Left reformism, Syriza and the revolutionary strategy

[Kill all the fetuses!]

There are debates within the circles of revolutionaries about how revolutionaries should relate to left reformist political parties, if not on Revleft, so at least elsewhere (e.g. in the ICJ). I think it would make sense to actually have an honest debate about this particular issue here, because the insults and platitudes aren't helpful. Mind you, I am fully aware that I haven't been helpful at all with regards to the issue (I need to calm the fuck down), but I will try to be now. What I want to do in particular is to analyse how revolutionaries should relate to left reformist parties, but I want to do that in the context of a particular situation, i.e. Greece and having Syriza in the government with everything it entails.

From a revolutionary perspective, it seems clear to me that Syriza and the more radicals elements of it have made many errors (not from Syriza's perspective, mind you) up until the present point. The biggest one being actually going through the road of parliamentarianism with everything that it entailed - including playing down the role of the movements, deliberately dampening them, not radicalising sowing illusions in parliamentary activity etc etc. So in other words Syriza has played a "counter-revolutionary" role in so far as it wanted to win the parliamentary majority at the cost of social movements and further radicalization of working-class, drawing clear class distinctions etc etc. I think it is clear that from a revolutionary perspective that what we need is a (1) revolutionary movement, (2) party/organization/whatever and (3) a programme to be implemented. However, what's done is done and now the question is what a revolutionary should deal with the situation at hand as it is right now, in other words, how the revolutionary requirements ought to be achieved within the current circumstances.

Current Syriza's leadership are doing precisely everything to make it not happen. It not only agreed in implementing virtually the same austerity as previous government, but more importantly, it deliberately lies about it, presenting it as a victory for Greeks. In this way it distorts the reality and ultimately says to the workers: "you don't need to organise, you don't need to create a revolutionary movement, because we are actually taking care of it very well", while in reality they aren't and only sow illusions in the parliamentary activity when it is clear that it doesn't work. So current Syriza's leadership is doing everything it can to not make revolutionary movement come about and it is precisely why no revolutionary should view current Syriza's leadership supportively. Mind you, considering current Syriza's stance, it doesn't even make sense to support its leadership even on the grounds of social-democracy, i.e. bettering workers conditions now etc, because it doesn't do that, it is doing precisely the opposite with all the harmful ideological effects that it has.

In a sense this is almost precisely the grounds on which the Left Platform is critiquing the current leadership. It gives full and unconditional support to Syriza as a project, but critiques it precisely in that it acts destructively towards itself, i.e. it can't last or win on its current course. What the Left Platform wants to do instead is to widen the grounds of the debate with the troika in bringing more options on the table, i.e. unilateral action, an option of Grexit etc. But more importantly, it claims to want to revitalise and revolutionise the working-class movements and help them built dual-power structures. However, as it exists now, with its unconditional support to Syriza's project, it only acts as a left apologist of Syriza's leadership and if it fails to win a majority and take the hands of the party in its own hands, then the situation will end the same way as it always end - with the left liquidating itself in the majority for the sake of preserving the party (e.g. UK's Labour Party, Tonny Benn etc). However, I am extremely critical of the Left Platform being able to achieve anything - I don't think the troika would grant it significant (if any) concessions at all and I don't really believe that it would help creating the movements at all. Or to be more specific - it might help to create movements, but only in so far as they are subordinate to the State and Syriza's leadership in particular.

So how I see this situation, I think one should be critically supportive of the Left Platform while recognising that most probably it will achieve nothing if it were to take the leadership of the party. I think so, because (1) the Left Platform would cease to play a role of leftist apologist within Syriza and so it would (2) expose more clearly the limitations of parliamentary activity (it doesn't work even if we widen the scope of the debate with the troika etc.).

But ultimately, as far as left reformism and Syriza in particular are concerned, I think that revolutionaries ought to take an independent role and try to establish the revolutionary movement, while being absolutely clear about the limitations of parliamentary activity. In that sense, the course of actions I would ideally want to see (however unlikely) is the Left Platform, together with other radical currents exposing the limitations of parliamentary activity, breaking away from Syriza's majority and taking an independent revolutionary role outside the parliament. I think it would have a strong position on the ground with its influence in society at large and its role in the labour-union movement, which coupled with Antarsya, which has strong labour-union and student presence, maybe even together with KKE (although I am not sure how it would react to such a situation), would make up a solid foundation for revolutionary activity.

