Date: Sat, 7 Mar 2015 13:21:52 +0100 (CET)
From: Hinrich Kuhls<[email protected]>
full:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/spiegel-interview-with-greek-prime-minister-tsipras-a-1022156.html
Dear Hinrich,
1. When we started our dialogue and I pointed to Galbraith's statement
that leaving the euro is not an option because Syriza had campaigned to
remain in the zone, so therefore (for me) only softening on
anti-austerity remained as an option in the negotiations, you objected.
But Tsipras affirms in the interview the importance for him of
anti-austerity:
"The most important thing, though, is solving the true problem: the
austerity which has driven debt way up."
He later describes the prior bailout as leading to the "collateral"
damage of the humanitarian crisis. The humanitarian crisis is the
*manifestation *of austerity policies.
2. Regarding privatizations, for which you have discussed in later
messages today, here is the dialogue
*SPIEGEL:* What about privatizations?
*Tsipras: *There we do in fact have a different approach. We have to
make state assets usable, but we shouldn't sell everything.
Actually, even the troika wasn't demanding that *everything *be
privatized. Wasn't the Syriza platform to stop privatizations
altogether? His reply here has zero information value. Put another way,
his statement is not inconsistent with very considerable privatizations,
if that is what it takes (for him) to reach agreement in the next
three-plus months.
3. Then we have the same point Galbraith affirmed:*
SPIEGEL:* Is your only lever to change austerity a credible threat to
leave the euro?
*Tsipiras:* I rule out a Grexit because I love Europe. I believe that
the euro zone is like a wool sweater: When it starts to unthread, then
it can no longer be stopped.
As to Merkel, he later says, "I think we have a good relationship and
that there's good chemistry between us."
4. I would like to point to another statement he made, "But the threat
to Europe today isn't Syriza or Podemos, it's the Front National in
France or AfD in Germany."
Instead of trying to guilt-trip the leadership of France and Germany,
why not reach out to Parti de Gauche in France or Die Linke in Germany?
________________________
While I have read commentary that the Syriza experiment is already dead,
Costas Lapavitsas has reached a very different conclusion, as a result
of his comprehension of the past weeks' experience. He offers a path
forward:
/To beat austerity, Greece must break free from the euro/ [/The Guardian/]:
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/mar/02/austerity-greece-euro-currency-syriza
concluding with a concept rejected by Tsipiras:
"Syriza could gain succour from the European left, but only if the left
shakes off its own illusions and begins to propose sensible policies
that might at last rid Europe of the absurdity that the common currency
has become. There might then be a chance of properly lifting austerity
across the continent. Time is indeed very short for all of us."
Cheers, Paul Zarembka
--
==== */Research in Political Economy/
<http://www.emeraldinsight.com/books.htm?issn=0161-7230>* (since 1977) |
Editor's *webpage <http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/%7Ezarembka>*
/*Sraffa and Althusser Reconsidered; Neoliberalism Advancing*/ (2014)
/*Contradictions: Finance, Greed, and Labor Unequally Paid*/ (2013)
/*Revitalizing Marxist Theory for Today's Capitalism*/ (2011), with R.Desai
/*The Hidden History of 9-11
<http://catalog.sevenstories.com/products/hidden-history-of-911>*/ (2nd
ed., Seven Stories Press)
_______________________________________________
pen-l mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
