GREECE

PETER KOENIG—While the pundits – always more or less the same – keep lamenting about the Greek conditions in one form or another, none of them dares offer the only solution that could have rescued Greece (and still could) – exciting the euro zone; return to their local currency and start rebuilding Greece with a local economy, built on local currency with local public banking and with a sovereign Greek central bank deciding the monetary policy that best suits Greece, and especially Greece’s recovery program.

ALEX LANTIER—In warning the Greek workers about Syriza, the ICFI fought for the building of a revolutionary alternative. The experience of Syriza has underscored that only a return to the traditions of the Bolshevik Party and the October 1917 revolution can provide a viable strategy for the working class. In its statement “ The Political Lessons of Syriza’s Betrayal in Greece ,” the ICFI stressed: … the working class cannot defend itself by electing new, ‘left’ capitalist governments. The only way forward is through a genuinely revolutionary policy, mobilizing the working class in Greece and internationally in struggle. It requires a direct assault on the capitalist class, the confiscation of their wealth, the seizure of the major banks and productive forces, in order to place them under the democratic control of working people, and the creation of workers states across Europe and the world. Such struggles require the building of Marxist parties to offer political leadership to the working class, in ruthless struggle against parties like Syriza.

ROBERT HUNZIKER—In order to receive Troika’s financial bailout, Greece has undergone a massive transfer of public assets, all the best stuff, to privatization interests, part of the hardcore hypothesis behind neoliberalism, e.g., (1) 14 major regional airports sold to Germany’s Fraport, (2) the Port of Piraeus, one of the largest ports in Europe sold to China’s Cosco, (3) the Port of Thessaloniki, which is Greece’s second largest city, sold to a German consortium, and (4) privatization funds created, under Germany’s direction, for water utility transfers to private hands, prompting the president of the Greece water company trade union to forewarn that the for-profit model often times raises prices for consumers and sometimes service degrades.

PETER KOENIG—The debt on Greece was imposed by the troika and accepted by the Tsipras Government against the will of the people, who in a referendum on 5 July 2015 voted with an overwhelming 61% NO to the bail-out package, of which not one euro has benefitted the Greek people, but covered merely Greece’s debt service, i.e. interest and related fees; and, second, the Greek debt was and is by IMF standards – admitted in private by Mme. Lagarde – beyond Greece’s repayment capacity…