The Political Physicist

Just over five months ago, Greece elected a new government lead by left-wing party SYRIZA. SYRIZA comes out of a radical tradition rejecting both reformist social democracy and authoritarian communism and was swept to power on a wave of anti-austerity sentiment. Austerity refers to the massive cuts to public spending (tending to hurt particularly those on lower incomes) which Greece has endured over the past five years, along with the associated policies of deregulation, cuts to the minimum wage, an end to collective bargaining, and the privatization of anything which actually makes a profit for the government. These policies have been devastating for Greece, resulting in a 26% contraction in GDP, ~25% unemployment, over 50% youth unemployment, and a humanitarian disaster as people can’t get access to food, energy, shelter, or basic healthcare.¹

Now, it is fair to say that Greece did borrow too much money over the years leading up to the crisis. However, I think it is also fair to say that there is an inverse relationship between someone’s culpability for the debt and the pain which they have experienced under austerity. It is also true that the Greek state is hopelessly corrupt. That said, of all of the parties represented in the Hellenic Parliament, SYRIZA is probably the one with the greatest commitment to try to tack that.

Anyway, none of this is new—it was all equally the case when SYRIZA was elected in January. At that time, SYRIZA had pledged to end austerity while staying a part of the Eurozone and refraining from any unilateral actions (i.e. defaulting on the debt). Given that Greeks overwhelmingly favour staying in the Euro, it is not surprising that SYRIZA would make such a commitment. They insisted that they would be able to reverse austerity by:

1. Immediately implementing the Thessaloniki Program which purported to provide a mild Keynseianism with the resources already available to the Greek government.
2. Renegotiating the debt with Europe, on the basis that austerity clearly was not leading to growth and was hurting the Eurozone as a whole. Furthermore, they would point out that there was no way that Greece would ever be able to repay the debt as the situations currently stands, whether they want to or not.

However, it almost immediately² became clear to anyone who was watching with a remotely level head that this would not be as easy as was claimed. The leadership of SYRIZA are die-hard Europeans who, reportedly, believe in the European project (European integration which, in reality, means the EU and the Euro) at a deep emotional level. They were thus extremely reluctant to countenance any sort of break with Europe, even without considering that public opinion took a similar view. It would thus appear that they genuinely thought that, if they were to sit down and explain to the EU why austerity was wrong-headed then it would see the light. Now, I certainly would not condemn giving this a try—after all, what have they got to loose? But I found it incredibly hard to believe that they would go into these quixotic negotiations without even a sketch of an alternative plan to pursue if they failed.

And yet that is what seems to be the case. In February, prompted by the potential collapse of the Greek banking sector, Athens signed a deal with the European Commission, the European Central Bank, and the International Monetary Fund (previously called “the Troika,” since renamed “the institutions” or “the Brussels group” for reasons of political spin) in order to ensure that the European Central Bank would keep it afloat. However, this deal represented a major retreat from their election promises, as it committed them to austerity (with vague enough language that SYRIZA naively hoped that they could wriggle out of it) and forbade them from passing any legislation which could, in the view of “the institutions,” endanger the Greek “recovery.” The worst part of all of this was that the SYRIZA leadership tried to portray this as a victory and proof that it was possible to negotiate a resolution with Europe.

However, since that time, Greece has not actually seen any of the money that they were promised from the Troika, as they must first start to implement the structural adjustments demanded. This has left Athens with very little money to make repayments on various loans coming due and, over the past few month, the government has been drained of any remaining cash. With a major repayment due to the IMF at the end of June, things were getting desperate.

In an attempt to get access to the funds that they had been promised, the Greek government began backsliding on ever more of their promises. A call to halt (and even reverse) privatizations gave way to pursuing “partnerships” with the private sector to develop state assets, to partial privatization, to privatization full-stop. Commitments to restore pensions to their previous levels became a promise not to decrease them further. Promises to reduce sales tax have turned into pledges not to raise it on essential items. A goal of running balanced budgets (rather than a surplus) became a request to simply run a smaller surplus. And any talk of a comprehensive investment plan to spur growth has vanished. SYRIZA’s insistence that there were certain red lines which they would not cross looked ever more dubious.

And now, at the eleventh hour, SYRIZA has given way on their pledges to protect pensions and not to raise sales tax. They’ve even succumbed to calls for a higher budget surplus. To be honest, I’m somewhat surprised by this; I had expected that if they were going to give in on those issues then they would have done it before now. All I can conclude is that the leadership really didn’t know what it was doing and had persisted in the blind belief that Europe was bluffing and would give in if they waited long enough. But to anyone with half a brain it should have been obvious that this was a delusion, at least after the agreement in February.

