ANTI-AMERICANISM in the GLOBAL HISTORICAL CONTEXT

PART I: Historical Antecedents

Is the world less anti-American under the Obama administration and will it become more so as the American financial and political elites hoped when they facilitated the election of the first African-American president? Of course, we will not know the definitive answer for another three years or so. However, there are signs that the symbolic significance of Obama combined with symbolic and moderately substantive-policy changes, which have been necessitated by the multifaceted realities of the mini-depression, have convinced people from around the world and from across the ideological spectrum that America may readjust its Pax Americana conduct, just as it did during the Great Depression. 

Anti-Americanism has been a reality for America’s southern neighbors since the Spanish-American War and for reasons that range from ideological and geopolitical, to economic and racial. Some would argue that the genesis of anti-Americanism dates back to the Polk administration that took the first step to put the Monroe Doctrine and Manifest Destiny into practice. However, it was really after the Korean War and the start of the non-aligned movement that US foreign policy and the role of the US in the world came into question as outwardly ‘democratic’ (invariably defined by the electoral system) at home but essentially imperial abroad. 

During and immediately after WWII, much of the world had residual goodwill and a positive image of the US. However, from the end of the Korean War until the controversial 1968 election taking place during the Vietnam War, the US lost a great deal of its popularity, not only with its nemesis the Communists around the world but with most countries, and this despite the polarizing Cold War and secret deals foreign governments cut with Washington. Contrary to the liberal view and one often cited for anti-Americanism, most if not all countries were and still are far less exercised about the nature U.S. institutions per se and far more concerned about ‘American Exceptionalism’ and ‘US Transformation Policy’ that has negatively impacted the lives of the majority of people around the world since 1945. 

Total power that ranges from military and economic to political and cultural, with the intent of shaping the world after its own image is the source of anti-Americanism that has evolved in the sixty years. US meddling on behalf of anti-democratic regimes in overt and covert operations throughout the world for more than half a century are a major source of anti-Americanism that transcends all ideological, ethnic, cultural, religious and political boundaries. Support for Marcos in the Philippines, Suharto in Indonesia, Salazar in Portugal, Franco in Spain, the colonels in Greece, apartheid in South Africa, quasi-apartheid Israel against the Palestinians, and military dictatorships in Latin America, all in the name of ‘freedom & democracy’ amid the Cold War, constitute sufficient proof to the entire world that the US was a global empire and a threat to the sovereignty of smaller countries reduced to client states. International Financial Institutions (IFIs) like the IMF and World Bank were also in the service of Washington and Wall Street to keep client states in line. 

French anti-Americanism, in essence the attempt of Charles De Gaulle to affirm nationalism and preserve French identity by accusing the Americans of Exceptionalism was an affirmation of France (eventually and essentially Europe) coming of age and able to stand on its own feet without having “Cold War-Mother America” influencing everything from defense and foreign policies to commercial relations and cultural trends. But even before De Gaulle awakening Europeans to the reality of lessening dependence on the US and asserting their own direct influence in the Third World, Latin America from the overthrow of Guatemala’s president Jacobo Arbenz in 1954 to the CIA involvement in Allende’s overthrow in 1973 marked a period of anti-Yankee sentiment that was a reflection of Latin Americans resenting US interference in everything from trade unions and development projects to influencing national elections. 

After the Nicaraguan and Iranian revolutions of 1979 and especially after September 2001 various US agencies became interested in identifying the sources of anti-Americanism. Departments of State, Defense, and various intelligence agencies wanted to pinpoint specific areas where they could improve America’s image in the world to combat terrorism, but also for commercial/financial and political considerations. Consulting companies and individual scholars provided a great deal of material to the government, most of it useful from academic perspective. However, hardly any of that material has been very practical in reversing anti-Americanism in the world, not just among Muslims but all people regardless of faith. The reason is the underlying assumption that there is something fundamentally wrong with the ‘anti-Americans’ just as there was with the former Communists who must be converted to the true faith through a PR campaign that points the road to PAX AMERICANA.

  

 PART II: Anti-Americanism under Obama

 

Hollywood and the American entertainment industry have helped mold the view of American society, values, and perceptions within and outside the US. Therein may rest some of the sources of cultural and political anti-Americanism when civilizations clash as in the case of Islam and the West. Besides the web that allow a percentage of people to determine for themselves what goes on in the US, the masses are invariably influenced by popular culture as the corporate-owned media depicts it throughout the world. Of course, it is not US per se, but inhumane US values and policies that are the core target of critics from all ideological perspectives. These may involve everything from US positions on climate change to privatization of public services that make products and services less affordable for the poor. In some cases, centrists - believers in the electoral process and some variation of liberalism - are the most important anti-Americans, because they are invariably in power and conduct policy. 

