My header this week is in solidarity for the Greek people. I hope they vote no and then realise that leaving the dysfunctional Eurozone will promise them growth and a return to some prosperity. They can become the banner nation for other crippled Eurozone nations – a guiding light out of the madness that the neo-liberal elites have created. While Greece battens down against the most incredible attack on European democracy since who knows when – perhaps since the Anschluss that led finally to war breaking out a year later in Europe, one wonders how low the Brussels elite will go to preserve control of the agenda. They clearly lost control on Friday when the Greek leadership decided to go back to the people to determine whether they wanted more poverty-inducing austerity. In response, the Brussels gang along with their Washington mates at the IMF have come out with personal attacks, lies, threats and ridiculous dissembling. But that is what happens when bullies can’t bully. But while these events are rather extraordinary in historical terms, other insidious attacks on democratic rights and choice are on-going. One of the more startling attempts to undermine the capacity of elected states to deliver on their mandate to their electorates and hand over almost absolute power over the state to international corporations is the so-called Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).
The TPP is being pushed under smokescreen of ‘free trade’, which is one of those classic neo-liberal con jobs like deregulation, privatisation, public-private partnerships and other ruses that imply that self-regulating private markets will deliver maximum wealth growth to all.
The corollary, of course, is that the state should remove the fetters of regulation on business, minimise its own economic footprint, and allow the corporate world to do what it does best – help us all.
The narrative is so obviously bereft that it hardly seems worth criticising any more. If the GFC proved anything it showed categorically that self-regulating private markets do not function efficiently and do not providing lasting benefits to us all.
We knew that already – the history of privatisation, outsourcing and the rest of the scams is littered with disasters, which are usually conveniently covered over with some gloss or another.
But the GFC brought it home in an undeniable fashion just as Greece – sorry for them – have been the most overt laboratory for the failures of fiscal austerity and the easy sounding but evil in practice ‘growth friendly structural reforms’ (aka hack as many public benefits from ordinary citizens and transfer as much national income to the rich).