al8
6th March 2010, 03:53
I have quickly translated a rumination (http://www.eggin.is/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1199&Itemid=9) by an Icelandic comrade I found great agreement with. It touches on the most relevant issues in Icelandic politics at the moment.
A ponderation on IceSave and the class struggle
In the class struggle of Iceland today the main enemy for the greater bulk of the populace are the financial capitalists. The antagonism between them and the general public takes on many guises. There are the domestic financial capitalists that fight tooth and nail against a correction of house loans, since a correction would severely diminish the lender institutions money stock. Its the domestic and foreign financial capitalists that have grabbed up a big part of this lands banking system - again, mind you - after the the State had undeservedly cut it loose. International finance capital - often referred to as "claimants" - are the ones that called for the International Monetary Fund to come to our land to organize the exaction. Its predominantly the domestic financial capitalists that use and have as their base of operation the pension funds. The pension funds, it is important to note, are part of finance capital. And yes, another acute point of conflict is the IceSave-scandal.
It seems as if every other blogger has become a specialist in the inns and outs of legal technicalities and international state contracts. Only very few of these learned bloggers write about the core issue involved, namely justice; It is unjust that the Icelandic public pay for financial adventurist. Thats why its unacceptable. The discussion is on wrong footing whilst it revolves around anything other than that. Legal ploys are secondary. Whats important is whether the financial capitalists achieve their objectives on this front and others, or whether their schemes get halted and defense be turned to offense.
This question is about who has the power in the land. When they get preferential treatment and not the households, when the demands of foreign "professional investors" are prioritized over the funding of the health system, when the government awaits in fear and despair over whether the International Monetary Fund bothers to review this or that plan - then there simply is no doubt about who has the power. And why should this ever have changed? What makes people think this had already been done away with? The "Pot'n'Pan-Revolution" did not revolve around ousting them from power, but merely change what persons had a seat on their executive board, the government.
The current government of Iceland is a prime example of at least two age old truths: That the state is the executive board of the ruling class, and that social democrats are capitalism's main pillar of support.
When a government so composed as the current government comes to power by acknowledged paths engineered by the ruling class to serve the ruling class, and would never consider to seek out political support from anyone else but from the ruling class, then it's simply not in it's power to change course to any real extent. The government could then supposedly get of the hook easy for it incompetence - "Yes, we just can't do it" - but thats not the case. The ambition of taking another course than to serve financial capital isn't even there to begin with, because naturally it hasn't befallen them social democrats their historic lot to restrict capital, but rather to restrict the people when the going gets tough.
In the IceSave-scandal the public got robbed by the financial capitalists. Statehood in this matter is secondary, both classes are transnational in nature. Instead of taking the men of Landsbanki personally to justice, an attempt at the coffers of the Icelandic state was launched and it demanded that "we" take responsibility for the heist. But it was not "we", it was the financial capitalists. The owners and CEOs of Landsbanki had a lot more in common with the owners and CEOs of other western private banks than ever the general populace of Iceland. They belonged to another class, a ruling class, the class with power, a class of culprits. Most Icelanders are natural allies of most Brits and Dutchmen: We are everyday, working people who got fleeced. It simply can't be normal to presume that some victims take all the burdens while some others get away clean and free - the word "others" of course referring mainly to financial capital.
When the claimants in the IceSave-case, the governments of the Brits and Duchmen (that is to say the executive boards of the British and Dutch financial capitalists), trample on the Icelandic state, whats the response? Resistance? Resistance seems to come from almost everybody but the government. The outrageous demands of finance capital that Icelandic taxpayers take responsibility for the collapse of Landsbanki's fraudulent scheme are unacceptable. If the government is game for talks based on unacceptable premises, it can't be attributed to anything else but the government serving some nefarious interests. But what other options does it have in this position? Should the government challenge those financial capitalists to a duel to the death?
The current government of Iceland will not challenge Capital to a fight to the death because it was created to serve it. The words are empty and have a hollow sound should the government be labeled as "leftist" or thought to be building welfare. The course will ever be set by a ruling class, and in our class divided society it is the capitalist class that rules and so shall it be until the people take power in its own hands. It will become ever more evident that such a course of events are a realistic possibility. I don't say this is the only possibility - there certainly is the possibility that Iceland might become a slave colony for finance capital as long as the Island holds a populace - but its the only acceptable possibility.