I remember as well some members raising the argument that Syriza's victory might establish new political standards in Europe and Greece in particular, but I think it's obvious that this is a secondary argument in so far as it is contingent on Syriza being able to stay in power and resembling the left.

So precisely for all these reasons, I don't think a revolutionary should support Syriza (at best lending some support for Left Platform due to reasons already stated) and instead should be absolutely clear and unambiguous about having no illusions of parliamentary activity. Because from what Syriza is doing now, it is absolutely clear that it is not raising class consciousness of the workers, but in fact is doing precisely the opposite!

Anyway, please share your thoughts and as far as I will be engaging in this debate, I will try to remain civil and so let's keep it that way, shall we?

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

OK, let's do this.



From a revolutionary perspective, it seems clear to me that Syriza and the more radicals elements of it have made many errors (not from Syriza's perspective, mind you) up until the present point.
The biggest one being actually going through the road of parliamentarianism with everything that it entailed - including playing down the role of the movements, deliberately dampening them, not radicalising sowing illusions in parliamentary activity etc etc. [/QUOTE]

This all really depends on your perspective. If you are a revolutionary who does not accept that there is any legitimacy to bourgeois parliaments, then you will - rightly - never accept the electoral path as an acceptable strategy. If you do not believe that revolution is possible in the short- or medium-term, then it is possible that, whilst understanding the very weak link between the electoral path and a true workers' democracy, you may be able to support the electoral path, in the medium term.

What I would say is unacceptable is to cry 'socialist revolution' whilst in reality taking reformist actions. However, there is certainly more legitimacy in the more transparent strategy of enabling reforms because there is a complete lack of opportunity for more revolutionary actions at this time. I think as long as one is honest about one's intentions, then it is really difficult to critique someone in terms of 'mistakes', because according to their own path they are taking the right actions. SYRIZA - I would hope - is not seen as a revolutionary socialist movement, and therefore it would be unfair to judge their actions by the criteria of social revolution.


So in other words Syriza has played a "counter-revolutionary" role in so far as it wanted to win the parliamentary majority at the cost of social movements and further radicalization of working-class, drawing clear class distinctions etc etc.

Didn't the term counter-revolutionary originate in the midst of the Bolshevik revolution, when certain reactionary elements were attempting to counter revolution? Seen in this context, it is impossible to label SYRIZAs role in Greece as 'counter-revolutionary', since even if SYRIZA did not exist, there would be no social revolution in Greece. I agree that there are probably short-term disadvantages in the electoral path in terms of further political consciousness of workers, and the obvious lack of ability of a national government in a capitalist state to draw clear class distinctions. Again, however, we must be clear that SYRIZA is by no means a revolutionary organisation and thus cannot - and should not - be judged by revolutionary criteria.



I think it is clear that from a revolutionary perspective that what we need is a (1) revolutionary movement, (2) party/organization/whatever and (3) a programme to be implemented.

The trouble is that we - myself included - have been preaching (and I use the word preaching very deliberately!) this to other communists, to reformists, to the non-politicised wider working class, for a long time now, and there is little evidence of this strategy's success. I certainly agree that a movement for revolutionary change is a pre-requisite for initiating revolutionary change itself (that much should be obvious!), but the extent to which we should fixate on parties as organisations, and the drafting and re-drafting of political programmes, is really debatable - there is little evidence that parties and programmes are popular or relevant in contemporary terms, and little evidence of the long-term viability of the 'Communist Party' as having a leading role in historical revolutions.
However, what's done is done and now the question is what a revolutionary should deal with the situation at hand as it is right now, in other words, how the revolutionary requirements ought to be achieved within the current circumstances.


Current Syriza's leadership are doing precisely everything to make it not happen. It not only agreed in implementing virtually the same austerity as previous government, but more importantly, it deliberately lies about it, presenting it as a victory for Greeks.

Again, though I don't disagree that SYRIZA essentially blinked first at the bailout negotiations and then, factually speaking, Tsipras did present this as a 'victory' for Greeks, this involves a question of perspectives. Firstly, no political party, or movement, or politician, is ever going to come home after such negotiations and announce 'defeat'. All they can do is spin it as victory, if only for morale and, more cynically, to shore up political support. Viewing politics more cynically, one could say that this tactic was successful, given the increase in support for SYRIZA in the days after the bailout negotiations were concluded.


