Autonomies

Our refrain becomes repetitive: capitalism cannot be reformed because a system of oppression, appropriation and exploitation cannot be fundamentally altered by state authorities that are not only beholden to it, but are an expression of it.  The illusion to the contrary was once known as social democracy.  And if this latter could be held up as an example of how such reforms were once possible, these reforms were far more the children of state responses to radical anti-capitalist militancy than to any will to reform by the state and only possible through the violent primitive accumulation of global capitalist uneven development.

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Sunday’s referendum results in greece, a “no” to the austerity measures proposed by the Eurogroup responsible for negotiating the country’s debt payments,  testify to a sentiment among most of indignation and refusal of a politics that has reduced over the last seven years the greater part of the population to socio-economic precariousness and/or misery.  Yet sadly, little changes with the referendum, because for the Syriza government it was but an instrument for bringing further pressure to bear on eurozone governments and thus strengthen the country’s negotiating position.  It had nothing to do with expressing “popular” power or direct democracy.  And thus our inability to share for example Michael Löwy’s contention that the referendum was a moment of historical significance in which democracy itself was at stake.  Or that in the referendum, to cite another example, that democracy triumphed over fear. (Periodico Diagonal 07/07/2015)  What kind of democracy is this that uses the vote of a people as a mere means, a bargaining chip, in a negotiation in which those same people have no say?  What is democratic about a people being so instrumentalised for a goal which remains fundamentally unchanged since the election of the Syriza government, namely, establishing “fairer” conditions for the repayment of a debt that is itself unfair?  Syriza, through all of this effort, can in no way be described as pursuing an anti-capitalist politics and continues to give no indication that that is what it ultimately aspires to.  Tsipras, before the european parliament and three days after the referendum, could find nothing better to say than, “We want to find an honourable compromise  to avoid a rupture with the european tradition. … I am convinced that in two or three days, we will be able to honour our obligations.” (Le Monde 08/07/2015)

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