Although nationalists of all ideological/political persuasions have been and remain the arch-critics of Pax Americana, it is important to note that the most militant anti-Americanism emanates not from the left but from the right as in the case of Muslims as well as many Europeans and Latin Americans. Nevertheless, hyperbolic anti-American rhetoric and some symbolic acts in politics and media is a cultural trait demonstrating despair with local/national conditions. For example, when the US is behind the World Bank’s privatization of water resources and links immense development loans, local/national social, political, media protests assume the phase of anti-Americanism. Therefore, anti-American rhetoric and demonstrations are part of how local and national activists react even if the US as a target may be indirectly involved. At the same time, political parties and governments in many countries use anti-Americanism to distract from their own incompetence, systems swimming in corruption, or simply to win elections. 

Governments and political opposition also use anti-Americanism to criticize a neighboring government that may have received more US aid, or greater diplomatic backing from Washington. In short, anti-Americanism has various domestic political dimensions and it is a reflection of regional issues not always directly related to anti-Americanism as form of protest against Washington per se. As significantly, we must distinguish between anti-American inflammatory rhetoric, and the reality of the social elites and broader middle classes in the world emulating the American lifestyle that is a more important export than any single product or service. Of course, it will take many years, more than a single administration, and above all substantive policy changes – from imperious to real co-existence – on the part of the US to reverse global anti-Americanism that reached its zenith under Bush-Cheney. 

The well-publicized reports that the Bush-Cheney team had ordered the CIA to get results from Muslim prisoners by systematically torturing them did not help improve America’s image at a time US officials appeared puzzled about ‘outsiders hating our freedom’. Interestingly, at the time that the US was violating the basic human rights of prisoners and violating the Geneva Convention, it expected all others to abide by it – yet another case of “American Exceptionalism” that ran counter to the very expensive PR campaign to assuage the root causes of anti-Americanism in the world. Nor does it help that the rhetoric and strategy seems to be pointing toward co-existence and multilateralism, but the goal remains global hegemony. Is fear of the ‘democratic America’ (Washington’s projected self-image) the overriding concern of people around the world as the Bush-Cheney ideologues claimed? Or is it the arrogance and abuse of US government and corporate power that results in the misery of billions of people whether it is in protracted low-level Middle East wars, or in impoverished Africa and Latin America where the World Bank is using loans to superimpose privatization and deprive people of basic products and services at affordable cost? 

The world is clearly less afraid now that Obama is in the White House. There is an assumption that the Bush-Cheney resounding failures in the Middle East culminating in the 2008-09 US-based financial crisis will force Washington to engage in multilateralism whether on the issue of world trade, financial restructuring, finding solutions to nuclear proliferation, the Palestinian-Israel conflict, etc. That the Obama administration has refrained from manufacturing scenarios to create crises as did the previous regime, and that it has opted for a managerial instead of a hard-line ideological approach with regard to Russia, Iran, Cuba, Israel, and to a small degree even North Korea is indicative that it could move toward more substantive changes as a means of keeping its global leadership position. 

Just as FDR the Obama administration during its first term in office has proved that anti-Americanism can be mitigated with palatable rhetoric and high visibility acts even of some import. However, the trend changed toward the end of the first Obama administration owing to the following developments. 1. US interference in Arab Spring uprisings from 2011 until 2013; 2. US drone warfare - declared a war crime by human rights organizations - in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Africa; 3. the increasingly clear picture that the Obama administration was just as adamant about preserving Pax Americana as all previous presidencies; 4. blatant US intervention in Egypt and Libya resulting in a de facto civil war and a society as divided as Iraq and Afghanistan;

Public opinion polls indicate that anti-Americanism around the world is about at the same level today as it was under George W. Bush, one of the most hated US Presidents outside of the US. And while it is true that anti-Americanism is highest in Muslim countries, it has actually risen sharply across the world, including Southern Europe, though not in northwest Europe. There is still a global perception that the US is an aggressive imperialist power that deprives other nations of their national sovereignty whether in diplomacy, military domain or economic affairs. Of course, it is true that the expectation levels for Obama, even by Fidel Castro and the late Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, were very high to ameliorate relations with the rest of the world by abandoning the aggressive foreign policies of his predecessor. 

Given that tactics changed, with substance only when absolutely necessary because there was no other choice - as the case of Syria proved - people quickly adjusted their perceptions of America under Obama as another PR president following the exact same goals as previous administrations. So what is the answer to lowering the level of anti-Americanism around the world? PR experiments have obvious limitations. Only substantive policies will determine if Pax Americana is currently under adjustment and if the world will become less anti-American and the degree to which the US will enjoy global preeminence or gradual decline. Will the US alter its goals and tactics so that there will be less anti-Americanism around the globe? Not unless it is absolutely necessary and it has no choice.