The proletarian class and the capitalist class appear most clearly today as borrowers and loan sharks - yes, their existential basis are mutually exclusive. Either one needs to die out. The financial capitalists will certainly not die out without a fight. But will the public do?
A ponderation on IceSave and the class struggle
In the class struggle of Iceland today the main enemy for the greater bulk of the populace are the financial capitalists. The antagonism between them and the general public takes on many guises. There are the domestic financial capitalists that fight tooth and nail against a correction of house loans, since a correction would severely diminish the lender institutions money stock. Its the domestic and foreign financial capitalists that have grabbed up a big part of this lands banking system - again, mind you - after the the State had undeservedly cut it loose. International finance capital - often referred to as "claimants" - are the ones that called for the International Monetary Fund to come to our land to organize the exaction. Its predominantly the domestic financial capitalists that use and have as their base of operation the pension funds. The pension funds, it is important to note, are part of finance capital. And yes, another acute point of conflict is the IceSave-scandal.
It seems as if every other blogger has become a specialist in the inns and outs of legal technicalities and international state contracts. Only very few of these learned bloggers write about the core issue involved, namely justice; It is unjust that the Icelandic public pay for financial adventurist. Thats why its unacceptable. The discussion is on wrong footing whilst it revolves around anything other than that. Legal ploys are secondary. Whats important is whether the financial capitalists achieve their objectives on this front and others, or whether their schemes get halted and defense be turned to offense.
This question is about who has the power in the land. When they get preferential treatment and not the households, when the demands of foreign "professional investors" are prioritized over the funding of the health system, when the government awaits in fear and despair over whether the International Monetary Fund bothers to review this or that plan - then there simply is no doubt about who has the power. And why should this ever have changed? What makes people think this had already been done away with? The "Pot'n'Pan-Revolution" did not revolve around ousting them from power, but merely change what persons had a seat on their executive board, the government.
The current government of Iceland is a prime example of at least two age old truths: That the state is the executive board of the ruling class, and that social democrats are capitalism's main pillar of support.
When a government so composed as the current government comes to power by acknowledged paths engineered by the ruling class to serve the ruling class, and would never consider to seek out political support from anyone else but from the ruling class, then it's simply not in it's power to change course to any real extent. The government could then supposedly get of the hook easy for it incompetence - "Yes, we just can't do it" - but thats not the case. The ambition of taking another course than to serve financial capital isn't even there to begin with, because naturally it hasn't befallen them social democrats their historic lot to restrict capital, but rather to restrict the people when the going gets tough.
In the IceSave-scandal the public got robbed by the financial capitalists. Statehood in this matter is secondary, both classes are transnational in nature. Instead of taking the men of Landsbanki personally to justice, an attempt at the coffers of the Icelandic state was launched and it demanded that "we" take responsibility for the heist. But it was not "we", it was the financial capitalists. The owners and CEOs of Landsbanki had a lot more in common with the owners and CEOs of other western private banks than ever the general populace of Iceland. They belonged to another class, a ruling class, the class with power, a class of culprits. Most Icelanders are natural allies of most Brits and Dutchmen: We are everyday, working people who got fleeced. It simply can't be normal to presume that some victims take all the burdens while some others get away clean and free - the word "others" of course referring mainly to financial capital.
When the claimants in the IceSave-case, the governments of the Brits and Duchmen (that is to say the executive boards of the British and Dutch financial capitalists), trample on the Icelandic state, whats the response? Resistance? Resistance seems to come from almost everybody but the government. The outrageous demands of finance capital that Icelandic taxpayers take responsibility for the collapse of Landsbanki's fraudulent scheme are unacceptable. If the government is game for talks based on unacceptable premises, it can't be attributed to anything else but the government serving some nefarious interests. But what other options does it have in this position? Should the government challenge those financial capitalists to a duel to the death?
The current government of Iceland will not challenge Capital to a fight to the death because it was created to serve it. The words are empty and have a hollow sound should the government be labeled as "leftist" or thought to be building welfare. The course will ever be set by a ruling class, and in our class divided society it is the capitalist class that rules and so shall it be until the people take power in its own hands. It will become ever more evident that such a course of events are a realistic possibility. I don't say this is the only possibility - there certainly is the possibility that Iceland might become a slave colony for finance capital as long as the Island holds a populace - but its the only acceptable possibility.
The proletarian class and the capitalist class appear most clearly today as borrowers and loan sharks - yes, their existential basis are mutually exclusive. Either one needs to die out. The financial capitalists will certainly not die out without a fight. But will the public do?