For SYRIZA’s Left Platform, this has long been the case. Prominent members have consistently been calling for a break with Europe since February. Economist and SYRIZA MP Costas Lapavitsas has been urging an exit from the Eurozone since before the election and has drawn up plans for how this could be accomplished. A growing number of people on the left of SYRIZA’s mainstream faction have also been won over to this view after having witnessed the ever greater concessions which have been offered in order to avoid rupture with Europe. However, none of this has affected the official discourse of the party and, as such, the Greek public has been fed the delusion that relief from austerity is possible within the Euro and support for some sort of compromise—which, seeing as SYRIZA has given way on virtually all of its initial bargaining positions while the institutions have given way on hardly any, is impossible. The end result: Greeks remain totally unprepared for any sort of rupture with Europe, having been scared stiff by the media and pandering SYRIZA politicians of the consequences of doing anything which might endanger their place in the Euro.

So, what now? Well, there are still questions over whether a deal will actually be reached. But if it is, SYRIZA’s leaders will still need to sell it to the rest of the party. And it is not at all clear that this will happen. While it may get the support of a majority of the cabinet, there is every sign that SYRIZA’s coalition partner will reject it (especially if it involves hikes to sales tax) and I suspect that at least 20% of SYRIZA’s own MPs would vote against it. This would be enough to make SYRIZA rely on the support of opposition parties to pass such a bill, which would be humiliating and would damage the party’s image.

Furthermore, it remains a distinct possibility that the party’s central committee will vote down accepting any such deal. A few weeks ago there was a vote on a motion to break with Europe, which lost 75-95. That means only 11 committee members would have to swing in order for such a proposal to win now. Given the scope of SYRIZA’s retreat, such a result would seem entirely possible. Then there is the prospect of discontent in the party grassroots. Already the youth wing has held protests indicating that they would prefer “chaos to capitulation”. So a split in the SYRIZA ranks is looking increasingly likeley.

Now, onto the point which caused me to write this article: how should the international Left respond to these developments? For months socialist across Europe have been expressing solidarity with Greeks and the Greek government, while upstart parties have been advertising themselves as the Spanish/British/Turkish SYRIZA. Should they continue to offer SYRIZA their unconditional support? Should they condemn this retreat?

It’s a tricky question, made all the harder by these groups’ uncritical approach to SYRIZA over the past while. Billing yourself as a party in the image of SYRIZA will be distinctly damaging if SYRIZA is forced to retreat. I think it’s fair to say that we on the Left must continue to offer the Greek people our solidarity. However, no such solidarity should be extended to any SYRIZA member who is willing to implement austerity. Fair enough, they are in an incredibly difficult situation and it is all too easy for us to criticize when we can’t even imagine being able to form a government in our home countries. But the fact remains, if we are to be at all consistent then we must not endorse anyone who implements austerity, whether they come from a left-wing background or not.

So what should SYRIZA do? From the comfort of my armchair in a country which has not been ravaged by austerity and is safely on its own currency and who won’t be hurt if things go wrong, here are my thoughts. For starters, they should get rid of their leader, Alexis Tsipras, finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis, and the inner circle which surrounds them. This group has clearly revealed themselves to be incapable of pushing back austerity in Greece, let alone of laying the ground for overcoming capitalism. At the very least, Varoufakis should be forced to resign.

Next comes the problem that SYRIZA does not have a mandate for breaking with Europe. As I said earlier, they were elected promising to end austerity while remaining in the Eurozone. However, nor do they have any mandate to implement austerity as they look prepared to do. I’m not totally adverse to the concept of pushing ahead and breaking with austerity, leaving the Euro if necessary, mandate be damned. To be sure, such an approach has risks, but I can’t help but feel that those risks are better than the certainty of austerity-induced misery within the Euro. In all probability, this will require a fresh election or a referendum in order to justify it to the electorate. What’s more, there is a very good chance that SYRIZA would lose such an election and it would almost certainly lose such a referendum. Well, so be it.

If the Greek people decide that they would prefer austerity over leaving the Euro, then SYRIZA should resign. Let a party which really believes in austerity be the one to implement it. SYRIZA would be better off in opposition, agitating for an end to austerity even if it does mean a break with Europe. This would be a serious setback but, unlike giving in to austerity, not a fatal one. Let SYRIZA live to fight another day.