The following excerpt is from the article “Burdened with Debt” published by the Greek pro-revolutionary organization TPTG.
The article contains many keen insights, and IP recommends readers look at the entire article. The piece is too long to be published here, but may be read in full at the Lib com site
We hope readers will take the opportunity to post comments either here or at the lib com site.
IP.
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Although the “debt crisis” increasingly undermines their already weak function to guarantee the improvement of the conditions of the reproduction of the proletariat as labour power, still the power of the unions resides in the sectional and even individualistic use the proletarians make of them: the particular history of political clientelism in Greece is also evident within the unions, especially in the public sector, as voting for the socialist or right-wing unionists usually meant either climbing up the social ladder or at least some kind of legal advice. Thus, even if such material gains are limited now, they are not drastically cut yet; union cadres can still rely on social inertia and political clientelism that creates a relatively loose hierarchy and discipline in the public sector so as not to feel threatened and attempt major reforms in the union apparatuses.
As for PAME’s activities (the “labour front” created by the CP), they probably seem impressive, taking into account the fact that in many cases PAME was the first one to call mobilisations, obliging GSEE and ADEDY to follow. PAME has organized a number of spectacular moves, such as occupations of ministries, TV stations, the stock market, blockades of the port of Piraeus, etc –in one case, PAME’s members had blockaded the port in order to defend a strike of the shipworkers that was ruled illegal by the courts. However, these mobilisations were under the complete control of the party without a grain of initiative from the rank’n’file and it is certain that if the struggles escalate, the CP will again assume the role of the police repressing any radical initiative or action, as it has done many times in the past. Besides, this is clearly shown by its permanent tactics to prevent any contact and communication of its members with other strikers, organizing separate and, above all, peaceful demonstrations.
But, apart from the role of all kinds of unionist policing mediation, there is an almost total lack of autonomous proletarian action and of openly expressed radical contents of struggle going beyond the union/sectional demands. It is maybe frustrating, but the truth is that those strikes and demos that have attracted worldwide attention have been called and organized from above, be it the union confederations or federations that determined their time and content. The response of the greater part of the working class has remained to a considerable extent passive. It is true that the class combativeness of many strikers in the streets, against the cops and the trade union leadership, their joy in mixing with strikers of other sectors and in occupying the centre of the city (in the case of the first demos in February and March and on the 5th of May) reveal a deeper rebellious content which is however latent and has not been expressed in an autonomous and co-ordinated organization of the struggle within the workplaces or in the neighbourhoods.
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Partly, an explanation for the inadequate response of the proletariat to the attack called “debt crisis” can be traced back in the state’s effective propaganda to legitimize it. In order to work more for less money we have to accept that we face a “problem” that is beyond our reach and control, something that needs our sacrifices,. Thus, the cause of the crisis is attributed to an almost metaphysical but inescapable world of markets, statistics, rating agencies, speculators and so on. This mystification veil is used in order to conceal the real cause of the crisis: the convulsive but persistent refusal of the global proletariat to become totally subordinated to capital and the circulation of its struggles, however limited it is.
Thus, in a period of acute crisis, capital’s obsession with regaining control over the proletariat – especially when the command of capital and its state was recently questioned and delegitimized in a violent way– is transmuted into the invisible dark omnipotence of “economy” and the “markets” working above us, causing a generalized feeling of weakness and impotence. The hard austerity measures, this clear declaration of class war, has to become “naturalized”: crisis has assumed the character of a natural catastrophe that cannot be reversed until it will come full circle after some years, as the economists-weathermen keep telling us in their forecasts.
The Greek state, under the PASOK administration, together with its European partners and the media scum, intensified the ideological terrorization by also using a traditional but all-weather powerful “weapon”: national unity. During crises, the partners turn into commanders and rivals; the unified European village whose inhabitants live harmoniously and co-decide democratically falls apart while a matter of utmost importance, the defence of the nation –this perennial deception– comes to the fore. In a few words, they try to persuade us that we won’t work for our bosses but for the country’s good.
The “debt crisis” offers the capitalist state a unique opportunity to reimpose the unification of the proletariat around the nation-state form and through that its disciplining, in the hope of an increasing productivity and higher profits. In the words of the Greek prime minister “…it is clear that the way in which we dealt with our finance affairs led us to lose a part of our national sovereignty. We have to take that part back by means of our credibility, our political programme and everyone’s self-sacrifice”. His “sacrifice” to “give away a part of the country’s sovereignty” entails “our self-sacrifice” in order to “take it back”. But we have to pay for this “part” with more work, less money, deeper divisions and competition among us in the face of the increasing numbers of the reserve army of unemployed.
National unity is reinforced as a surrogate “collective” identity when, at the moment of economic and social disintegration, individualist roles within the reified social relations are shattered.
In the last two decades, trade unionism and politics, which are both typically characterized by the use of collective means for individualist ends, tended to be less attractive and effective compared to the use of individual or household loans. The “sovereign debt crisis” and the imminent bankruptcy could entail a disaster on an individual and family level that most proletarians are not prepared to reverse in a class autonomous way. Passivity then under the flag of “national unity” can serve as a refuge and a rationalization for those who, not willing to protest against their devaluation now, put their hopes for a future increase of the value of their own labour power in the increase of the competitiveness of the Greek economy. The non-strikers might even attack verbally their fellow workers whose strikes would destroy this endeavour.
Since crisis is experienced as a multitude of personal failures bound together (“living beyond our means” summarizes the individual “excesses” and “malfunctions” that led to a “national failure”), self-blame and guilt can take such epidemic dimensions, that certain defence-mechanisms are needed. Those defence-mechanisms are activated through the projection of the feeling of guilt onto the witch-hunted “extravagant” civil servants, tax evaders or even selected scapegoated “corrupt” politicians who “failed” to perform their high functions. The state ideologues, on their part, who know that in periods of crises capital and its state are no longer trustworthy since the “rewards promised” never came, they are all too willing to channel anger and fear to a path safer for the system.19
Nationalism and populism, however, can also emerge through another route as well: through the struggles themselves mainly because of the influence of the dominant left and leftist discourse and activity on them. Nationalization of banks, self-management of key sectors of the national economy, different suggestions for the renegotiation of the debt by (this or another) government, emphasis on the “corruption” issue, ideas for a “productive” reorganization of Greece are the most popular slogans of the left in these days –in sum, a capitalism confined within the borders against the three foreign evils (IMF, ECB and EC) and the “Quisling” Greek government. Finally, to the “irresponsible” strikers who betray the “national cause” through struggle, the prime minister was clear when he declared: “Sacrifices are needed; we cannot afford blockades and strikes”. It is obvious that the government and the capitalists are afraid of a social unrest which can burst out if all mediations and mechanisms prove ineffective. The ideologues of the system try to eliminate even the memory of the December 2008 rebellion as a nightmare that should not be repeated. When they demand social peace they know that they are walking on thin ice: their arsenal – be it union apparatuses and functions, individualism or doses of fear and guilt– may be exhausted.
That’s why while the government puts on its humanist-antiracist mask and speaks the language of the “common good”, it holds the cop’s bludgeon at the same time. Social consent must prevail in any way. No wonder the streets are full of cops that try to control every space that could become a field of struggle and clash. To return to Nietzsche: “this world deep down has never again been completely free of a certain smell of blood and torture” –something that the Minister of Labour reminded us when, some months ago, during the announcement of the new “hard but necessary measures” he declared: “there will be blood”. Maybe, he unconsciously presaged the storm which is coming. A storm which may bring the recomposition of the struggles and will send the “public deficit” to the dustbin of history, together with the “life deficit”, the only real one.
TPTG August-October 2010
