Greece: It’s the Politics, Stupid!

Mark Thoma excerpts from Francesco Saraceno writing about Greece: It’s the Politics, Stupid!.

What the past week made clear is that this, and only this was the objective of the creditors. This has been since the beginning about politics. Creditors cannot afford that an alternative to policies followed since 2010 in Greece and in the rest of the Eurozone materializes.

Austerity and structural reforms need to be the only way to go. Otherwise people could start asking questions; a risk you don’t want to run a few months before Spanish elections. Syriza needed to be made an example. You cannot survive in Europe, if you don’t embrace the Brussels-Berlin Consensus. Tsipras, like Papandreou, was left with the only option too ask for the Greek people’s opinion, because there has been no negotiation, just a huge smoke screen. Those of us who were discussing pros and cons of the different options on the table, well, we were wasting our time.

And if Greece needs to go down to prove it, so be it. If we transform the euro in a club in which countries come and go, so be it.

Emphasis Mine

The Capitalist's mantra is “There is no alternative”. They set the rules and we have to play by them.

Control is now all that matters to the Capitalists as the system crumbles around them.

Innovation means loss of control. Unions mean loss of control. Democracy means loss of control. All of these must be suppressed for the “Greater Good of Capitalism”.

Capitalism is a wounded giant lashing out in pain and agony as it feels the life-force drain away from it.

Are we ready to form a new society from the ruins of Capitalism? Or are we just going to die as well?