WATER: HUMAN RIGHT OR HUMAN NEED?

When I started my career in higher education in Chicago in 1979, none of my colleagues or students carried plastic water bottles around. Everyone used the drinking fountain and water from the tap, although Perrier (or another mineral water product) was a bourgeois status symbol and had become the alternative to a glass of California wine. By the time I retired from academia in 2005, Americans and Europeans alike were like toddlers carrying a plastic water bottle with them as though it was more precious than oxygen. 

This was partly the PR genius of the soft drink companies that convinced people in the developed countries and eventually around the world that they are incomplete as human beings unless they are attached to a plastic water bottle (itself a source of chronic pollution) invariably found at every political, business, cultural meeting regardless of drinking water availability and proximity. Corporations trying to increase quarterly profits saw the future resting more with a “zero-calories, zero food-coloring, zero-taste product”, namely water, than with any change in human biology and the sudden craving for bottled water instead of the much healthier and free water on tap. 

At the 5^th global forum on water took place in Istanbul, US, China, Brazil, Canada Egypt and a few smaller countries with surplus water refused to recognize the need of water as a right, simply because they refuse to share it with countries lacking it. This understandable, given that some countries like China will be spending tens of billions on water projects to meet their needs for the century. The 23,000 representatives of 193 countries finally agreed that clean drinking water is not merely a human right but a human need at least in principle. Clearly, the technology already exists to purify water from various sources but it is very expensive and therein rests the opportunity of major multinational corporations that see water in the same manner as they viewed crude oil or any other mineral resource in the last 100 years. 

A global industrial water exhibit with hundreds of companies in the ‘water business’ was concurrently held next door to the global forum on water.  One billion people today do not have access to clean drinking water, resulting in one death per 8 seconds owing to water contaminants – a statistic that will increase dramatically in the future as private companies are buying water rights and making it increasingly difficult for one-sixth of the world’s population to afford it. In addition to the immediate problem posed by the inability of one billion people lacking access to drinking water, there is the added problem of climatic change and the current wasteful mode of water usage in all areas from farming and manufacturing to commercial and residential that will only make water more scarce and expensive. Such prospects mean huge profit opportunities for companies investing in water, companies that include not just soft-drink bottlers but petroleum corporations as well. 

Just as oil became the source of economic antagonism/competition, diplomatic conflict, and wars in the 20^th century, similarly water will be the source of conflict in this century, especially as the environment will be playing a far larger role in the political and social arenas against the need to pursue uninterrupted economic growth. Along with South Africa, the Czech Republic, and Lebanon, Latin American countries led by Bolivia demanded water is a need and not a right. They called on the UN to conduct the framework for action on global water management. The neo-liberal ideology since the 1980s assumed that the marketplace would best determine water availability, price, usage, conservation; and all of this would best serve the economic growth needs of each country. 

The result has been devastation to the environment, high cost of water, and depopulation of areas where clean water is scarcely available. Corporate users of water are also responsible for industrial pollution that accounts for decreased availability of clean drinking water. For example, ENDESA, the large mining company in southern Chile has purchased 80 percent of the water rights in the Atakama desert in Antofagasta province. Similarly, the farmers in northern Chile are competing with the mining companies that pollute the rivers for fresh water. The result is depopulation of areas that lack water and concentration in large overpopulated urban centers. Chilean officials today acknowledge that while the marketplace may best serve the needs for vertical economic growth, it has not served domestic social needs. 

Chile’s situation is not very different from that of many semi-developed and underdeveloped countries faced with industrial polluters that make large usage of water and serve mostly a foreign market with their products, forcing people to pay more for water. Given that North America has large fresh water resources, and that the most severe water shortages exist in the southern Hemisphere, the water issue is not much different from the old North-South divide that the UN and other forums have debated for decades without constructive solutions. 

As much as those wedded to the neo-liberal ideology tend to have a strong emotional reaction to left-leaning political regimes like those of Bolivia, Ecuador, and Venezuela, water is indeed a human need exactly as the latter defined it last week in Istanbul. If the UN does not plan to have a catalytic role on this issue, it will not be one person dying every 8 seconds but many more. Of the 6.5 billion on this planet, one billion people lack clean drinking water, while a handful already own the rights to fresh water and the technology for production and distribution. In this group are included the 793 billionaires, which according to FORBES, own $2.4 trillion in 2008, down from $4.4 trillion (or 10% of the entire world’s GDP) in 2007. One billion people today do not have access to clean drinking water, resulting in one death per 8 seconds owing to water contaminants – a statistic that will increase dramatically in the future as private companies are buying water rights and making it increasingly difficult for one-sixth of the world’s population to afford it.

