The Social Crisis in Greece
INTRODUCTION: The Capitalist Crisis in the European Union
Before discussing the conditions in which the social crisis in the South of Europe has been developing, we should refer first to the more general context of the crisis in the EU itself.
For us, the global “economic recession” and the “financial” crisis of the recent years are only forms of appearance of the permanent crisis of capital reproduction which started in the early 70’s, that is, the crisis of reproduction of capitalist social relations. Despite the fact that there were periods of “recovery”, e.g. the partial restoration of non-financial profit rates in many major capitalist economies from 1982 to 1997, no long-term solution to the crisis has been found.
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1. THE SO-CALLED “DEBT-CRISIS” UNFOLDING IN GREECE
Coined in bourgeois mystified terms as a “crisis of competitiveness” and a “crisis of sovereign debt”, the crisis of capitalist reproduction in Greece led to an explosion of all its contradictions with the global recession in 2008.
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2. RESTRUCTURING THE REGIME OF ACCUMULATION IN GREECE
The implementation of “internal devaluation” politics has partially re-shaped the local regime of accumulation, by accelerating the restructuring of both the labour market and production base of the Greek capitalist state.
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3. CLASS STRUGGLES AGAINST THE POLITICS OF “INTERNAL DEVALUATION”: New forms of struggle and their effectiveness/limitations in counterattacking capital’s restructuring
After the implementation of the devalorization policies in Greece, the working class moved to a wide range of forms of struggle from traditional ones, like strikes, demos or occupations of public buildings, to more or less new ones, like the occupation of open public spaces, self-reduction of prices and the constitution of “popular assemblies” in the cities’ neighbourhoods.
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4. Lack of an internationalist direction
Overall, the previous cycle of struggles was, unfortunately, almost completely confined within national and sectoral borders as it was predominantly waged either in isolated workplaces or against the results of the so-called “debt crisis” in Greece, without any substantial links with similar struggles abroad.
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5. ΤΗE EFFECT OF “DEBT CRISIS” AND CLASS STRUGGLES ON ALL MEDIATIONS: The legitimation crisis and how they got over it
To sum up: As the Greek political personnel has made the strategic choice of remaining within the Eurozone and under the constant pressure of the debtor-states, the radical and violent restructuring of the productive and reproductive mode of accumulation, the gigantic devalorization process is getting deeper and deeper.
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6. THE STATE MANAGEMENT OF THE REFUGEE-IMMIGRANT INFLUX: Recent struggles and their limits
Let’s start with some necessary general remarks first: the capitalist state ensures the subjugation of workers in general to capital in general. The capitalist state protects and develops productively both capital and labour power, in general, or at least it is forced to do it. Capitalist accumulation is therefore dependent on the abundance, mobility and availability of labour power, while, on the other hand, during crises of reproduction of capitalist relations that end up in the devalorization of surplus capital, labour power may be made redundant to a large extent. Migrant populations, whether they are refugees or not, or whether they have left a middle class life behind or not, are part of the global working class, driven away (mainly) by local or global devalorization policies. Therefore, an analysis of their use or non-use by capital should be placed within a broader analysis of global, supra-national and national processes of capital accumulation. Consequently, any analysis which is dominated by a discourse on “anti-immigrant” or “pro-immigrant” state policies is quite misleading and irrelevant – in the same way that it would be misleading and pointless to claim that the state could be either “anti-worker” or “pro-worker”.
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Tags: capitalist crisis, class struggles, debt crisis, immigrants, internationalism, legitimation crisis, refugees, regime of accumulation