Warnings from history in Greek crisis

What happened in Germany during the 1930s does have crucial parallels in today’s economic and political crisis. So the start of a new television series about the rise of Adolf Hitler being broadcast by the beleaguered BBC tonight is timely.

Historian Laurence Rees writes in BBC’s online magazine, that Hitler’s story holds a “stark warning for the modern day”. Particularly at a time when the openly pro-Nazi Golden Dawn party in Greece looks set to become the third largest party in any future election.

Journalist and author Paul Mason, and even the right-wing Daily Mail (which in its day actually supported Hitler for a period) have drawn attention to the shocking parallels between the blackshirts of Golden Dawn and Nazi party thugs of the 1930s.

With open support from the Greek police, Golden Dawn members march under the Nazi swastika, terrorising and beating up immigrants. They have attacked anti-right protesters. Homophobic Golden Dawn MP Ilias Panagiotaros and supporters closed down a theatre in Athens performing Terrence McNally’s play, Corpus Christi, beating up and terrorising actors.

This fascist party is tapping in to the existential insecurity suffered by Greeks as new €13.5bn a year cuts and tax rises demanded by the European Union and the International Monetary Fund are imposed on an suffering population. The young and the elderly are victims of a regime that represents the interests of global capital.

So it is definitely worth looking at the parallels between events in Greece and those in Germany some 80 years ago.  

The Germany of the 1920s saw a massive economic crisis in which the German mark lost virtually all its value. The Wall Street crash of 1929 resulted in a depression and massive unemployment, not only in the US but also in Germany.

Electoral support for the Nazi party soared from 12 seats in 1928 to 230 seats by 1932 making it the largest party in the Reichstag. Big money from German industrialists poured in to swell Nazi party coffers allowing them to print millions of election pamphlets.

Crucially, those who sought to stop Nazism were held back by their own leaders.  Before 1933, anti-Nazi deputies in the Reichstag still held over 50% of the votes. But, due to the disastrous ultra-left policies of the German Communist Party – which characterised the Social Democrats as “social fascists” – the anti-Nazi forces were split down the middle.

Naturally, Mason is right to warn of too direct comparisons between Weimar Germany and today’s Greece. He points, for example, to the melting away of support for what he terms Greece’s “centrist parties”. In poll ratings, the Pasok’s share has plummeted from 40% down to 5.5%, in comparison to Golden Dawn’s 12% with the left-coalition Syriza at 30%.

He says the real problem is political disaffection and a sense of “hopeless inertia”. He writes: “You can feel what it is like when the political system - and even the rule of law - becomes paralysed and atrophies.”   

So is the future of Greece really down to people’s psychology – the “fight or flight” instinct, as Mason suggests? Well, no. Just as German support for Nazism cannot be ascribed to a spurious “German national character”.  

One of the greatest lessons from Hitler’s rise to power was that parliamentary democracy failed to stop the Nazi’s seizing power in March 1933. In fact, the Nazis came to power legally within the terms of the constitution. This does not mean that anti-fascists should disregard parliament, or refuse to defend it against the far right.

But democratic rights in such a period as ours cannot be defended solely by relying on the very institutions that have failed, or creating alliances with bourgeois parties as disastrously happened in Spain in 1936 with the formation of the Popular Front.

Everywhere, not just in Greece, confidence in establishment institutions is in decline. Parliamentary politics fails to convince or capture people’s imagination. The solution is not to revive a political system that is tied inextricably to corporate power but to work for a new constitutional settlement that extends democracy in new ways, beyond representation. That’s what the November 17 assembly The Revolution Will Be Networked, will focus on.

Corinna Lotz

AWTW secretary

How we can move beyond resistance

Everyone joining tomorrow’s anti-austerity march in London called by the Trades Union Congress should take heed of what is happening in Greece if we are going to find ways to move beyond resistance to the deepening crisis.

The Greek trade unions this week held their 20^th one-day general strike in two years against the absolutely savage cuts in living standards imposed by governments of the left and the right, as well as coalition regimes.

Regarding the strikes as short-lived protests, the Greek state is standing firm on behalf of the International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank and European Union governments – the infamous Troika.

Their riot police are working hand-in-glove with the fascist Golden Dawn to protect the authorities as society edges towards breakdown. Only just in the background stands the Greek army, whose colonels are not averse to staging military coups and taking power as they did from 1967 to 1974.

Despite the widespread hatred of the measures that have reduced many Greeks to penury – to the point where many can’t even afford to bury their dead or obtain vital drugs – the misery is scheduled to worsen, with further pay and pension cuts. One in four are already out of work and job losses are continuing.

Britain’s situation is not like Greece’s, you could argue. But that would be a superficial view. Greece is at the sharp end of a global crisis of capitalism that is driving policy making in every single country.

