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Roberts’ economic commentary is often useful when he is being concrete, but he is useless when it comes to political strategies, and this sort of fundamentalist take on the eurozone crisis is appallingly obtuse. Let me break down its essential points: i) The fundamental underlying cause of the eurozone crisis is the crisis of global capitalism. ii) The only sustainable solution to this crisis, short of capitalism’s overthrow, is the massive destruction of capital on a global scale, commensurate with a war or Depression. iii) Grexit does not confront the crisis at this level, but instead focuses on a national solution which overlaps with the approach of some nationalist neoliberals, and may make the capitalist crisis worse. iv) Grexit is predicated on a stageist conception of political struggle according to which national demands are won first as a precondition for winning social demands. This has a bad pedigree. v) Even if social demands are ultimately addressed, they will be addressed in terms of an unavailing Keynesian strategy which cannot resolve the fundamental crisis of capitalism, which is “only partly the result of austerity”. There are so many miscues and logical fallacies in Roberts’ case that it’s hard to know where to begin. It is true, and always the case, that the fundamental underlying cause of economic crises in capitalist social formations is the generic crisis tendencies in the capitalist mode of production. It is also true that where there is over-accumulation of capital, the solution is to destroy capital. But it simply *does not follow* that this is the only or main level at which we can or should address such crises when they manifest themselves. The left’s strategy has to be predicated on an assessment of the class struggle, the balance of forces within given social formations, and the forces concentrated within state formations. It is simply obvious that while we are not in a position to overthrow capitalism, or even reform the EU to any significant degree, or even launch a Europe-wide wave of serious industrial and political resistance, Greece *can* escape from debt bondage and implement humane social demands. The bourgeoisie enjoys far greater collective strength within the political institutions of the EU, and enjoys far greater class domination across the eurozone as a whole, than the Greek bourgeoisie does within Greece or within the Greek state. Grexit would not solve the crisis of capitalism, but it would strengthen the forces of the Left within Greece, allow for much deeper reforms than are possible within the eurozone, and weaken the coherence and political dominance of the EU bourgeoisie. Likewise, it is true that the crisis in the eurozone is only partly a result of austerity, but it does not follow that one should not attempt to escape from austerity. Which, Roberts ought to know, is impossible to escape from within the confines of the eurozone under the present circumstances. It is true that two-stage schemas have a bad pedigree, but Roberts doesn’t even begin to show that Lapavitsas favours such. He can’t have missed the fact that Lapavitsas is a member of a Syriza government that is implementing social reforms *now*. Even if he had shown that Lapavitsas was a stageist, putting off the necessary social struggles until after national liberation was achieved, he would not have shown that Grexit is inherently a stageist solution. The one thing that is certain about Grexit is that *nothing* is certain. There would be a huge social struggle over its meaning and outcomes. It is also undoubtedly true, as Roberts makes certain to point out, that across Europe there are some outlying currents within the capitalist class and larger currents in the petty bourgeoisie that favour a neoliberal strategy linked to anti-EU nationalism. It doesn’t follow from this that the anti-EU neoliberals are at all significant, or any match politically or in terms of their rootedness in the bourgeoisie for the pro-EU neoliberals. Finally, yes, it is true that a Keynesian policy of national development cannot overcome capitalism’s crisis tendencies. It does not follow from this that such a policy cannot do anything to strengthen the working class, redistribute wealth, democratise the state, improve welfare, etc etc. Perhaps, indeed, since the ruling class have put the transformation of social relations in its favour ahead of the resolution of capitalism’s crisis tendencies, the left should return the favour. You get my point: Roberts’ argument is filled with non-sequiturs, red herrings, guilt-by-association, and straw-manning. This can only be read symptomatically. Ultimately, I think the underlying problem here is that the fundamentalists like Roberts, Kliman, Freeman and the rest, who work from a simplistic, economic-reductionist model of capitalist crisis, think they can deduce questions of strategy and tactics from their insistence on the centrality of TRPTF as the key crisis tendency of capitalism. Possibly, they’re also worried by the possibility of success. It is unlikely that Greek workers will be able to overthrow capitalism. But, short of that, Syriza might redistribute wealth, strengthen the working class, democratise the state, rationalise production, implement an effective tax system, diversify the industrial basis of the economy, upgrade the education system, and may even - as a result of all this - actually produce a more sustainable ‘fix’ for the economy, without eliminating capitalism’s crisis tendencies. In which case, there would be yet another situation that Roberts et al would have to explain away. > On 9 Feb 2015, at 22:45, Louis Proyect via Marxism > <marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote: > > _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
