On Wed, Apr 1, 2015 at 6:45 PM, Marv Gandall <[email protected]> wrote:
> Specifically, if you take Syriza's victorious platform as an indicator of > what the "Greek people" as a whole are "demanding", it looks like they want > two mutually contradictory things: (1) end austerity, and (2) stay within > the Eurozone. > > [...] The question of whether the Greeks can escape from austerity within > the eurozone or whether they will need to default and exit in order to get > on the road to recovery is as a a subject of great contention within Syriza > and wider circles by people with a much greater connection to the situation > than either of us, and we should be mindful of that. > Of course. Tsipras et al have a very difficult and unenviable job and I do hope they can pull this off. I was mainly arguing with a couple of implicit premises in "Why not start with what the Greek people are themselves demanding." You are assuming two things here that seem very questionable. (1) there are clear and coherent things that we can identify that the majority of Greek people support or demand, and (2) the public opinion is progressive. It seems to me that a lot of the wide public support in Greece for staying within the Eurozone is not motivated so much by pragmatic considerations of the economic costs to Greeks of a "Grexit", but more by some pathetic nationalistic pride in being part of a more prestigious and powerful entity like the EU. More generally, it seems to me that people in mass democracies often demand and support very fucked up things. After all it is only recently that rabid right wing elements won the Israeli elections. And a grotesque like Narendra Modi continues to enjoy widespread popular support in India. Etc. So I'd argue that we have to be careful about automatically supporting what the "people themselves are demanding". -raghu.
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