[Xmca-l] Re: Erratic Marxists

[Glassman, Michael]

I wonder if we are seeing the first critical nexus of critical/participatory theory and the information age - at least the first serious one.  I was really surprised to learn a couple of weeks ago that Ireland went through much the same thing as Greece a couple of years ago.  The banks were looking to extort the Irish economic system by threatening to cut off all central bank loans.  Ireland capitulated (at the time people thought that was what Ireland wanted to do to be good economic citizens) - but few people knew about the behind the scenes threat.  Syriza has gone completely public with all negotiations almost immediately.  In a way I think they are trying to make a social argument to combat the economic argument.  Historically this would not work because the information flow within Germany and the Netherlands would be controlled so they could only see Greeks as spendthrifts who deserve to be punished.  The new flows of information make it possible for arguments that counter the European Central Bank positions, that the position of austerity is inhuman.  When Adorno, Horkheimer and Fromm were doing their research in German factories in the early 1930s they seemed frustrated that workers didn't seem to understand what was happening to them.  Of course there was the Freudian argument that this fit in to their personalities, but there was also I think an information based argument, they just weren't provided with the types of information that challenged what they saw as inevitable in their lives.

It seems to me with the extension that Syriza just got in negotiations they got exactly what they need, they are playing for time until they hope the dialogue across Europe about austerity changes, not for the bankers but for the workers even in the more powerful countries like Germany.  One of the things I have been interested in is that we are not hearing at all about the Pirate Party in the Netherlands and Germany which is actually the strongest Occupy type political movement in the world right now (or at least was a couple of years ago, I haven't spoken to people about it in a few years and the U.S. media doesn't mention it).  Syriza seems very savvy in this regard, hoping to hook up with other movements.  If they can change the dialogue is strengthens their negotiating hand immeasurably - but if it is going to happen at all it is going to take time.  It is a really difficult argument for Syriza to accomplish.

This is all conjecture of course.  But the politics of the past perhaps sparring with the politics of the future perhaps.   Of course this is all conjecture.  I could be completely off base.

Michael

-----Original Message-----
From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of mike cole
Sent: Sunday, February 22, 2015 10:09 AM
To: Andy Blunden; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Erratic Marxists

You may be correct, Andy. I am not being in the slightest ironic about choosing the word, optimism. The record for the last 100 years has been a little dim on the score of European (and American and...) workers come to each other's rescues across national borders when being ripped off by the economic arrangements they are a part of.

My ignorance is too vast to permit an informed opinion... except on the danger's of self delusional feelings of entitlement by the entitled.
mike



On Sun, Feb 22, 2015 at 7:01 AM, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net> wrote:

> mike cole wrote:
>
>> ... If he is waiting for the European workers to come to the aid of 
>> Greece, Andy, he is more optimistic than I am. But that is my badly 
>> informed hunch.
>> mike
>>
>>  But that is the only way out. That has been Syriza's policy from the
> beginning. I.e., they want to retain the Euro, they want to stay in 
> the EU, but they refuse to wreck their own economy with Germany's 
> austerity program which has also devastated the economies of other 
> countries. Their aim is to change EU policies, not to do something 
> different in Greece, as I understand it.
>
> Andy
>
>


--
It is the dilemma of psychology to deal as a natural science with an object that creates history. Ernst Boesch.