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Michael Yates wrote
(...)
Louis has said that his interest in Syriza lies only in what lessons it
can teach those in the US trying to build a radical party. What I would
say is that what is needed is a radical re-conception of democracy, one
that takes seriously the development, through both education and action,
of the people's capacities to govern themselves. Meszaros and Michael
Lebowitz have much to teach us about this.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here are just two examples from among myriad. I just happened to read
this morning these passages from Meszaros, thinking it might be useful
to share them, and behold! comes this opportunity.
It is no exaggeration to say that with 1989 a long historical
phase - the one initiated by the October Revolution of 1917 -
came to its end. From now on, whatever might be the future of
socialism, it will have to be established on radically new
foundations, beyond the tragedies and failures of Soviet type
development which became blocked very soon after the conquest of
power in Russia by Lenin and his followers.
(...)
To be sure, historical time - emanating from the dynamics of
social interchanges - cannot possibly flow at a steady pace.
Given the greatly varying intensity of social conflicts and
determinations, we may experience historical intervals when
everything seems to grind to a complete standstill, stubbornly
refusing to move for a prolonged period of time. And by the same
token, the eruption and intensification of structural conflicts
may result in the most unexpected concatenation of apparently
unstoppable events, accomplishing within days incomparably more
than in decades beforehand.
Istvan Meszaros, Beyond Capital, London: Merlin Press 1995 at
pp. 284 and 283.
Then also last night I viewed the debate between Stathis Kouvelakis and
Alex Callinicos on Greece https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1paxMRddO0M,
in which Kouvelakis of the Left Platform concludes his statement by
saying, "You might know that I work as a political theorist and I have
also worked on Marx's theory, and also particularly dear and very
central to my work is the French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre. Jean-Paul
Sartre wrote, 'Every time I was mistaken it was because I haven't been
sufficiently radical,' and I fully share this quotation - provided,
provided - (holding up a finger amidst applause) hold on, there is a
catch here, there is a catch. There is a catch, and the catch is that
radical, for me at least, doesn't mean the repetition of the old recipes
but, as one comrade, actually the speaker of the Syriza parliamentary
group and prominent member of the Left Platform Zoi Konstantopoulou said
yesterday, 'opening up our wings to the unknown.' Thank you."
However, throughout the presentations of both discussants, I kept
thinking of something unmentioned, even in some other from, that 90% of
Greece's needs, elements of its lifeline in the context of inexorably
increasing interdependence, are supplied from outside Greece. And then
by way of sober warning, I think of Richard Strauss's tone-poem of
Cervantes's epic of the knight-errant Don Quixote, tilting with his
sword at windmills, thinking they are giants, whereupon he falls at the
first brush against the windmill's sails, shattering his lance.
Cervantes tells us about how Don Quixote became who he was: “Through too
little sleep and too much reading of books on knighthood, he dried up
his brains in such a way that he wholly lost his judgement...“
So, the opening of wings to the unknown, that's beautiful and evocative,
but it encounters material reality, implying in the Left Platform's
program Grexit and cutting off creditors who supply capital for imports,
who when asked for credit after Grexit, demand collateral - and then what?
So yes, on the other foot under Tsipras's leadership Syriza conveyed
confidence in reform of Europe 'to save it from itself', as the only way
to save Greece - a strategic error, and now they seek in disarray to
preserve their lifeline to the Euro. Likely, in assuming the role of
capital management on behalf of the creditors, aligning with the police
and military against the antagonist, labor.
Rock and hard place. What lessons learned? I echo Michael Yates and
refer one and all fwiw to Lebowitz and Meszaros.
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