Geography Archives: Greece

  • Wall Street, Small Business, and the Limits of Corporate Personhood: An Interview with Doug Henwood

    Sasha Lilley: Protests against Wall Street have inspired many people to move their money from big banks to smaller banks and credit unions and encourage others to do the same.  Why might you be skeptical of this effort? Doug Henwood: There are several reasons.  First of all, I think a lot of the big banks […]

  • Social Democracy’s Great Error: Similarities Between the Schröder and Zapatero Administrations

    In circles close to the former Zapatero administration, attempts have been made to represent former Prime Minister Zapatero as the politician who “sacrificed himself to save Spain,” comparing him to former German Chancellor Schröder who, though aware that he would antagonize his electoral base with his clearly neoliberal policies, went ahead with them, for he […]

  • Europe’s Debt Crisis Deepens

    Over the weekend, Fitch — the major rating company that, with its fellow majors, Moody’s and Standard and Poor’s, dominate the business of assessing the riskiness of debt instruments — took a highly publicized step.  It downgraded the credit-worthiness of the sovereign debts of many European countries.  What a spectacle!  These rating companies were distinguished […]

  • Tough on Euros, Weak on Nazis

    Hurray!  Merkel won the day!  It took a long night of backroom bargaining, but except for that Tory, David Cameron, all European Union members agreed to save the euro, save the economy, save the world!  It had been on the brink of disaster, Sarkozy warned on the eve of the meeting: unless we reach agreement […]

  • Ireland: Whatever You Do, Don’t Get Sick, Don’t Get Old, and Don’t Be Young

    On December 6th, 2011, the Irish government announced a new and harsh austerity plan through a tight budget.  The annual budget, now stripped of a regular rise in social welfare payments, is part of a dreaded aspect of living in 21st century Ireland, a country plagued by a seemingly incurable economic depression.  Cuts were made […]

  • The General Strike

      General strikes were common in Europe and in the U.S. towards the end of the nineteenth century and in the first decades of the twentieth century.  They provoked great debates within the labor movement and within the revolutionary parties and movements (anarchist, communist, socialist). Much discussed were the importance of the general strike in […]

  • The Scream

    Rajoy Won Victor Nieto is a cartoonist in Venezuela.  Cf. “Polls say that seven out of ten voters for the victorious People’s Party do not have much confidence in . . . PP” (Ancelmo Gois, “Direita, volver,” 21 November 2011); “Right away, the risk premium of the Spanish debt rises and the stock market tumbles, […]

  • Political Crisis in Italy and Greece: Marx on ‘Technical Government’

    In recent years Marx has again been featuring in the world’s press because of his prescient insights into the cyclical and structural character of capitalist crises.  Now there is another reason why he should be re-read in the light of Greece and Italy: the reappearance of the ‘technical government’. As a contributor to the New […]

  • Debunking the Greek (and European) Crisis Narrative

    In a recent debate the candidates for the Republican presidential nomination treated cutting the deficit as the panacea that would address the European crisis and prevent the United States from having a similar fate.  This diagnosis is wrong but it is unfortunately not unique to the Republicans in this country.  In fact, it is this […]

  • Lessons from a Long History of Dissent: From the Early Twentieth Century to Occupy Wall Street

    World Peace Forum Teach-In, Vancouver, Canada, November 12, 2011 (Modified from Notes) We are at what social theorists call a “historic moment,” in which real change suddenly seems possible.  It is therefore all the more important to learn from past struggles.  One of the first lessens of a long history of dissent from the early […]

  • Referendum

    “True, people may be consulted via a referendum!  But . . . what if they vote the wrong way?” “Then, it definitely falls to us to fix the damage!” Juan Kalvellido is a Spanish cartoonist.  Translation by Yoshie Furuhashi (@yoshiefuruhashi | yoshie.furuhashi [at] gmail.com).  Cf. Greece; “Amazing!  These lawmakers absolutely refuse to listen to the […]

  • Occupy Wall St, Occupy Uruguay, Occupy Manila International Airport

    In my last posting on #OWS, I related a series of conversations I’d had with global trade union activists on their perceptions of #OccupyWallSt.  After the article appeared, several global labor activists contacted me with follow-up and feedback.  Steve Faulkner, an International Officer at the South African Municipal Workers Union (SAMWU), wrote to say that […]

  • Message of Support to Workers in Greece on the Eve of the 48-hour General Strike

    We follow the struggle of the class-oriented labour movement in Greece. The struggle of PAME constitutes an integral part of our own struggle.  We express our solidarity with the strike of 48 hours, in this battle and struggle against the barbaric measures that are being promoted in Greece, such as the abolition of collective agreements, […]

  • Europe in Crisis: Interview with Yanis Varoufakis

      “My experience of the last year and half during the acceleration of this crisis is that the worst enemy of reason and progress are social democratic parties.  I say this painfully.  There’s no glee in this statement.”  — Yanis Varoufakis The Mess We’re In . . . The Future of Greece A Solution to […]

  • How to Make an Ecosocialist Revolution

    Meetings such as this play a vital role in building a movement that can stop the hell-bound train of capitalism, before it takes itself and all of humanity over the precipice.  Building such a movement is the most important thing anyone can do today — so I’m honored to have been invited to take part […]

  • Before October: The Unbearable Romanticism of Western Marxism

    Most Western Marxists suffer from a deep resentment: they have never experienced a successful communist revolution.  For some unaccountable reason, all of those successful revolutions have happened in the ‘East’: Russia, Bulgaria, Romania, Yugoslavia, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Poland, China, Vietnam and so on.  And none of the few revolutions in the ‘West’, from Finland to Germany, […]

  • European Conference Declaration

      After a day of intensive debate, analysis and planning for cooperation and action, the Europe against Austerity Conference heard Coalition of Resistance Secretary Andrew Burgin propose the following Declaration, on behalf of the European Preparatory Committee.  The Declaration was unanimously endorsed by the Conference which was attended by over 600 people: This European conference […]

  • Germany’s Euro Trilemma: Interview with Yanis Varoufakis

    Yanis Varoufakis is a prestigious economist who heads the Department of Economic Policy at the University of Athens.  From 2004 to 2007 Varoufakis served as economic adviser to George Papandreou.  Author of several books on Game Theory, Varoufakis is also a recognized speaker and often appears as guest analyst for news media such as the […]

  • Can BRICS Help Europe?

    Last week Brazilian Finance Minister Guido Mantega proposed that the BRICS countries offer help to Europe, either through the International Monetary Fund (IMF) or by buying up European bonds.  I can understand the sentiment: The European authorities have created a financial crisis that is already slowing the world economy and could potentially have even worse […]

  • WFTU: ‘Support People, Oppose Imperialist Interference in Arab Countries’

      The World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU) organised on September 13-14 a two-day international trade union meet in the European Parliament complex in Strasbourg, France, to express solidarity with the fighting people of Arab countries and voice strong protest against the hegemonic interference of US imperialism and its European allies in the internal affairs […]