The crash that began with the credit crunch in 2007 is on the verge of a new and more explosive phase. The major economies – including China’s – are awash with debt, built up to generate the growth bubble of the first years of the century. Most of this debt will have to be written off, creating more unemployment, driving down demand and reinforcing the shortage of credit.

 

In Britain, government debt is spiralling despite the ConDems’ austerity cuts, wage freezes and pension reductions. A record number of people are working part-time, on very low wages, because they can’t find a permanent job. Cuts in welfare are only the start of what is on the agenda.

So what should we fight for? For policies that are designed to boost “growth” because the ConDems have “got it wrong” and are making matters worse? This is the approach of the TUC and it is muddle-headed and actually a waste of time.

There is a global recession and the capitalist production system as a whole is a disaster zone. The contraction that is taking place is the inevitable response by corporations, banks and states – the corporatocracy – to the end of a fictional boom. Production for profit has led to destruction to sustain profits.

Whoever is in government would more or less do the same. Labour-led councils are making the cuts on behalf of Whitehall while Labour is pledged to cut the deficit were it in office. Not only that, Ed Miliband’s response to rising train and energy costs is to – wait for it – improve the way capitalist markets work! So holding on for a government that believes in “responsible capitalism” is self-evidently no solution.

The system is broken, economically, financially – and politically. The time is right to move beyond it, beyond resistance. Capitalism, its state, our cosmetic democracy are surely not the last word in the story of human endeavour.

A new, democratic framework could win popular support and offer an alternative to marching from A to B in protest. On November 17, a number of groups are supporting a working event to start to produce a new constitutional settlement, one which is rights-based and transfers power to the majority in an Agreement of the People. Do your best to be there.

Paul Feldman

Communications editor

Global economy heading 'down for the count'

Stark warnings from the International Monetary Fund about the risk of financial collapse in Europe have coincided with indicators from the Brookings Institution and the Financial Times showing that the global economy is “on the ropes”.

They give some context to Coalition prime minister Cameron’s “hour of reckoning” speech to the party faithful today. Except that it is not just for the British economy that the bell tolls but for capitalism internationally, if its own agencies and researchers are to be believed.

The IMF said that the euro area's debt crisis was the main threat and the risks to global financial stability had risen in the last six months, leaving confidence "very fragile". Concerns centre on European banks offloading $2.8 trillion in assets over two years to cut their risk exposure. That could shrink credit supply dramatically.

Report author Jose Vinals said: “The choice today is between making the necessary but tough policy and political decisions or delaying them – once more – in the false hope that time is on our side. It is not."

His fears are confirmed by indicators compiled by the Brookings Institution and the Financial Times which show that “the global economic recovery is on the ropes, battered by political conflicts within and across countries, lack of decisive policy actions, and governments’ inability to tackle deep-seated problems such as unsustainable public finances that are stifling growth.”

All of the Tiger (Tracking Indices for the Global Economic Recovery) measures show that the global economy is operating at a lower level than before the 2007-8 crash and heading downwards. Spokesperson Professor Eswar Prasad warned: “In the absence of a broader range of decisive policy measures – including fiscal, financial system and structural reforms needed in many countries – the world economy may soon be down for the count.”

This is the stark reality of global contraction which is the driving force at the epicentre of the planetary emergency.

The brutal treatment of protesters demonstrating against German chancellor Angela Merkel’s visit to Athens, together with the rise of the fascist Golden Dawn in Greece are clear warnings of the depths of barbarity the defenders of the system will plumb as do what is necessary to save capitalism.

Merkel’s visited Greece to strengthen the determination of the government of prime minister Antonis Samaras which must force another round of austerity onto the Greek people. They are already going through intolerable pain in terms of cuts to living standards, unemployment, shortage of medicines and homelessness.

Merkel is acting as spokesperson for the Troika – the IMF, the European Central Bank and the European Union – which once again is confounded by the facts.  Three years ago they said that Greece's economy would contract by 2.6% in 2010, before growing by 1.1% in 2011, and 2.1%in 2012. Greek GDP instead contracted by 4.5% in 2010, 6.9% in 2011, and is likely to shrink a further 6% this year.

But Greece is not an isolated case.

According to Professor Prasad, The Brookings-FT Tiger index shows growth momentum has dissipated in nearly all major advanced and emerging market economies. Central banks of the major advanced economies have responded with a range of conventional and unconventional policy monetary policy actions.

He says while these measures have put a “floor on short-term financial market risks” they have been unable to reverse declining growth momentum. “As a result, financial markets continue to go through short-term cycles of angst and euphoria even as indicators of real economic activity remain mired in weakness.”

These indicators reveal the objective movement of the global capitalist system which has already brought millions of people onto the streets protesting against the unbearable consequences of contraction. On any measure, the capitalist system of production has failed. At the same time, threatening political reaction is the order of the day in Britain, Greece, Spain and in many other countries.

Gerry Gold

Economics editor