NEO-CONSERVATISM and ENLIGHTENMENT THINKERS

Could the UN benefit from I. Kant's ideas regarding perpetual peace and the emphasis on the rationalist approach of the Enlightenment? I see nothing wrong with at least having this as a point of departure, given that Kant is still regarded as one of the best thinkers in Western Civilization and for a good reason. However, the reality about the kind of world he envisioned, a world of political-moral ideal in a cosmopolitan setting is simply not possible today any more than it was in Kant's Prussia under "Enlightened Absolutism". Just because the pursuit of such grand ideals as he proposed may not possible does not mean that they ought not to be ideal goals. But with all kinds of caveats that they are not achievable.

Regarding the comments about how Fascism and Communism have roots in the Enlightenment, I think that Jean-Marie may have permitted the enthusiasm of political/ideological hyperbole to prevail not only over reason, but also historical accuracy. While it is true that Marxism does have its roots in the rationalist tradition of the Enlightenment, I would strongly disagree with the politically-motivated suspicious that Fascism is rooted in the Age of Reason.

Nineteenth century Romanticism is where we find the ideological roots of the "eclectic" ideology of Fascism that categorically rejects the rationalism of 18th century Enlightenment and celebrates the emotional/passionate/irrational aspect of human nature. It is simply a distortion of history to argue that the ideologies of Fascism and Communism, which some scholars have been lumping together under the label "totalitarianism" ever since the Truman administration, have their roots in the Age of Reason. Neo-Conservatives from the early 1980s to the present have returned to this early Cold War theory of lumping together Fascism and Marxism, for it is a way to argue in favor of bourgeois democracy under a capitalist political economy.

Now, it is true some thinkers have argued that Enlightenment thinker Jean-Jacques Rousseau's philosophy contain the seeds of "precursor Fascist" ideas. This is a huge stretch and most scholars have rejected this position that has Cold War political assumptions behind it. Because Rousseau had one foot in the Age of Reason and another as a precursor to the age of Romanticism that followed, because he rejected Lockean liberalism, and because of some ideas regarding the nature of government (SOCIAL CONTRACT), this has given room to some to place him in the category of Fascist precursor, thus justifying the early Cold War theory of lumping together Communism and Fascism, given that scholars have argued Rousseau influenced Marx and Engels.

I understand that it is important to keep up that neo-Conservative propaganda in today's world of globalization under neo-liberal policies that Western governments, the IMF, World Bank, OECD, WTO, etc. are promoting on behalf of corporate capitalism. I wonder if Kant were alive today would he endorse the existing political economy and argue that under such a system it is possible to have perpetual peace and political-moral perfection that he sought for humanity

CRISIS OF THE LEFT IN THE WORLD

The global economic crisis of 2008-2013, took place against the background of the US-led military occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, and US-EU intervention throughout Muslim countries in the Middle East and North Africa where popular movements of heterogeneous ideological inspiration ranging from militant Muslims to secular leftists. At the same time, there were grassroots popular opposition movements across Europe, protesting the massive redistribution of wealth through austerity programs from the middle classes and labor to the top 10 percent of the income earners.

Yet, against this background the leftist - Socialist and varieties of Marxian-inspired groups, movements and political parties had a tiny influence. Why is this?
1.  Is it because Communist regimes are finished and China as the sole remaining such regime in name only pursues capitalist economics?
2. It is because the 19th century leftist ideology has no relevance in the 21st century when many societies have a middle class and a social safety net of some type?
3. Is it because leftist - self-baptized political parties, trade unions, and other groups have been so thoroughly co-opted by the mainstream that people perceive them as another extension of the broader opposition that talks a big game but cannot help the common man?
4. Is it because varieties of ethnic/racial minority, feminist, gay rights, and green movement groups have absorbed the protest citizenry that would otherwise support the left?
5. Is it because a large segment of the population does not want want social justice for the broader society if it means sacrificing self interest rooted in materialism?
6. Is it because so many people continue to believe in God and see theism contrary to leftist politics?
7. Is it because governments and media have brainwashed people to associate "left" with terrorism, anti-establishment, anti-social and dogmatic?
8. Is it because leftist ideals lack a pragmatic base and simply represent a utopian vision that is fine for books and articles but can never be implemented?
9. Is it because mainstream institutions have thoroughly coopted the majority of the people whose primary concern is surviving and doing well instead 0of risking their personal safety and material comforts for ideals that would improve society?
10. Is it because people believe that the best society is one rooted in "middle of the road" (synonymous with liberal democratic) politics, and not with either rightist or leftists are seen as undermining the national or general interest of society? 