In this way it distorts the reality and ultimately says to the workers: "you don't need to organise, you don't need to create a revolutionary movement, because we are actually taking care of it very well", while in reality they aren't and only sow illusions in the parliamentary activity when it is clear that it doesn't work.

This is a fair point and it is the job of all communists, and also those within SYRIZAs Left Platform, to continue to push back against the leadership's obvious and predictable attempts to suppress internal party democracy, and the wider, active political participation of Greek workers.


So current Syriza's leadership is doing everything it can to not make revolutionary movement come about and it is precisely why no revolutionary should view current Syriza's leadership supportively.

This is a non-sequitor, though. You say - correctly - that SYRIZA is dampening revolutionary consciousness through pursuing a parliamentary strategy, but it by no means follows that the party's leadership is doing everything it can to not make revolutionary movement come about, and therefore, it doesn't follow that "no revolutionary should view current SYRIZAs leadership supportively." Rather, SYRIZAs leadership is doing some things to dampen revolutionary consciousness, therefore any support we hold for the wider party in its objectives to relieve the humanitarian crisis on the Greek workers should be supported only critically, with the understanding that the party's public face - its leadership in government - will end up making wrong decisions at times, as is the nature of participating in bourgeois government.
Mind you, considering current Syriza's stance, it doesn't even make sense to support its leadership even on the grounds of social-democracy, i.e. bettering workers conditions now etc, because it doesn't do that, it is doing precisely the opposite with all the harmful ideological effects that it has.


In a sense this is almost precisely the grounds on which the Left Platform is critiquing the current leadership. It gives full and unconditional support to Syriza as a project, but critiques it precisely in that it acts destructively towards itself, i.e. it can't last or win on its current course. What the Left Platform wants to do instead is to widen the grounds of the debate with the troika in bringing more options on the table, i.e. unilateral action, an option of Grexit etc. But more importantly, it claims to want to revitalise and revolutionise the working-class movements and help them built dual-power structures.

If this is the reality, I fully support Left Platform's endeavours.


However, as it exists now, with its unconditional support to Syriza's project, it only acts as a left apologist of Syriza's leadership and if it fails to win a majority and take the hands of the party in its own hands, then the situation will end the same way as it always end - with the left liquidating itself in the majority for the sake of preserving the party (e.g. UK's Labour Party, Tonny Benn etc).

I am not going to make the mistake of the 'optimists' in social democratic circles who think that social democracy can lead to a permanently more equitable and humane form of capitalism. Rather, critiquing this from a genuinely leftist point of view, it is odd to put forward a point of view that is supported only by:

a) an ancient example of a social democratic party whose existence was defined by its opposition to even including any revolutionary elements. Its very first foray into Parliamentary politics was a friendship pact with the liberal party that went way beyond the necessary alliance of SYRIZA and ANEL. SYRIZA, rather, was formed of genuinely radical and revolutionary parties, and therefore has the potential to be defined by its class identity, and its radical identity, whereas the Labour Party was always bound to capitalism by the pro-electoral stance of the whole party, and the naturally anti-revolutionary position of its affiliated trade unions;

b) reference to Tony Benn, who was a fairly centrist minister in a bourgeois government before a slight turn towards genuine social democracy later on in his political career. Again, his political philosophy was born out of a belief in the welfare state and in the sovereignty in parliament and, as such, his politics was never able to intersect with more radical or revolutionary ideas.


However, I am extremely critical of the Left Platform being able to achieve anything - I don't think the troika would grant it significant (if any) concessions at all and I don't really believe that it would help creating the movements at all. Or to be more specific - it might help to create movements, but only in so far as they are subordinate to the State and Syriza's leadership in particular.

This is a possibility but, for the reasons outlined above, I don't think that SYRIZAs situation is fully comparable to that of the Labour Party in the UK. It is, however, imperative that over the medium- to long-term, SYRIZAs left wing engages in genuine movement building amongst the wider working class rather than, as you say, subsuming itself into the party's parliamentary and, naturally, more moderate leadership.


