Surviving Capitalism (Not) : The European periphery as a political laboratory

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

Wednesday, January 22, 2014

The European periphery as a political laboratory

Click here to access article by Ricardo Campos from Reflections on a Revolution.

The author looks at recent events in the periphery of Europe and sees it as a neoliberal laboratory for the transformation of European social democracy into a neoliberal economic and political region.

European social democratic governments were established following WWII to counter the widespread radical ideas of militant labor groups. Such governments and the machinations of counter-revolutionary Gladio type projects did stabilize and secure Europe for capitalist domination and integration into NATO and the Empire. Now we are seeing the dismantling of these structures which have begun most aggressively in the periphery of Europe (Greece, Ireland, Portugal, etc.) and their replacement by the construction of neoliberal forms of economic and political rule. The author also looks at the implications for contesting this neoliberal project by revolutionary groups.

There are a few typographic errors in the text, for example:

the transformation of political choices in technical imperatives crystallized in law;

should read: "the transformation of political choices into technical imperatives crystallized in law;"

and a society that exists trough and for the market,

should read: "and a society that exists through and for the market,"