In traditional societies where religion and nationalism are very strong it is very difficult for a leftist movement to become popular. This is evident in Muslim countries. In the most advanced capitalist countries, the institutional structure is so powerful that is has managed to coopt not just a segment of self-appointed leftist groups, trade unions and political parties (Socialist parties in Europe are now neoliberal favoring austerity), but the superstructure has coopted a great deal of the population that would not even dream of risking safety and security of material life in exchange for leftist ideals rooted in egalitarianism and social justice. Because religious justice transcends social justice in many traditional societies, leftists have difficulty mobilizing grassroots support. At the same time, because conservative and liberal parties, including those calling themselves "Socialist" but pursuing bourgeois policies have embraced human rights and civil rights, it becomes just as difficult for leftists in Western and secular societies to attract followers.

In THE RISE OF THE GLOBAL LEFT: the world social forum and beyond, Portuguese scholar Boaventura de Sousa Santos that takes a serious look at cases around the world of how the left has been evolving - renouncing violence that is invariably linked to capitalist exploitation, veering toward humanism (the early Marx), etc. struggling with varieties of reformist trends where the labor movement seems to be immersed, etc.  There have been many similar books like that of de Sousa Santos, simply because the left has been in crisis mode for the last three decades or so - in my opinion since the early Cold War. It is obvious to the average person that the term "left" has such a broad generic meaning that in the US, Obama is "left" according to the Tea Party, while in Europe the Social Democrats that have been pursuing neoliberal policies are also left. One problem, therefore, is that political parties and groups assign themselves or are labeled ''left" without any context based on historical precedent.

I am in favor of what de Sousa Santos is proposing, but because I have studied leftist groups in their historical context in different countries, I am not at all optimistic that the strategy he proposes has even a remote chance right now. Perhaps in the next cyclical crisis that I believe will take place in the 2030s, as I have written elsewhere, there may be a coalitionist approach that will take place. Moreover, I disagree with de Sousa Santos on the cookie-cutter approach and believe that leftist movements must be grassroots and reflect the needs and character of the people impacted.

Although technology has changed everything, and it is true that social forums are key to social movements today, we cannot possibly expect the same approach, methods and results in the UK as we would in Chile or Egypt. History has proved that type of dogmatic thinking is flawed. I am not suggesting that de Sousa Santos is unaware of this reality, given his discussion on the gap between theory and practice, but Marxian thought aims as much as possible at homogeneity of tactics to secure the desired goal. I would be more comfortable with people at the grassroots making mistakes and correcting them along the way, than any to-down approach that has anticipated problems. Having said all of this, my position is that there will always be elites in some form or another, probably until the end of the species. This does not mean that there must at the same time must always be a struggle for social justice until the planet can no longer support life.

TWILIGHT OF AMERICAN RENAISSANCE

Just as the 20th was the American century, the 21st may be the epoch of East Asian preeminent global influence. While this by itself does not entail America's eclipse any more than Europe's decline when
disillusioned scholars and existentialist philosophers pronounced the premature decline of the west after WWI, the time for looking into defining the future in terms of a new renaissance is upon American
society.

The Puritan work ethic deeply embedded in American culture and the intense competitive sense in all endeavors will allow the US protected by two oceans east and west, and weak neighbors north and south to
remain a global player for a very long time, despite Europe's resurgence and East Asia's increasing global influence. Like an ancient Chinese red lantern at the gate of a lord's mansion, every society's value system guides its people toward a common goal. Such a goal was evident in 1844 when Ralph W. Emerson wrote *Young American* and *Politics* expressing Jeffersonian ideals embodied in a somewhat naïve but optimistic nationalism during the nascent railroad era and prospects for westward expansion right before the US-Mexico War.

Has the time come for an American Renaissance at the dawn of the 21st century, and what type of renaissance? There has been no shortage of "futurists" whose visions are lifted right out of science fiction
robo-fantasy and Bill Gates-type micro-digitized universe that makes housework and office work a Spielberg movie adventure. The question is whether the ancient Chinese red lantern is guiding Americans toward a future of more anxiety and fear induced by yet another "machine renaissance" that will keep man enslaved. From Washington and Jefferson to Lincoln and JFK, president-heroes abound as societal role models; even the fresh optimistic face of Obama projects hope without anxiety and fear for the future owing to a micro-political renaissance on the way.

Does the US need Augustus Caesar to reform the imperial system, or at least a leader projecting all of The Prince's traits without possessing them as Machiavelli argued; just as long as people believe in symbolism and act on it then political renaissance is a reality? Perhaps religious revival--renaissance of faith--is the
solution. Laudatory protestations indicate that "middle America" craves the Messiah's return; at least that is where the Chinese red lantern may be guiding the flock though that is not what is hiding behind the gate of the Lord's manor. What if the Messiah cannot compete with mall-shop therapy, plastic surgery, and the drive-up as a way of life?