So how I see this situation, I think one should be critically supportive of the Left Platform while recognising that most probably it will achieve nothing if it were to take the leadership of the party. I think so, because (1) the Left Platform would cease to play a role of leftist apologist within Syriza and so it would (2) expose more clearly the limitations of parliamentary activity (it doesn't work even if we widen the scope of the debate with the troika etc.).

I don't think that the Left Platform should aim to take control of SYRIZA. Dialectically, taking more power within the party actually makes revolutionary elements less powerful and less able to enact their revolutionary programme, since even 'revolutionary' individuals or tendencies would be shackled by the same responsibilities that any parliamentary party/leadership faces - the need to manage capital rather than destroy it.

Rather, moving away from the traditional party model, the Left Platform - and the extra-parliamentary movements in Greece [and across Europe], whilst propping up their party's leadership in government (to enact reforms; and to keep momentum), should try to build genuinely non-party movements according to the idea of pluralism - single issue movements joining with radicals, revolutionaries and intersecting with groups in society organising against social oppression. Only in this way can the wider goal of defeating capital be achieved. I think the wooly nature of my proposal probably outlines how unlikely this scenario is to come about any time soon, but I think that if we are serious about, one day, being strong enough to successfully defeat capital, then we need to come up with new ideas and get away from the tired, dead, 'vanguard party' model.


But ultimately, as far as left reformism and Syriza in particular are concerned, I think that revolutionaries ought to take an independent role and try to establish the revolutionary movement, while being absolutely clear about the limitations of parliamentary activity. In that sense, the course of actions I would ideally want to see (however unlikely) is the Left Platform, together with other radical currents exposing the limitations of parliamentary activity, breaking away from Syriza's majority and taking an independent revolutionary role outside the parliament. I think it would have a strong position on the ground with its influence in society at large and its role in the labour-union movement, which coupled with Antarsya, which has strong labour-union and student presence, maybe even together with KKE (although I am not sure how it would react to such a situation), would make up a solid foundation for revolutionary activity.

Ultimately, this would represent a massive strategic mistake. Whilst we can - and should - be critical of SYRIZAs actions in government where they are wrong, purposefully taking away SYRIZAs majority, and therefore place in government, would be seen by all - workers included - as a massive defeat for the left and would signal to capital that they can continue their onslaught against workers, because the workers' only representatives who hold power have been defeated by their own movement. Rather, as I said, I agree that the Left Platform do need to work with other groups and movements outside of parliament, but that this should be in addition to offering parliamentary support to SYRIZAs leadership as they enact their programme of reforms.


I remember as well some members raising the argument that Syriza's victory might establish new political standards in Europe and Greece in particular, but I think it's obvious that this is a secondary argument in so far as it is contingent on Syriza being able to stay in power and resembling the left.

If SYRIZAs victory can be followed by victory in Spain and even Portugal, then this would symbolise that there is space for the radical elements of the SYRIZAs and Podemos' (the equivalents of SYRIZAs left-wing) to attempt to ferment extra-parliamentary movements whilst their leaderships pass reforms in parliament.

[PhoenixAsh]

There is no alternative within Greece of a revolutionary party operating outside of parliament that can mobilize the working class. I can't remember a time there ever was. All political parties of left signature are thoroughly operating within the parliamentary system...either directly or through list alliances.

The largest "revolutionary" alternative to SYRIZA, KKE, (aside from the many, many other arguments against them) have operated within this system for decades themselves and even operated within bourgeois government. KKE also specifically excluded the possibility to create something resembling a coalition with whatever faction in SYRIZA. Not only this, but for decades KKE has rejected any form of lasting cooperation with any group that is not KKE. And other groups have not been much better...a little...but not much.

This means that any "change" from any of these parties will happen on a parliamentary level and their strength and ability to act will be achieved and ascertained through the ballot box. Expecting anything from these parties along the lines of establishing short term socialism within the current socio-political and economic realities is at best misguided.

Especially considering the lack of a politically conscious and above all goal oriented cohesive mass movement of workers. That class consciousness is only now beginning to form through years of struggle and incrementally increasing radicalisation. But the movements form around immediate necessities and worries and will, as historically always has been the case, first be canalized through the existing avenues...ie. parliament & ballot box...especially with the absence of any alternative outside of parliament.

