Surviving Capitalism (Not) : The Debt Crisis Hits Harder in Europe Than in the Emergent Countries of the South

We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Thursday, October 28, 2010

The Debt Crisis Hits Harder in Europe Than in the Emergent Countries of the South

by Ram Etwareea from the Committee for the Abolition of Third World Debt.

Scattered here and there in rather obscure sources are bits and pieces of the truth which is withheld from us by capitalist controlled media. In this piece we find some of these bits and pieces regarding the causes of the debt crises in Greece. Remember the mainstream media stories about how profligate those damn Greeks are?

‘Many of the loans were granted to Greece to buy military material from France and Germany,’ Eric Toussaint explained. ‘After the crisis became manifest, the military-industrial lobby even succeeded in maintaining the defence budget while social expenditure was slashed by more than 20%.’ He recalled that in the very heart of the Greek crisis at the beginning of the year Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Prime Minister of Turkey, i.e. a country with tense relationships with its Greek neighbour, went to Athens and proposed a 20% reduction of the military budget in both countries. The Greek government did not respond for it felt the pressure of the French and German authorities that wanted to support their arms sales.

And the other observations about countries defaulting on debts and surviving, if not thriving, is very unusual. Likewise the advantages enjoyed by those countries that maintained governmental control over their industries instead of following the dictates of the neo-liberal capitalists.