What then of a faith renaissance, where then is the Chinese red lantern guiding "middle America"? Is the future pointing toward a more fast-food, even faster Microsoft culture--everything from drive-up banking, drive-up college degrees, drive-up weddings, and drive-up prayer, all now available on the web? Of the venerable poet Ovid writing in the nascent era of the Roman Empire and Christianity, of the emperor Augustus Caesar who exiled Ovid as he endeavored to establish sound foundations for a new Rome plagued by internal strife and patrician decadence, of Jesus of Nazareth, the Messiah accidentally emerging from the small Roman province to leave a remarkable legacy on western civilization, what type of renaissance
will secular America choose?

Clearly the question of greed in American and indeed modern culture is one that goes to the heart of a value system shaped by the political economy of capitalism. The individual is molded by the dominant culture, so I would not argue that the individual is "born" a certain way, greedy vs.generous, self-centered vs. altruistic, etc. This is an argument that English philosopher John Locke advanced in his Essay Concerning Human Understanding. To bring this back to the US value system, it is true that drastic changes require a cultural revolution - highly unlikely in the absence of a political and socioeconomic systemic change. Therefore, the US will remain more or less the same in its institutional structure and values.

In the early 21st century can "drive-up" Micro-digitized America do without the inspiration of the poet aesthete intent on disturbing rather than calming the beleaguered spirit? Disengaged from tradition and what Carl Jung calls the "Participation mystique," modern man, especially modern "middle American drive-up, digitized man" is the culmination of techno-hope that like plastic surgery can repair external problem areas, while just beneath the surface the problem remains. "The man whom we can call 'modern' is solitary. He is so of necessity and at all time," writes Jung, in *Modern Man in Search of a Soul*.

Only the  poet's inspiration, Ovid's aesthetic spirit imbued into "drive-up digital future-world" can modern man rediscover his lost soul and from there begin to create a "drive-up-free" world, disconnecting dial-a-prayer, now also available on the web for techno-loners.

BUSINESS MODEL OF EDUCATION AND THE ECONOMIC CRISIS

Every societal crisis of major magnitude, especially a global one, invariably gives birth to untapped talent and human creativity of unprecedented levels. This of course assumes that there are no institutional structures precluding the encouragement and reward of creative endeavors.

The Great Depression produced some of the greatest art, literature, poetry, philosophy, and every other creative endeavor in part because mass tragedy unlocks creativity, an ancient theory with some merit. It
is also true however, that tragedies like the Great Depression also entailed the rise of militaristic regimes determined to suppress their population, conquer their neighbors, and eliminate millions of innocent people, all in the name of delusional but savage ideologies about superiority of one ethnic group or nation over the other.

Perhaps because societal crises of great magnitude bring out the extremes in human nature, society, government, and institutions, we have reason to be both optimistic and guarded about what to expect in
the near future amid the unfolding mini-depression. Societal crises allow man to re-examine her/his values and reflect on complacency, hubris, and other human and institutional variables that lead to catastrophe. A percentage of people in the US and throughout the world, once they go through the stages of self-pity, anger, and a range of emotions, will be re-examining their hedonistic consumerist values rooted in self-indulgence and the institutions that reinforce such western materialistic values.

Some may be skeptical and others rebellious toward government leaders and private institutions responsible for the mini-depression. People will demand better government, more honest and practical leaders,
private institutions operating under rigid mechanisms of accountability, and an educational system that does not have as its model the very system that is currently bankrupt and every few decades undergoing a crisis that shatters human lives.

One specific area of re-examination that merits attention is the "business model" for education from k-through graduate school. Should curriculum and research programs be linked, related and designed to benefit the business community and preserve the culture of capitalism? If the goal of education is to broaden the individual's mind along with unlocking her/his creative proclivities that will inevitably benefit both the individual and society, then does the "business model" serve the individual and broader society, or does it only serve
the narrow interests of the capitalist system wishing to preserve a social order based on inequality? Other than perpetuating capitalism on a world scale, what is the value of such models currently sold to
the rest of the world as innovative?

Because business people invariably control the boards of educational institutions and because those on such boards are blind worshipers of the "business model" and they equate education with business, schools
since the Reagan era have been scrambling to appease the business community, which has its own narrow definition of "success." While I am not suggesting that businessmen lack any creative proclivities, I
am categorically stating that the business model precludes creativity outside its narrow perimeters and that is a disservice to the student who learns conditioning to advertise, market, sell, and promote a business-model value system. The mini-depression allows for the opportunity of institutional change in the US and other countries where the business econometric model is spreading.

