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Greece’s Austerity experiments are the Prologue for radical restructuring in Europe

“Greece Was the Prologue – Austerity experiments in Greece set the stage for a radical restructuring of Europe by elites.” A wise truth that we have been suspected long ago. Economist Elias Ioakimoglou, a adviser to the Institute of Labour (Greek General Confederation of Workers), describes the resultant crisis that continues to wreak havoc on Greece a full year after. According to his figures, the Greek depression is now deeper and more severe than the American Great Depression of the 1930s.

In an interview for the US-based left-wing Jakobinmag, Ioakimoglu describes not only the political, economic and social situation in Greece, since SYRIZA/ANEL coalition took power but he has some observations very to the point.

He speaks of a left-wing led government that was came into power with a mandate to resist the imposition of austerity but ended up in capitulating to the countries lenders and intensified austerity measures.

Ioakimogly strongly criticizes SYRIZA for having abandoned the left-wing principles and summarizes:

“The promises Syriza made in the elections of September 2015 have not been fulfilled. We are confronted with a volatile situation in Greece: there is a strong anti-austerity social bloc of conscious, politicized workers, the unemployed, young people, poor people and militants who have acquired precious political skills during six years of social conflict and political struggle, yet there is no political party or organization able to represent it.

Since July 2016, the dominated classes are facing new waves of attacks on their income, property, security, freedom, and social rights. The shameless looting continues. But this time it is Syriza itself that organizes and executes the attack. The perspectives to work for an alternative to austerity, captivity by debt, internal devaluation and social catastrophe have nothing to do with Syriza anymore.”

He stresses the “prolonged depression in Greece” and underlines the aim of implementing “fierce austerity and deconstruction of the welfare state” as targeting to destroy “a large fraction of the labor force.”

“A huge redistribution of income took place in Greece during the seven years of internal devaluation — between 2010 and 2016, employees lost approximately 40 percent of their purchasing power and the ratio of profits to wages reached historic highs.”

Ioakimoglou sees in the Eurozone no signs of failure or risks but a well-thought plan to accumulate capital and create structures that will remove social protections for workers and continue to decrease wages.

“The eurozone is not broken — it is structured to produce the results we are seeing [also and in particular in Greece].. Any macroeconomic imbalance under EMU institutional arrangements leads to adjustment at the expense of labor income, employment protection, and social services, by means of labor market reform and deconstruction of the welfare state.

The eurozone is not just a currency area, it is a capital accumulation regime in which certain tendencies prevail — including the tendencies to remove social protections, to decrease wages, and to abolish the social and political rights that are the core of citizenship. These effects are embedded in the architecture and the operation mode of the eurozone. It was built that way. So you can’t fix it.”

The full interview is here

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3 comments

  1. At last someone has seen the light! Now, what to do about it?…..

  2. I and some others have long ago commented (also in KTG) that the Greek “crisis” has nothing to do with reality and everything to do with plans such as those in the article. Some readers here dismissed this view as “another conspiracy theory”. Well, according to Ioakimoglu the construction of the euro itself is the conspiracy. Varoufakis has perceptively called the Greek case “the canary in the mine”. Well the canary survived (in a zombie state) but the experiment was a success. Widening the application to the rest of the Eurozone is the next step. Now the question is: “did all these politicians in Europe and their highly paid advisers not see what was coming? When, in unison, they kept attacking Greece in every single Eurogroup meeting did they not realise that after Greece it was the turn of their own countries?” Well, of course they did, but as a famous phrase in an old Greek movie goes: “Alex, it was a lot of money…”.

  3. The Great Depression was deliberately put into play, so that The establishment Banking Interests could steal the assets of the nation, both private & public.
    World War 2 was set into play to loot the assets of Europe & to oust the old power brokers & replace them with new power brokers.
    Banking Cartels jostling for positions & assets long salivated after.
    Austerity is not any kind of experiment, it is the usual, tried & true game plan, set in motion to by The Banking Cartels to weaken all competition & opposition for easy takeover.
    This is your restructure .. THEFT of the nations assets & freedom by greedy bankers & aristocracy .. & all made possible by the political arena.