Plan B

Old news maybe (from the end of February) but something which should give the left food for thought. Greece has been at the sharp end for a few years now. A country living in the capitalist west which can no longer pay its people pensions, benefits, and basic services from the taxation it collects. The people of course propelled Syriza to power, vowing an end to austerity. So what has happened?

Let us consider this piece of reportage on the developing story -



There were signs of dissent within Tsipras’s radical left Syriza party over the concessions made in Brussels. Piling on the pressure, the veteran leftist, second world war hero and Euro MP, Manolis Glezos, not only lambasted the deal but called on Greeks to rise up against it.

“I apologise to the Greek people that I cooperated in this illusion,” the 92-year-old wrote on his blog. “Some claim that as part of a deal you have to back down. First of all, there can be no compromise between the oppressor and oppressed, just as there cannot between the slave and the tyrant, the only solution is freedom.”

Of particular ire, he said, was the government’s decision to allow the hated “troika” of auditors representing the country’s foreign lenders to continue supervising Greece’s economic progress by renaming it “the institutions”.

Syriza responded with a terse statement, saying: “It is likely Manolis Glezos is not well-informed about the hard and persistent negotiations which are continuing. These are negotiations [whose aim] is to reclaim the dignity of the Greek people.”



So there's the bottom line. Plan B nowhere. So instead, an appeal is made to reclaiming the dignity of the people. Marxism or shallow populist nationalism?