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Louis Proyect wrote
https://zcomm.org/zcommentary/greek-debt-as-labor-contract-negotiations/
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Well enough crafted but does it float?
Greece has about 4% of total debt held by the European banks. Therefore,
is it at all similar to the usual labor-management negotiations, where
there is the threat to withhold effective amounts of labor, enough to be
essential to the successful operation of the firm? If there's any
analogy, wouldn't it be more like negotiations between management and
some small sector of expendable contract labor, not at all relevant to
the profit of the firm, where the only threat involved is the echo
effect if management modifies the contract in any significant way toward
labor?
The only holds the Greek government has, as far as I can see, are the
prospect of not paying even on the interest, let alone principal - but I
suspect they can't pay much of anything anyhow except conceivably on the
nebulous prospect of more favorable terms arrived at following another
extension; and bankruptcy, which would amplify the evident failure of
austerity.
And these considerations have to be balanced against the risk to the
Eurogroup of concessions made and their effect on the other debtors.
Syriza may well make common cause with the left in the nations where
those more significant debtors are, but none of the center or right
wing, neoliberal governments currently in power in those countries want
anything to do of course with Syriza, or for it to succeed. And other
elections are more remote, well after the four-month extension granted
to Greece. From what I'm reading, it doesn't appear that the others are
hurting quite to the extent to which Greece is - not yet.
And check this: http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/. Spiegel
speculates, probably with very good insider information, that Germany is
trying to force a Grexit, to stand by and see Greece twist in the wind,
as an example to any other left force that tries an upstart stunt like
this, where Syriza want to "increase public spending while the Euro
Group wants to reduce it. Athens plans to increase the number of civil
servants while the Euro Group believes public spending should be cut
further. The Euro Group believes the privatization of publicly held
assets should be a priority, but the Tsipras government has put the
program on hold for the time being." The implication is that Greece will
be squeezed between their constituency and German intransigence, and
then the fond hope is that they're history. They may not have
calculated, in all their simulated Grexit exercises, the resiliency,
determination, fierce national pride and painfully arrived-at awareness
of the Greek electorate. And the possible penumbral effects of that.
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