And that is exactly the problem. The change needs to come from the mass movement and not from parties. All of those seem to be beholden to the bourgeois system even when they presuppose they want to overhtrow that very same system....and lacking enough political consciousness and cohesion within the workers movement...that...is not a thing we will see in the next months.

The concept of short term socialist revolution is therefore not a very realistic possibility within Greece at the moment. And that is not even speaking of such a revolutions survivability or the likelyhood it can enact economic revolution away from a capitalist mode of production.

Within this context ANY revolutionary party would have had the same issues to deal with as does SYRIZA and safe a few differences would have not been any more succesful in creating any form of change...as long as the choice is to stay within the EU.

Lets be clear...Greece has no friends anywhere. Especially not in Europe. Greece is also entirely dependend on international global markets for the essential resources it needs to be able to maintain living conditions and production capabilities. Both essential for any form of socialism to be even established. Unilateral abolition of debt would lead to collapse of the economy, civil war and/or occupation.

And this position poses a huge dilema.

Leaving the EU would collapse the Greek economy. Hence all the fuss about doing their level best to stay within the EU. Even our resident KKE supporters have repeatedly argued this to be disasterous. Yet the other side of the coin is that if Greece stays within the EU it has to play by EU rules...and will have to negotiated what room they have within the package of austerity measures and Troika/Institutions help.

SYRIZA....KKE....would not have made any difference. The outcome would be this very same package of concessions.

The solution to Greeces problem can not be found within Greece but on a wider European level. For that level to be reached the EU economy should take a huge hit. Such as one it will take when Greece defaults and leaves the EU. That will inspire more leftwing populist parties across Europe and a move away from traditional parties by the working class.

Because that is what the popular support for SYRIZA is: a move away from traditional parties and a sign of increasing class consciousness. Given the fact that workers still continue to operate politically and use unionization to pressure party leadership in Greece is another sign this is the case.

In the mean time though...these workers benefit from SYRIZA more than from PASOK or other parties who are more than willing to not negotiate at all and implement the most stringent of austerity measures unchecked.

...ok bored now...I go back to chatting with my friends at the bar.

[cyu]

Greece has no friends anywhere.

If poor people have no friends among the ruling class of other countries, that is expected.

[PhoenixAsh]

The idea is that European workers do not support Greek workers. But beyond that they not only do not support them, they feel that their current situation is the result of their own actions and that they themselves are to blame. In the case of a default...they would in majority support policy to go get the money back...including military intervention.

[Futility Personified]

So you can join in the big capitalist club if you play by their rules, the rules of international markets and the institutions that represent the business interests of well, business people, or you can wait until it all falls down because the masses have had enough, and just hope that enough of all that agitating, educating and organizing that you've been doing will be enough to move us towards a socialist future that is reasonably dandy.

I know Syriza only have a socialist bloc, as opposed to a socialist majority, but you'd expect a country so strapped for cash to start having some serious reappropriations going on. I'm guessing seizing the holdings of rich personae (which are realistically in foreign banks anyway) is illegal, according to EU law or somesuch? And i'm also guessing that there is something that might've been put forth to the greeks about the unacceptability of nationalizing successful businesses?

Revolution seems to be extremely abstract at the moment. Unless someone is going to start fight club, in which they can't promote it because everyone knows why, I don't see any positive way forward for the working class in interconnected economies.

[Creative Destruction]

Revolution seems to be extremely abstract at the moment. Unless someone is going to start fight club, in which they can't promote it because everyone knows why, I don't see any positive way forward for the working class in interconnected economies.

Most of the time revolution seems extremely abstract. It was when M&E were beginning their activism, until the late 1840s happened. It's not an excuse, in the face of current inertia, to just cede the ground to reformism, especially when there are highly volatile things ongoing in society currently.

[cyu]

they would in majority support policy to go get the money back...including military intervention.

Lots of non-capitalists also support capitalism, as well as racism, and support imperialist war as well (though perhaps unlike the ruling class, are fooled into thinking it's not imperialism). I merely see that part of the standard hurdles leftists have to overcome, something that we've had to deal with long before the EU, IMF, UN, and even many modern nations have existed. If the ruling class controls society by controlling the mass media and the military, then these are things leftists have always had to deal with, and expect would be obstacles to revolution - yet many revolutionaries have managed to overcome these obstacles, and more.