The business sector can do what it does with its cyclical crises and bailout plans, but schools have a responsibility to students and society that goes beyond return on capital using the deranged Social
Darwinist philosophy. A few education leaders will readjust their narrowly-focused "business value system" during this mini-depression, but change will come very slowly with visionary leadership from all areas and above all with a massive grass roots movement that has an anthropocentric rather than Pluto-centric world-view.

THE TRIUMPH OF IMF AUSTERITY and NEOLIBERALISM: the Case of Greece

Introduction:
Many mainstream analysts, government and IMF/EU officials, and journalists argue that the austerity programs in Ireland, Spain, Portugal and Greece have been a “success”. The IMF has made the exact same arguments about austerity programs in the last half century about countries under similar programs, using its own monetarist criteria while ignoring that austerity exacerbates the socioeconomic gap, further concentrates capital, alters management-labor relations in favor of business at the expense of labor, and dilutes or ends democratic institutions.

From the perspective of finance capitalism and gearing the economies under austerity toward neoliberalism, IMF-EU austerity in the last four years in Greece has been a “success” because the US securities rating agencies have upgraded the debtor nations. After government bailouts, banks are stronger and more secure, public sector has cut spending in everything from welfare to health care and education, the public sector had shrunk significantly, and the weaker and smaller businesses have perished to make room for the healthier larger domestic and foreign enterprises.

When Fitch, Moody's and  Standard and Poor's use credit metrics as the only criteria to lower the credit rating of a country under austerity, then one must necessarily conclude that all of southern Europe (and the entire population in the region) was worse off before austerity than afterwards. When the ratings agencies raise the rating after austerity, the conclusion is that the countries and their people are better off because of IMF-EU imposed policies. The question is whether any of this is true.
Of course, Greece lags behind all of the rest of its EU counterparts, but it is still a “success story” because it remains in the euro zone contrary to those shorting the euro, Greek securities, and betting on a return to a national currency. Moreover, Greece is integrated into the euro zone closer than ever, after billions have been paid in interest to bondholders; a process representing a massive transfer of capital from Greece to German and northwest European banks.

Although it is certain that Greece cannot possibly service the public debt, mostly owed to foreign institutions and institutional investors, without either another "debt reduction (haircut) scheme" or payments extension and interest rate reduction, the apologists of austerity insist that the recipe constitutes a “success”. Therefore, the economy has experienced “success” and so has society as a whole.

There is a glaring contradiction at the core of austerity, one of many contradictions that essentially assumes austerity tries to eliminate if not minimize “growth by debt” policies that bring a country to near bankruptcy. In fact, IMF austerity as imposed in all developing countries in the last six decades is intended to keep the debtor nation closely integrated in the world system and the way to do it is by using “debt repayment” as leverage to impose policies in public and private sectors.

In this brief article, I will examine why the apologists of austerity embrace such a position, while they candidly admit that the program has not reduced the debt as a percent of GDP from 2010 to 2013, why indeed Greece is now deeper in debt than it was before IMF-EU austerity. I will also examine why the program has repeatedly missed all of its IMF-EU publicly stated goals with regard to economic growth. At the same time, I will explain the case of critics who argue that far from a success, austerity measures have devastated society and left it in ruins, taking Greece back several decades, while radically changing the integration model of Europe by creating a two-tiered economic union with the rich northwest and the poor South and East.

1. Austerity Defined:
Austerity measures are designed to engender monetary stability and fight inflation by reducing public spending and invariably consumption by the middle classes and workers. The assumption is that inflation is detrimental for owners of capital needed to be concentrated for investment and development. Austerity measures can and have been used to inject fiscal discipline into what could be an out of control spending regime that allows for the public sector to absorb capital away from the private sector, thereby choking off private initiative. At the same time, austerity has always been a mechanism to open a country’s markets to more foreign trade and capital investment under favorable terms to the foreign companies.

The IMF made austerity famous or infamous, depending on one’s viewpoint, during the 1950s in Latin America (Chile was the first) and throughout the rest of the “underdeveloped world”. Backed by the World Bank that only offered development loans on condition IMF austerity came first, the IMF demanded currency devaluation, budgetary cuts combined with reductions in credit regime, cuts in public sector jobs, wages and benefits, along with lower taxes for foreign investment, hikes in indirect taxes and public services such as utilities that the IMF wants privatized. By imposing IMF-style austerity in EU member countries, the IMF cannot demand devaluation of the euro that is a reserve currency. Therefore, only fiscal measures along with a series of others from trade and investment to management-labor relations issues apply.

