MG] My guess is that some form of debt relief will be offered to Greece and the peripheral states because economic recovery and political stability demand it, although how much relief and how it will be structured will be decided through negotiation, and reflect the respective bargaining power of parties involved.
---------- I have no opinions of my own on what is happening or what may happen in Greece. I want to focus on the (usually) unchallenged premise that "economic crisis/chaos/stagnation/etc) necessarily threatens political "stability." Note that stability is an entirely subjective concept. I remember some writer in the NYRB observing that a "calm day" in 18th-c London would result in the calling out of the National Guard in a modern city. Economic crisis, no matter how devastating to the populace at large, does not necessarily constitute a threat to capitalist hegemony. :-) It has been overwhelmingly demonstrated by many posters to this list, by many books published by MR or Verso or ..., that Austerity does not "work" -- work here meaning make things better for most people. Ruling elites clearly are not too concerned either with "economic recovery" _or_ with the degree of political instability that may follow continued (and intensified) austerity. Austgerity so far has been a very effective form of repression; economic recovery would be more apt than continued austerity to generate political instability. Carrol _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
