On Fri, Jul 17, 2015 at 11:15 AM, raghu <[email protected]> wrote: > On Fri, Jul 17, 2015 at 12:33 PM, Gar Lipow <[email protected]> wrote: > >> And yes, a friendly Grexit that was not devastating to Greece would >> require billions in currency support from the EU - making it utopian in the >> worst sense. >> > > > Why is this utopian? I can think of many good reasons for the EU to spend > the necessary billions to ease a Grexit. > - An orderly Grexit is in the interests of everyone in the EU, not just > Greece. To put it slightly differently, a disorderly Grexit would be a > geopolitical nightmare for the EU, not just for Greece. I think the EU > leaders understand this, even Schauble. > - Everyone knows that the Greek debt needs to be written down and > restructured. A Grexit would be a perfect opportunity to do this unpleasant > task in a way that is politically acceptable to the other countries. You > don't have to admit your own previous mistakes if you can blame all the > losses on the costs of a Grexit. > - And the best reason of all: once a Grexit is underway, the Syriza > uprising would have already been utterly defeated, so there is no further > political incentive to keep piling on the misery. > > Just because it seems like a good idea doesn't mean it will happen of > course.. >
Without leverage, the EU could impose more austerity conditions in return for a Grexit. Syriza's original proposals made the same wort of sense. The compromises they offered made even more sense from the EU viewpoint. But the EU did not take any compromise because they had the power not do. It is just maximum class warfare. And incidentally, strong evidence that capitalists don't believe in the myth of gDP in the sense that GDP is not at the top of their goals or even in the top two or three - control beats economic growth every time in capitalist calculation. My energy work gathers tons of micro examples, but the EU is huge macro example. (And not just in their Greek policy, but EU wide. ) So it is Utopian in the sense that it is an attempt to find a clever policy that the other side will accept without a change in the balance of power. If the balance of power changed and Greece had some leverage, a "friendly" Grexit would be one of many options. In the absence of that change, any kind of compromise (including their original program ) are Utopian. Non-utopianism has to start with gaining leverage, with gaining a degree of power. > [email protected] > https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l > > -- Facebook: Gar Lipow Twitter: GarLipow Solving the Climate Crisis web page: SolvingTheClimateCrisis.com Grist Blog: http://grist.org/author/gar-lipow/ Online technical reference: http://www.nohairshirts.com
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