups and that the workers are not responsible for it. More and more working people see this fact today when they compare the state debt (350 billions Euro) with the deposits of the Greek capitalists which in Switzerland amount to 600 billions Euro.

Of course, the Greek social democrats, like some in this country no doubt, would rather just open fire on peaceful protestors. "Blame the Communists!"

 

Stop blaming "social democrats" when you apparently don't even know what the term means; that "money" is real only because we agree to it.

Jots on paper. This is all about paper.

It seems to me that Argentina defaulted some time back and nothing happened. I hear they're doing okay right now, relatively speaking.

All this nonsense about paper. Screw the bankers and their paper. The real issues are human beings, human lives, the lives of old people and babies, young people with children to raise.. etc. Bankers already have too much. Simple. Very very very very simple. Everyone who talks about this phony "debt" is saying that the pointless, sadistic greed of parasite billionaires (trillionaires by now) is more important than the lives of human babies and loving old grandmothers.

Is that how you feel or not? Me not.

Fidel Castro before he retired, and others, have addressed this issue of defaulting on the debt created by big business regimes around the world for a long time. It's a political question although some people, babblers included, would like to remove it from the political realm in the same way that some people would like to remove the actions of the police and the military from political discussion.

Funny how that is ...

Quote:

Of course, the Greek social democrats, like some in this country no doubt, would rather just open fire on peaceful protestors. "Blame the Communists!"

Erik Redburn wrote:

Stop blaming "social democrats" when you apparently don't even know what the term means; that "money" is real only because we agree to it.

Every analyst I have read refers to PASOK as a social democratic party.  they were founded as a socialist party but as they approached power they morphed into a social democratic party.

It was the "socialist"  party that led the Greeks into the EU and ultimately within a couple of decades to the inevitable second class nation status.

Quote:

PASOK’s economic policies and political scandals helped end its eight years of rule in 1989. Nevertheless, four years later the party returned to power, despite the manifest ill health of Papandreou. In 1996, following a lengthy sojourn in the hospital, Papandreou resigned as prime minister in favour of  Konstantinos Simitis, a leading figure in the technocratic, social democratic wing of the party. Later that year, after Papandreou’s death, Simitis was elected party leader and began to consolidate his power. Under his leadership, PASOK strongly favoured joining the European Monetary System (EMS) and having the drachma, Greece’s currency (and Europe’s oldest), replaced with the euro, the currency unit of the EU. In 2000, despite the implementation of austerity measures to align Greece’s economy with those of its EU partners—policies that aroused opposition within the populist wing of PASOK and within the country—PASOK narrowly won reelection. Greece subsequently qualified for the euro, and in 2002 it became Greece’s official currency.

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/441273/Panhellenic-Socialist-M...

Northern Shoveler wrote:

Quote:

Of course, the Greek social democrats, like some in this country no doubt, would rather just open fire on peaceful protestors. "Blame the Communists!"

Erik Redburn wrote:

Stop blaming "social democrats" when you apparently don't even know what the term means; that "money" is real only because we agree to it.

Every analyst I have read refers to PASOK as a social democratic party.  they were founded as a socialist party but as they approached power they morphed into a social democratic party.

It was the "socialist"  party that led the Greeks into the EU and ultimately within a couple of decades to the inevitable second class nation status.

Quote:

PASOK’s economic policies and political scandals helped end its eight years of rule in 1989. Nevertheless, four years later the party returned to power, despite the manifest ill health of Papandreou. In 1996, following a lengthy sojourn in the hospital, Papandreou resigned as prime minister in favour of  Konstantinos Simitis, a leading figure in the technocratic, social democratic wing of the party. Later that year, after Papandreou’s death, Simitis was elected party leader and began to consolidate his power. Under his leadership, PASOK strongly favoured joining the European Monetary System (EMS) and having the drachma, Greece’s currency (and Europe’s oldest), replaced with the euro, the currency unit of the EU. In 2000, despite the implementation of austerity measures to align Greece’s economy with those of its EU partners—policies that aroused opposition within the populist wing of PASOK and within the country—PASOK narrowly won reelection. Greece subsequently qualified for the euro, and in 2002 it became Greece’s official currency.

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/441273/Panhellenic-Socialist-M...

Please read my other post about labels, versus observable behaviour.  I probaby dislike the current crop of "socia democratic" leaders more than you do   The EU wasn't a bad idea either, originally, much more balanced than NAFTA, but it too has been coopted by small minds with no vision beyond their own narrow ambitions and little accountibility.

"Would Greece be any worse off....."

I remember a chap in the trucking business who expanded his business by purchasing 8 new trucks from a major dealer with in-house financing.
The economy worsened and he got behind in his payments. The arrears grew and grew but the dealer didn't repossess the trucks.
The chap sold his house and moved in with his girlfriend,giving the proceeds from his house sale to the dealer for arrears payments. The day after he gave the dealer the money, the dealer repo-ed the trucks. The dealer couldn't touch the chap's house but waited patiently for the fellow to pay something rather than simply taking the trucks back.

