Roos argues that in this showdown with European and international capital, the Greeks are embarking on a revolutionary path without a revolutionary plan, "Plan C".
...the debate within Syriza on how to resolve the crisis has essentially revolved around two poles: the government’s original plan A — to end austerity within the eurozone — and the more radical alternative originally proposed by the party’s left faction, whose Plan B envisions a unilateral default and Grexit as a way out of the misery. We also know that the latter plan has gained more and more support from Syriza cadres (even those close to Tsipras) as the negotiations with creditors stalled.I think he's right. If they reject plan A, plan B will be found by Greeks to be so unpalatable that they could easily opt for a serious revolutionary path. And, I think that is precisely why we are seeing the IMF, a major sector of Empire capitalist power, exhibiting signs of fright over this prospect by explicitly advocating some debt relief. Whether the Greeks have the determination and the political consciousness to pull off a revolutionary response is a major question.
The two plans always appeared to be diametrically opposed to one another. In truth, the strong dichotomy between them obscures a shared premise. Ultimately, both Plan A and Plan B revolve around the belief that, if only the government can succeed in executing its chosen top-down program, recovery will be swift and things will quickly go back to the way they were before.
Roos provides a sketch of what a revolutionary response, plan C, would look like.
In contrast to both Plan A and Plan B, Plan C would be a bottom-up project organized by local communities that would situate itself directly on the terrain of everyday life. Its main contributions would be threefold.However, I think that this is a question that will be increasingly confronting all people who, under the heel of the Empire's capitalist oppression, must face sooner or later. In that sense, I think it's appropriate to say that "we are all Greeks now". It's only a matter of time before we, too, will have to face the same decisions that Greeks are now facing. Shall we submit to indefinite debt peonage to capitalist elites or will we build an egalitarian society in which power comes from the people to serve the people, not just one class of people who claim to "own" the economy?
The Greeks are facing a real test of human nature: whether to exist as free, self-determining human beings or continue to submit to being slaves to capitalists. The outcome of this major question will not be finally settled in this referendum. We can expect many more such tests of people's human nature in the future.
