A spectre is haunting Europe once
again, as well as the US of A. Not the spectre of communism this time, but of
dissatisfaction with the current system (both political and economic, partly
caused by the grave error of thinking they are separate realms – as Polanyi
taught us). Although there are different dynamics at play (in the US just less
and less participation, in elections and in civic life in general; whilst in
Europe it manifests itself in the rise of “anti-system” parties, more visible
in the left, and some mild xenophobia within the ranks of the right) the
underlying trend seems to point towards a diminishing faith in the inherited
way for collectively deciding how the common goods should be allocated (by
transferring the responsibility for such decision to elected representatives,
which are in turn organized in groups with a common platform on how they should
direct the common affairs).
But nobody seems to translate that dissatisfaction
into a realistic program to really improve things. One possible explanation is
that after many years (in the case of the UK, Centuries) of democratic
practice, representative democracy is seen as a sophisticated trough, and the
party system everywhere as a way of distributing pork to the ideologically
close, or in a time of fading ideologies, simply to friends and cronies of
those in power, and every new politician that arrives to the scene full of
promises of regeneration and transparency just seems to want to displace
existing parties to get a place for themselves, without changing the underlying
structure.
To clarify my own thinking on the
issue, in this post we are going to examine the shortcomings of three “groups”
(two of them organized already as political parties, one of which has already
successfully seized power, and the third one a more diffuse “movement”): Syriza
(leftist party who recently won the Greek elections), Podemos (leftist party
that is currently polling as the number one contender to win the next Spanish
national elections, although as they are still a year away anything can happen)
and Occupy Wall Street (a quite amorphous group of people who may or may not be
camping currently in some US city to draw attention to the sorry state of the
world, or of American politics, or the plight of the poor, and that claims to
represent the 99% of the population, or whatever percentage of the 99% that is
opposed to the policies that favor the opposite 1%...)
·
Syriza: The guys have at least shown a lot of gumption
for voluntarily willing to take charge of the huge basket case formerly known
as Greece, after a disastrously failed austerity policy has left the Country in
even worse shape than it was four years ago (no small feat). Most of the
European press (that tends to tilt conservative these days) are going to demonize
them no matter what they do, and the (also mostly conservative) governments of
their fellow European countries are not going to lend them any hand, as their
potential success would undermine the credibility of their own economic recipes
(and embolden the broadly anti austerity tendencies of their opposition). So,
given they have promised more they can deliver (but that’s almost part of the
job definition of every politician nowadays, regardless of where they
campaign), and that they preside over a highly corrupt, dysfunctional, every-man-for-himself
Country the guys are screwed. Which may not be a bad thing after all, as the
only way for them is up (even with the modest capital holders that may still
had some money in the Country are already fleeing it, making a generalized bank
run all the more likely with every passing day). However, given their chance of
improving the life of their countrymen stand at best at a paltry 1%, instead of
going bold and proposing some truly radical measure (from going really hard
after tax evasion to confiscating the estates of the ultra rich to exiting the
euro and refusing to pay the national debt altogether) all they are talking
about is slowing the rate at which they pay an already absurd debt level
(around 170% of GDP, but hey, Japan’s is even bigger, and nobody thinks of them
as close to bankruptcy or demands stratospheric interest rates from them in
order to lend them money). At the same time they ask for additional money to
prop up their ailing banks… Unfortunately asking to renegotiate debt in more
favorable terms and asking for additional lending do not sit well together (as
you are just giving the other party in the negotiation all the leverage), as
really all they can use are vague pleas to the already grim plight of their
people, which central bankers and Brussels Eurocrats are pretty much inured to.
We will talk a bit about the effect and consequences of debt reduction either
towards the end of this post or in a future one, but let’s just advance that if
that is all your program consists in… you are toast
·
Podemos: so these guys are not (yet) in power, and are
already showing some ugly signs of not being as clean as they claim (their
number 2 guy received half a million € from Venezuela for a study that
apparently was never written –small potatoes as far as big time corruption
goes, but with the added merit of being given to a University professor that at
the time wielded no power and had no expectation of achieving it- and somehow
forgot to declare it to the fiscal authorities until the press caught a whiff
of the affaire). They were born within a wider social movement (“indignados”,
who namely served as inspiration to other protest movements in many counties)
and initially showed the same lack of clear purpose or organization, but they
managed to put together a platform to the European elections (where normally
interest runs really low, and the amount of voters that actually care to drag
their asses to the polling stations is minimal, so votes can count more) and
have a surprisingly strong showing (nothing earth shattering, a bit above 10%
of the polls, but as nobody saw them coming from nowhere, it gave them a tremendous
media exposure). At the beginning they were just a growing bunch of civic
associations, motley groups of mostly single-issue citizens and a few
university professors at the helm (professors of “political science”, which any
reader of this blog will identify as a big no-no for me), but with the
perspective of potential electoral success they quickly gave themselves a
classical party organization, with a definite platform, a clique of commanding
cadres and they essentially showed the door to anybody not willing to play
along the rules they set. Probably unavoidable if they really want to win a “real”
election (as opposed to the European level one where they have already
competed, which is something of a make-election) and wield power…
Now one of the things they have
finessed in the few months they have been in the limelight is their political
program, jettisoning their original plea of instituting a Universal Basic Income
(so they keep on becoming less and less endearing to yours truly, but probably
loosing the likes of me is the least of their concerns) and becoming more and more
undistinguishable from a traditional social democratic party, with some rhetorical
appeal to traditional leftist sensibilities in that they would a) tax the rich
more b) spend more in social services (unfortunately, the amount of spending,
although never fully spelled out, is likely much bigger than the additional
revenue brought in by the additional taxes), which in turn would require c)
going deeper into debt, the Germans and the EU treaties (which impose a cap in
the amount of deficit over the GDP you can incur) be damned…
·
Occupy Wall Street: From what I can still gather about
them, they seem to be in a pre-Podemos stage (so not yet constituted a
political party, or any form of organization that can aspire to compete even in
a local election). They seem to be OK with being little more than a discussion
forum, and the improving economy, whether it lifts all boats or not seem to
have taken a lot of wind from their sails. As they were truly concerned by
giving everybody a hearing and not stifling the discussion between the loosely
affiliated members, there isn’t anything like a coherent program they have put
together that could be praised or criticized, but one of their more
recognizable mouthpieces, Dave Graeber (a fine fellow, whose Debt, the First 5,000 years I enjoyed
greatly) is basically for a more or less universal “debt jubilee”, as he sees
the forgiveness of debts as a necessary condition for the overcoming of our
current unfair socioeconomic system.
So from these three examples we see
the new left is essentially for more public spending, only partially financed
by higher taxes on the rich, which sounds a bit like getting something from
nothing. So not that different from the old left (and the old and present right, as promising free
lunches has been a staple of politicians of every sign since the time of the original Athenian democracy). No wonder that the common thread, then, is the
obsession with debt and not paying it (or paying it more slowly, which in a deflationary
scenario may have the opposite effect). So ¿is debt leniency really a part of
the solution? We will explore it in a separate post…
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