This is the situation the Greeks are in. After they acquiece to all the banksters'demands,hand over all their assets at fire sale prices, receive 'bailouts' at usurious interest rates, they will still default because the bailouts only address the symptoms and not the structural deficit that is the underlying problem.

These bailouts are only offered to protect EU banks and especially pension funds. Protection not from Greek bond losses but from the reality that its all a Ponzi scheme run by the banksters and their political stooges.

Greece's economy will shrink by more than 5 percent this year, topping earlier projections, the country's finance minister told business people in this northern Greek city where the prime minister will speak about the economy later on Saturday.

. . . .

The Greek economy shrank at an annual 7.3 percent clip in the second quarter, after an 8.1 percent contraction in the first three months of 2011.

Austerity measures, including higher indirect taxes and cuts in public sector pay and pensions, have hurt economic activity.

Mr. Venizelos was keen to send a message to Greece's euro zone partners, who are growing frustrated with its backsliding, that Athens is fully committed to carrying out agreed economic reforms.

Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany reiterated on Saturday that Greece had to meet conditions laid out by the European Union, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund to receive the aid it is seeking.

. . . .

"The most clear message Greece is sending right now," Mr. Venizelos said, "is that we are absolutely determined, without weighing any political cost, to fully meet our obligations versus are institutional partners."

"We must prove all those who say that Greece can't, or doesn't have the will, is a pariah or does not deserve to be in the euro, wrong" he said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/11/business/greek-economy-will-shrink-mor...

BTW, my comments about Greek Social Democrats opening fire on peaceful protestors was based on the fact that the Greek regime DID open fire on such protestors.

Anyway, here's a genuine left analysis of the crisis and the debt issue in Greece and the EU generally.

Quote:

1.The unprecedented escalation of the offensive against their income and rights which the people are experiencing is not due to the real inflation of the public debt. The political line of the "continuous memorandum" is being implemented in all the EU member-states. This leads the people to both relative and absolute destitution and ensures cheaper labour power, accelerates the accumulation and concentration of capital.

2.The workers are not responsible and must not pay for the public debt. The propaganda of the capitalist power attempts to obscure the real causes of the inflation of the public debt such as:

3. t has been demonstrated that the anti-people political line of bourgeois power in Greece, in coordination with the strategy of the EU, amongst other things has increased the debt burden of the country.

4. While the workers are already on the road to bankruptcy, relative and absolute destitution, the member-states of the EU and the strong groups from the financial sector are negotiating for a course of controlled bankruptcy for the Greek economy.

 

5. In any case, the workers can expect nothing positive from the outcome of this particular struggle. Whatever the result of this struggle between various sections of capital and imperialist states, the offensive of the ruling class will continue and escalate in order to ensure cheaper labour power, the acceleration of the restructurings and privatizations, the selling off of public property to the monopoly groups.

Especially in relation to the repaying of the public debt the various bourgeois proposals only differ as to when and how the workers will foot the bill.

...The time has come for the capitalist class and its political staff that use the bogey of bankruptcy to feel true fear. If the government actually resorted to borrowing because it cannot pay salaries and pensions then the overthrow of the monopolies power must be accelerated. The development path of the people's economy, socialism can pay salaries and pensions utilizing the rich domestic natural resources, canceling the debt and establishing international agreements of mutual benefit through the disengagement from the EU and NATO.

So there is a solution: "disengagement from the EU and cancellation of the debt with people's power".

It is time for the labour movement to come together with the radical movement of the self-employed and the farmers with a line of struggle that will have as its final outcome the sweeping away of the rotten and bankrupted system of exploitation.

..welcome alexgr! and don't worry about text mistakes. babble is full of them. :)

Thank you, Alexgr, for that insight.

hmm. I've been impressed with the KKE materials on educational "reform" (ie, neoliberal atrocities) in the EU and I've learned a lot from reading their policy documents. I actually like their clarity on what distinguishes them from EU social democrats and other "socialist" groupings.

I'm a little surprised by the STalinist epithet. Years ago, I met a Greek Communist who, upon discovering I was a CAnadian, told me in no uncertain terms that - unlike the Greek CP - the Canadian CP was an unreconstructed Stalinist party.

I don't agree with the idea that everything about the old Soviet bloc socialism was bad. However, there are efforts to make this a kind of litmus test, even of legality, in the EU, and that's not acceptable. Anyway, welcome and please stick around. Another European view would be welcome here.

I didn't say that everything was bad. USSR had many beneficial labor laws (such as compolsury work of 7 hours per day) and there was small unemployment rates. But in the fact it was an one-party state without political freedom. And also an elite of party members had too many priveleges to the detriment of the majority of people.

Of course, this didn't happen only in USSR. Multy-party capitalist countries has also great gaps among their citizens. And yes in the post-Soviet Russia the gap was increased rapidly after the clearance sale of public property at few ''oligarchs''

I don't understand what exactly you wrote about Canada,could you please explain it ?