What Does Europe Want? The Union and its Discontents. Slavoj Žižek
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entered a vicious cycle of uncontrolled depression that leads nowhere except to complete disaster.
Taliban Neoliberalism
The Greek ‘rescue’ plan (another convenient term used to describe this disaster) ignores a fundamental principle. The economy is like a cow: it eats grass and produces milk. It is inconceivable to take away a quarter of her grass and expect her to produce four times more milk. The cow will simply die. The same is now happening to the Greek economy.
The Greek Left realised, from the very first moment, that the austerity measures would not ‘cure’, but actually deepen the crisis. When someone is drowning, he needs to be thrown a lifeline, not a weight. For their part, the Taliban neoliberalists still assure us that things will improve. Yet even the most stupid among them must now know that this is a lie. But this stance is not nonsense, and it’s not dogmatism. The leaders of the IMF themselves recently stated that there is an error in the design of the Greek austerity programme, which is doomed to failure, and that the effects of the recession are completely out of control. And yet the programme continues with an unprecedented stubbornness and persistence, and the situation is becoming more and more difficult. The conclusion can only be that something else lies behind all this.
In fact, behind all this is the fact that pulling the Greek economy out of the crisis is not in the interests of Europe or the IMF. Much more important is the desire to remove, as the ultimate goal of the programme, what in post-war Europe became known as the ‘social contract’. The fact that Greece will be left bankrupt and riddled with social problems is not important. What is important, is that a eurozone country is openly discussing the introduction of a wage level comparative to that of the Chinese, along with the abolition of workers’ rights, the abolition of national insurance and the welfare state, and the total privatisation of utilities and public goods. Those neoliberal depraved minds, who already encountered violent resistance in European societies following the decade of the 1990s, now find their dream becoming a reality through the pretext of the crisis.
Greece is the first step. The debt crisis has already spread to other countries in southern Europe, and penetrates deeper into the heart of the European Union. Greece can serve as a case study. Anyone who is exposed to the speculative attacks of the markets has no other choice but to destroy the remnants of the welfare state, as has happened in Greece. Similar memoranda in Spain and Portugal have already introduced similar changes. But this strategy is fully revealed in the ‘European Pact for Stability’, which promotes Germany in place of the entire Union. Member states are no longer free to manage their own finances. The central institutions of the EU are allowed to intervene in budgets and impose tough fiscal measures to reduce deficits. This policy strongly affects schools, nurseries, universities, public hospitals and social programmes. If people use democracy as a defence against austerity, as happened recently in Italy, the result for democracy is even worse.
There Are Alternatives
Let us be clear: the generalised European model was not created in order to save Greece, but to destroy it. Europe’s future is already planned and it envisages happy bankers and unhappy societies. In the anticipated development plan, capital will be the rider and society will be the horse. It’s an ambitious plan, but it can not go far. The reason is that not one such project was ever completed without the consensus of society and the protection of its most vulnerable. It seems that the leading European elite has currently forgotten this fact. Unfortunately for them, they will have to face up to it sooner than they think.
It is the beginning of the end of the existing neoliberal capitalism; the most aggressive capitalism that mankind has ever faced, and which has dominated for the past two decades. Ever since the collapse of Lehman Brothers, there have been two conflicting strategies for overcoming the crisis which represent two different perspectives on the world economy. The first strategy is a financial expansion, with the printing of new money, the nationalisation of banks and the increased taxation of the rich. The other is by saving, transferring the bank debt to the public sector debt, relying on the middle and lower classes of society being overly taxed, while only the rich can avoid tax altogether. European leaders choose another model, but they too have come to a standstill, while facing additional problems. These problems led to an historic conflict in Europe. A conflict that seemingly has geographical dimensions and designations: on the surface it seems to be divided into that of north-south, yet beneath the surface there is a class conflict that relates to two conflicting strategies for Europe. One strategy defends the complete domination of capital, unconditionally and without principles, and without any plan for secure social cohesion and welfare. The other strategy defends European democracy and social needs. The conflict has already begun.
There is an alternative solution to the crisis. This is to protect European companies from the speculation of financial capital. It is the emancipation of the real economy from the constraints of profit. It is a way out of monetarism and authoritative fiscal policy. It is a new development planning with social benefits as the main criterion. It is a new production model, based on decent work conditions, the expansion of public good and environmental protection. This view is consistently left out of the discussion by the European leadership. It remains with the people, the European workers and already ‘bitter’ movements to strike their own stamp on history and prevent the mass looting and destruction.
The experience of previous years leads to one conclusion: there is one morality in politics and another for economy. In the years since 1989, the morality of the economy has fully prevailed over the ethics of politics and democracy. What went in favour of the two, those five or ten strong financial institutions, were considered legitimate, even if it would be contrary to fundamental human rights principles. Today our task is to restore the dominance of political and social moral values, as opposed to the logic of profit.
The War of Resistance
How will we make the dynamics of social struggle work? And how can we break, once and for all, the harness of social apathy on which the construction of Europe since 1989 is founded upon? The active participation of the masses in politics is the only thing that can frighten the ruling elite in Europe and worldwide. And that’s exactly why we should make it happen.
The plan for a stronger economic cycle is clear. We need to create a different political and social project and defend it by all means at the central and local level. Let’s start with the workplace, with universities and neighbourhoods, until we have a coordinated joint action in all European countries. It is a struggle of resistance that will result in a victory as long as it leads to a common alternative programme for Europe. Today’s conflict is not one between deficit and surplus countries, or between disciplined and restless people. Today’s conflict is between the European social interests and the needs of capital for continual profit growth.
We will defend social interests, or else our future and our children’s future will be uncertain and dark, something that in recent decades we could not even imagine. The model for development that was based on the ‘free market’ is now bankrupt. At this time the dominant forces are attacking society, its unity and all the privileges that it has managed to retain. This is what is happening in Greece, and this is the plan for the whole of Europe. Let us therefore defend ourselves by any means. We must support a social resistance that invokes and permanently upholds a sense of solidarity and a unified strategy for the peoples of Europe.
The future does not belong to neoliberalism, bankers and a few powerful multinational companies. The future belongs to the nation and to society. It’s time to open the way for a democratic, socially cohesive and free Europe. Because this is the only viable, realistic and feasible solution to exit the current crisis.
Greece
March 2013
Slavoj Žižek
1 BREAKING OUR EGGS WITHOUT THE OMELETTE, FROM CYPRUS TO GREECE
There is a story (apocryphal, maybe) about the Left-leaning, Keynesian economist, John Galbraith: before a trip to the USSR in the late 1950s, he wrote to his anti-communist friend Sidney Hook: ‘Don’t worry, I will not be seduced