[FSL]

Syriza's left platform is also left-reformist if that means anything.
It doesn't matter at all that they wouldn't mind supporting a grexit which would free Greece from the troika because troika isn't Greece's problem.

Even if Greece went back to the drachma, the policy would stay the same. Greek capitalists would still want bigger profits.
The divinding line is labor-capital, socialism-capitalism. Not euro-drachma.
This is why the left platform can exist within Syriza, because they all agree on taking the capitalists' side and merely have different ideas on which currency serves Greece's capitalism better.

[PhoenixAsh]

That is a gross simplification of the EU and reducing the EU to merely a monetary union. It isn't and the main problems Greece has is that it has to abide by a whole range of treaties and obligations because of their membership of the EU..a lot of them setting the pace for the economic qualifiers Greece has to abide by and therefore the implementation of austerity measures to be able to reach them. Aside from that there is a whole range of economic limitations and restrictions a membership of the EU entails. Hence why the EU has such power over Greece and hence why half of Europe is panicking over a possible Grexit. And yes...it does matter.

So no....it is not merely a matter of which currency Greece uses.

[FSL]

it has to abide by a whole range of treaties and obligations
That's what's called a bourgeois constitution and every capitalist country has one along with a big set of bourgeois laws.
In every capitalist country there is the obligation to give a huge chunk of what
workers produce to capitalists. Both in and out of the EU.

After all in this time of imperialistic capitalism, no national capitalist economy stands on its own. Every country is looking to export/import capital. You don't want to be in the EU, you'll end up in the eurasian union.

[PhoenixAsh]

The EU is a specific entity with specific rules and regulations....and specific standards the member nations need to abide by. These go well beyond a monteray market and well beyond national bourgeois laws.

These rules and regulations govern the power the EU has within Greece. Since technically countries can leave the EU...leaving the EU would make these treaties absolete and end the economic restrictions and interference that form the basis of the Troika/Institutions. One of these regulations sets the countries debt percentage. Another sets the maximum expenditure surplus. And another regulates the maximum deficit. As you may have noticed all of the austerity measures applied in Greece are put implace to reach certain economic numbers within a specific amount of time. Those numbers are arbitrarily and above all politically (not economically...becaue there is no ecopnomical reason why deficit spending should be maxed at 3% rather than 3.1 or 4%) chosen by the EU and the member countries need to abide by them. The treaties also regulate when and how the EU and its institutions can step in and take over a countries economy, to what extend.

This is something different from a mere global monetary market or trade union.

Leaving the EU, as I argued in the other thread, would not suddenly make capitalism absolete. It does however mean that Greece does not have to abide by the political guidelines set by the EU. If the EU wants to extend influence it undoubtedly can through the global monetary market or through armed intervention but it can not judicially take over Greeces economy nor does it have direct legal influence on its institutions through existing membership obligations. In other words...Greece would be able to set its own pace.

This is, as argued in the other thread...and as you correctly mention here, not a solution to the Greek problem. It is however a huge blow to the EU economy. What it won't do is solve the fact that Greece is entirely dependend for essential resources on import. And for maintaining import levels it does need to act on the global monetary markets and it does need to maintain a capitalist or semi-capitalist mode of production to be able to do so (Hence why I argued socialism in the current context is not possible in one country (aside from a host of other reasons why that won't work)).

The effect of a Grexit however will be a huge blow to the EU economy AND EU cohesion..creating the need for measures within the EU to off set the loss. This in turn will lead to increased pressure on the electoral base of the current parties and to a push towards alternative political ideologies and measures as well as to political and economic reforms. There is a possibility other countries will follow suit if Greece leaves the EU.

It will create a whole different playing field where the economic and political centralisation will be put under a huge amount of pressure.

[Die Neue Zeit]

The effect of a Grexit however will be a huge blow to the EU economy AND EU cohesion..creating the need for measures within the EU to off set the loss. This in turn will lead to increased pressure on the electoral base of the current parties and to a push towards alternative political ideologies and measures as well as to political and economic reforms. There is a possibility other countries will follow suit if Greece leaves the EU.

It will create a whole different playing field where the economic and political centralisation will be put under a huge amount of pressure.

