Impasse. Tipping point. Crisis. Boiling point. Point of no
return. Explosion. What words can convey the profundity of the present moment
of transition?
The people of southern Europe in Portugal ,
Spain and Greece have
reached the limits of their preparedness to tolerate more brutal assaults in
the name of austerity.
But the leaders of the public and private sector unions who
have called today’s general strike in Greece do not intend their collective
action to bring down the three month-old coalition, let alone challenge the
economic and social system. Quite the opposite.
"We call on everyone to take part in the strike and
resist the austerity measures that hurt Greek people and the economy,"
said Despoina Spanou of the ADEDY labour group.
With unemployment at a record high in Greece – hitting almost 24% at a national level
and 55% among young people, the highest in Europe
– the leaders want the action to emphasise how deficit-cutting measures at the
expense of growth and development are creating an economic death spiral. As
Stathis Anestis of the GSEE union group put it: “These policies have led Greece to an
impasse and are totally counter-productive.”
The anger is intensified by the European Union, European
Central Bank and the IMF who are pushing for further cuts in wages and pensions
which have been drastically reduced in the five years since the crash. As well
as proposing the introduction of a six-day working week, the Troika aim to cut
the minimum wage by 22% and abolish collective labour agreements.
Union leaders, not just in Greece
but throughout Europe , have no intention of
going beyond resistance and protest actions. Their “alternatives” are based on
the notion that present policies are “wrong” and that growth would be better.
But we are patently in a crisis of the capitalist system of
global proportions, where contraction is driven by an inner momentum which
governments of all persuasions are barely able to influence let alone halt. And
the political crisis is growing too, especially in Spain where riot police fired
rubber bullets to prevent crowds storming the parliament building yesterday.
In Catalonia ,
nationalists are turning the anger onto the federal government. Catalan
President Artur Mas has called an early election for 25 November, a move
towards secession that has stirred dark
warnings from the military with echoes of the Spanish civil war.
The people of Portugal have also had enough of
austerity, with one draconian package after another imposing longer working
hours, 7% pay cuts, tax rises, and an erosion of pensions. Unemployment has
reached 15.7% - with one in three young people jobless..
A week ago, more than half a million people marched in
cities across the country in the biggest protests against the government since
the end of the dictatorship in 1974. The peaceful marches were a milestone in a
country where people are not known for a protest culture.
From left to right, from moderates to radicals, from young
to old, from professional protesters to first-timers, it was an unmistakable
warning shot for the government. Protests were scheduled even in wealthy
Cascais, a coastal city near Lisbon
famous for its upper-class demography.
In the shadows of the darkening clouds of the planetary
emergency brought on by decades of debt-fuelled growth, the crisis engulfs,
overwhelms and overpowers the increasingly desperate attempts by agencies and
governments to build new defences as the old ones fail to deliver.
You can see that in Britain , where the deficit is
rising and only the printing of vast amounts of money by the Bank of England is
holding back economic collapse. Yet the TUC is restricting itself to a weekend
demonstration and the threat of some scattered, one-off strikes over pay
sometime next spring. It just won’t do.
Humanity stands at the threshold of an evolutionary leap in
social organisation. Either we cross it, building a not-for profit economy and
society based upon co-operation and collective stewardship of the world’s
resources, or we will become capitalism's victims.
Gerry Gold
Economics editor
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