I don't understand the second part of the argument about the agreement.
And Tsipras completely fails to mention that $50 billion privatization
of pubic assets that is included and can NEVER be achieved (it is a
perpetual club).
In any case, Syriza should never have gotten itself to a situation of
such a banking crisis and expected to have any negotiating strength
whatsoever.
As I said earlier, I could have supported taking a clear negotiating
position within the first month, possibly making a modified offer soon
thereafter, but then no more: Conserve whatever finances you have, let
default occur if it must. If necessary, take a referundum testing real
opinion about anti-austerity and out being in the euro, instead of
choosing staying in the euro AT ALL COST; if so, education of the Greek
people would be needed so that it becomes an informed opinion.
I kind of laughed when Tsipras cites Lenin to L'Humanite.
Paul Zarembka
Date: Mon, 3 Aug 2015 23:56:17 +0000
From: "Perelman, Michael"<[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [Pen-l] Fwd: Alexis Tsipras: "Austerity is a Dead End"
Can someone explain this to me? Is he suggesting that he can pull the plug on
the agreement in the near future. Veroufakis' metaphor of economic
waterboarding seems more accurate than this interview. I may be missing
something. If so, please help me out.
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Mperelman at csuchico.edu
Chico, CA 95929
530-898-5321
fax 530-898-5901
www.michaelperelman.wordpress.com
-----Original Message-----
From:[email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Hinrich Kuhls
Sent: Monday, August 03, 2015 1:51 PM
To: Progressive Economics<[email protected]>
Subject: [Pen-l] Fwd: Alexis Tsipras: "Austerity is a Dead End"
Alexis Tsipras: "Austerity is a Dead End"
Interview conducted by Kostas Arvanitis (STO kokkino), published in French in
L?Humanit?, 31 July 2015
On July 29, Sto Kokkino, the radio station politically close to SYRIZA,
broadcast a long interview with Greece?s Prime Minister. With permission,
substantial excerpts follow, which offer unique insights into the fierce
negotiations between Athens and its creditors and on the financial coup d??tat
directed against Greece?s left-wing government.
full:
http://www.transform-network.net/en/blog/blog-2015/news/detail/Blog/alexis-tsipras-austerity-is-a-dead-end.html
[...]
Q: The referendum?s ?no? was a ?no? to austerity ?
Alexis Tsipras: The referendum question had two parts. There was part A, which
involved the measures previously required, and part B, which involved the
financing timetable. To be completely honest, without embellishing anything,
the agreement that followed the referendum is, in terms of part A, similar to
the one that the Greek people rejected. On the other hand, in terms of part B,
we also have to be honest, and in this respect there is a day-and-night
difference.
Before, we had five months, 10.6 billion, five months [in which our public
expenditures were particularly closely] scrutinised. Now, we have 83 billion ?
which means a total coverage for medium-term (2015 ? 2018) financial needs, of
which 47 billion are for foreign payments, 4.5 billion for public sector
arrears, and 20 billion for the recapitalisation of the banks, and, finally,
there is the crucial commitment on the question of debt. Thus, in terms of part
A there?s a retreat on the part of the Greek government, but for part B there?s
an improvement: the referendum performed a function.
On the Wednesday evening before the vote, certain milieus were laying the basis
for a coup d??tat in the country, proclaiming the need to storm the Prime
Minister?s headquarters, that the government was leading the country toward a
terrible economic catastrophe, pointing to the queues at banks.
I have to say that the Greek people were able to keep their cool to such an
extent that television news channels had a hard time finding people to complain
about the situation ? the population?s sang froid was really incredible. That
evening, I addressed the Greek population and I told the truth. I didn?t say:
?I?m holding a referendum to exit the euro.? I said: ?I?m holding a referendum
to give us a negotiating dynamic.? The ?no? to the bad agreement was not a ?no?
to the euro, a ?yes? to the drachma. People can accuse me of poor calculations,
of having had illusions, but at every moment I said things clearly; I informed
Parliament twice; I told the Greek people the truth.
[...]
Q.: Did you expect this result?
Alexis Tsipras: I confess that up to Wednesday [Editor?s note: the Wednesday
before the referendum] I had the impression that the results would be
indecisive. By Thursday I began to realise that the ?no? would win, and by
Friday I was convinced of it. In this victory, the promise I made to the Greek
people to not gamble with a humanitarian catastrophe was brought to bear.
I didn?t gamble with the survival of the country and its popular strata.
After this, in Brussels several terrifying scenarios were put on the table. I
knew that during the seventeen hours in which I had to wage this struggle,
alone, under difficult conditions, if I did what my heart wanted to do ? to get
up, bang my fist on the table, and leave ? the foreign branches of Greek banks
would collapse on that very day. In 48 hours the liquidity that allowed ? 60
daily withdrawals would dry up and, worse, the ECB would decide on a reduction
of the Greek banks? collateral and would even demand repayments that would have
led to the collapse of the whole banking system. In that case, a collapse would
have meant not a reduction of savings but their disappearance.
Despite all, I waged this struggle trying to reconcile logic and passion. I
knew that if I got up and left I would probably have to return under still more
disadvantageous conditions. I was facing a dilemma. World public opinion was
proclaiming ?#This Is a Coup?, to the point that it became the leading hashtag
on Twitter worldwide that night. On the one hand, there was logic; on the other
hand, political sensibility. On reflection, I remain convinced that the right
decision was to opt for the protection of the popular classes. Otherwise, harsh
reprisals could have destroyed the country. I made a responsible choice.
Q.: You don?t believe in this agreement and yet you asked the deputies to vote
for it. What do you have in mind?
Alexis Tsipras: I think, and I told Parliament this, that what our European
partners and creditors wrested is a Pyrrhic victory, but that at the same time
it represents a great moral victory for Greece and its left government. It?s a
painful compromise, both on the economic and the political level.
You know, compromise is an element of political reality and an element of
revolutionary tactics. Lenin is the first to speak of compromise in his book
Left-Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder, where he devotes several pages to
explaining that compromise is part of revolutionary tactics. In one passage, he
gives the example of a bandit pointing a pistol at you and saying ?your money
or your life?. What is a revolutionary supposed to do? Give his life? No, he
has to give the money in order to claim his right to live and continue the
struggle.
We?ve been facing a coercive dilemma. Today, the opposition parties and the
establishment media are making a tremendous noise, to the point even of
demanding criminal proceedings against Yanis Varoufakis. We are completely
aware that we are risking our heads in waging a struggle at the political
level. But we are waging it with the overwhelming majority of the Greek people
at our side.
This is what gives us strength.
--
==== */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)
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