Monday, June 15, 2015

It Don't Mean a Thing...

...when a columnist for the Financial Times, Wolfgang Münchau, urges the Syriza government to adopt a course far more radical than that government, its "left" wing, and/or all of its "left"supporters propose.  It don't mean a thing when the advocate of political economy is more radical than the radical political economists, and with more intent than "accidental" Marxists.  

It don't mean a thing because all the "different" solutions  offered by Münchau, the left-wing of Syriza, the left-supporters of Syriza, that whole collection of idiot movie-reviewers, sniveling post-graduate bloggers, foot-kissing specialists in solidarity,  purveyors of socialist inaction, left forum spectators and participants, presume and require the same thing:  paralysis of the working class.  There Is No Alternative, and there will be none.    

At least Münchau can count.  At least he can do the math.  At least he calculates the cost of the troika's terms to Greece's economy.  That cost is a mere 12.6% reduction in GDP over four years with the debt to GDP ratio rising to 200 percent (not very far from where it is now).  For an economy that's lost over 25% of its GDP, that doesn't sound too bad, does it?

At least he knows that, in the abstract terms of political economy, Greece would be better off defaulting on its debt to the troika; that Greece, in the abstract terms of GDP, capital flow, etc. would be better off exiting the eurozone.  In abstract terms.  But that's what political economy, radical political economy, socialist political economy, Keynesian political economy, Austrian political economy, "responsible" political economy, "irresponsible" political economy is:  a philosophy of the abstract that capitulates to the world of the concrete.

In the world of the concrete, the struggle never is a struggle for, of, by policies.  It is always and forever a struggle of class relations.   Urge away Wolfgang.  Apologize away, you unrepentant never- close-to-Marxists you.  Plead away, you allied, democratic, left-wing, doctored, independent, international, socialists for your two, three, many Syrizas, because failure is your currency; your means of purchase for participating in the markets. It don't mean a thing. 


The bourgeoisie lack many things-- scruples, integrity, imagination, humanity-- but they do not lack for knowing what it took to make them, what it takes to make them, and what it takes to keep them what they are; the ruling class.  

That's their goal; their single goal to which entire populations, nations, continents are held as collateral.  You don't like the terms of repayment? Too bad.  You can't get rid of the debt without getting rid of the bourgeoisie, as Syriza so aptly demonstrates, as Syriza is simply the most current object lesson.

You don't want your pensioners to be any more impoverished than they already are with the 45% cut in pensions?  Too bad.  Tell them to move, to flee Greece. Tell them to get on those boats we're confiscating from human traffickers and go back to Africa, where we all come from.    

What you want don't mean a thing.  What anybody wants don't mean a thing until  what a class wants is to replace the rule of capital, of capital's organs, economic and political, with organs of its own; until that class is organized, by its own resistance, as an anti-ruling class.

That practical organization of the anti-ruling class begins with forcing the issue of repudiating the sovereign debt in its entirety to the parliament floor; voicing no support for the Syriza government.  

It don't mean a thing, unless you're ready to swing. 

June 15, 2015

5 comments :

  1. Anonymous11:39 PM

    I take it the final words of this paragraph should be "the working class"?

    "The bourgeoisie lack many things-- scruples, integrity, imagination, humanity-- but they do not lack for knowing what it took to make them, what it takes to make them, and what it takes to keep them what they are; the ruling class."

    Malcolm

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Nope. I mean they don't lack for knowing what it takes to be, and stay, the ruling class.

      Delete
  2. Anonymous11:42 PM

    Or am I conflating the bourgeoisie with the ruling class?

    ReplyDelete
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