Among immediate alternatives, I don't see any advocacy of an alternate entity that combines a trade bloc, a monetary union, a fiscal union, and a social union. Beyond perhaps cheap sloganeering for a "socialist Europe" or a "socialist federation" across Europe, there's little that disguises the nationalist opportunism so widespread on the actual European left. Case in point: SYRIZA's Left Platform and ANTARSYA.

In the past, I'll admit, I didn't emphasize enough about the fiscal union and a social union part. When I compared pro-EU integration advocacy on the left to Marx and Engels' call for an "indivisible republic" in 1848 Germany (http://reality.gn.apc.org/econ/Berlinpaper.pdf), I didn't discuss enough the fiscal union and social union parts.

Why are these two aspects important, besides the fact that the current EU is far from being a fiscal union or a social union? Unfortunately, it is because historic and contemporary economic blocs with a left orientation have not gone past the trade bloc form. Even the COMECON was no monetary union (i.e., ruble as common currency across all of Eastern Europe), fiscal union (i.e., COMECON planning agency taking precedence over all national planning agencies, Soviet ones included), or social union.

If there is to be anti-EU advocacy with broad credibility or "street cred" amongst workers, that had better be on the basis of concretely calling for, and immediately setting up, a democratically accountable "fair trade" bloc, alternative monetary union, fiscal union, and social union all in one.

[FSL]

The EU is a specific entity with specific rules and regulations....and specific standards the member nations need to abide by. These go well beyond a monteray market and well beyond national bourgeois laws.

These rules and regulations govern the power the EU has within Greece. Since technically countries can leave the EU...leaving the EU would make these treaties absolete and end the economic restrictions and interference that form the basis of the Troika/Institutions. One of these regulations sets the countries debt percentage. Another sets the maximum expenditure surplus. And another regulates the maximum deficit. As you may have noticed all of the austerity measures applied in Greece are put implace to reach certain economic numbers within a specific amount of time. Those numbers are arbitrarily and above all politically (not economically...becaue there is no ecopnomical reason why deficit spending should be maxed at 3% rather than 3.1 or 4%) chosen by the EU and the member countries need to abide by them. The treaties also regulate when and how the EU and its institutions can step in and take over a countries economy, to what extend.

This is something different from a mere global monetary market or trade union.

These regulations can't amount to much when Greece had a 15.2% deficit in 2009.

Markets would ask about the same from any country not in the EU. Greece is a country in the EU that has gone all but typically bankrupt but there are many more countries that have gone bankrupt and which have never been in the EU. They failed to abide to the laws and rules of the markets.

The IMF has virtually every capitalist state as a member and has been giving loans with conditionality since its inception.

[PhoenixAsh]

And that is why you have austerity now.

There are 11 countries technically going bankrupt atm. Greece is one of the two developed economies on there....next to the Ukraine.

But sure.

The EU is simply a monetary union and the EU regulations have absolutely zero to do with the crisis you have in Greece nor with the fac that when Germany say jump you Greeks all yell "how high?". It's not the EU at all but simply markets and stuff.

See the issue is that Markets have rules and regulations and the beauty of the market system is that it more or less regulates itself. If a country fucks up it can take measures on its own an repair the situation. Greece is not repairing the situation itself. It has got its repairs dictated to them by the EU.

The IMF does impose conditionality....and a lot of member states chose to disallow certain aspects of the IMF conditionality or restrictions or its charter regulations. Funny thing though....the controlling votes are in the hands of the EU nations.

[FSL]

See the issue is that Markets have rules and regulations and the beauty of the market system is that it more or less regulates itself. If a country fucks up it can take measures on its own an repair the situation. Greece is not repairing the situation itself. It has got its repairs dictated to them by the EU.

The IMF does impose conditionality....and a lot of member states chose to disallow certain aspects of the IMF conditionality or restrictions or its charter regulations. Funny thing though....the controlling votes are in the hands of the EU nations.

The US has a veto in the IMF by controlling about 17% of the votes, EU nations don't need to vote the same.

So your problem is that Greece isn't fucking its workers by itself and with its own ideas. That isn't true, many ideas come from Greece. It's just that greek capitalists like the helping hand experts in fucking workers can provide.
And they would like that helping hand even if Greece wasn't in the EU.