The message that Germany and the larger EU members sent when they demanded austerity regime on the weaker debtor members was the introduction of a new integration model that would relegate the periphery economies to a role comparable to the non-Western developing nations. The immediate impact of austerity is a stronger currency that helps fight monetary inflation and strengthens finance capital and the export sector that becomes the basis for stimulating growth. A stronger euro currency best serves the strongest EU member, Germany to the detriment of the weaker members needing liquidity and inflationary monetary policy for development. Austerity also entails a drop in GDP growth, deteriorating terms of trade, higher unemployment, lower living standards, temporary spike in price inflation accompanied by slow growth, especially on the part of small businesses that lack the financial strength to withstand the austerity cycle that could last several years. All of the consequences described above mean massive capital concentration.

Do governments make a convincing case for the majority of the people about austerity measures? Using terms such as "reform", less government and stronger private sector that benefits people, the need to clean up public sector excesses including corruption, and the necessity to make the country more "competitive" against the rest of the world by lower wage costs, governments convince the public to go along with austerity. Behind, governments always enjoy the support of the mainstream media, and “respectable” analysts and business leaders. Apologists of austerity insist on a series of policies intended to strengthen big capital, and to better integrate the national economy with the international. The net result is transfer of capital from the periphery to the core.

Do austerity measures accomplish their publicly stated goal of restoring monetary stability and achieving external equilibrium for the duration? On a short-term basis, austerity does much of what it promises, but at an enormous cost to economic growth, national sovereignty, and at the expense of the middle class and workers living standards. Austerity measures are invariably for countries that are not part of reserve currency regimes. Greece, Portugal and Ireland were unprecedented cases.

2. Austerity: A “success” economic story:
From 2010 until the present, austerity as a pretext to impose neoliberalism and the new German-imposed integration model resulted in the elimination of smaller and weaker businesses, while strengthening larger domestic and foreign enterprises. While the fundamental question is how the new regime would build political consensus that would create a strong and viable base of the economy, the IMF-EU insists that the "free market" will take care of the issue without the state intervening to support domestic enterprises against foreign competition.

a) Fiscal policy is a way to redistribute income and it reflects the degree of social justice in society. Under the austerity regime, fiscal policy has been directed toward the mass consumer with high indirect taxes, and direct taxation hitting hardest at the low and middle income groups. Because the government is not collecting taxes from the five thousand or so families that own the lion's share of the wealth most of which is outside of the country, it has resorted to imposing high tax rates on the middle and low income groups, thus reducing consumption and sinking the economy and the budget deeper into the abyss. Although the wealthy have their money locked in "off-shore accounts", the Greek government has actually lowered the tax liability of these accounts where the bulk of the wealth rests. This has taken place at a time that the government claims it is seeking to find "tax evaders", including those that the French government and other EU authorities have provided in various "tax evader lists".

The domestic economy has reduced consumption in Greece as income decline has precipitated a drop in purchasing between 25 and 40 percent, depending on the source.  Given that the GDP has fallen by 27% during 2010-2013, and incomes/ social security benefits, combined with much higher taxes have suffered an average of 40% drop, the domestic consumption sector has dropped sharply and resulted in a rise of exports. This improvement in the balance of payments, however, combined with a rise in tourism income has been so anemic that it has not been able to compensate for the loss of GDP because domestic demand continues to drop sharply as government redistributes income from the middle and low-income groups to foreign and domestic finance capital.

b) Cheaper asset and labor values combined with privatization of public assets has been at the center of the austerity/neoliberal measures. Wages have fallen sharply as have all asset values, reflecting a picture closer to the northern Balkans than to northwest Europe. To their credit, German government and banks did not conceal their view that Greece is a Balkan country and that means assets and labor values must reflect as much. However, the cost of living remains at pre-austerity levels reflecting Western European rather than Balkans standards. High living standards account for an elastic labor force, forcing a large segment of the population to accept work at much lower pay scales and giving the opportunity to the larger and healthier businesses to maintain profitability.

c) The low labor and asset values have entailed friendlier foreign and domestic investment climate, though there has not been much interest because of the persistent political and social instability that investors fear, along with the sharp decline in purchasing power. Moreover, nothing prevents multinational corporations from investing freely in the Balkans, Eastern Europe and Turkey under even better conditions that exist in Greece.

d) Weakened state structure is something that neoliberals and IMF-EU officials applaud along with banking consolidation. With government pouring billions into the banking system and financing its consolidation, there has been massive finance capital consolidation. This process has made the four remaining banks strong and very profitable, albeit with massive capital injections from money the government borrowed under austerity to keep banks afloat. That the banks used the capital from the government to consolidate, reward management and their investors instead of pouring the money back into the "real economy" has meant persistent negative GDP growth. However, these banks have laid the foundations for takeover by even stronger international banks down the road, completing the goal of the IMF-EU, which is capital concentration.

While consolidation in the banking sector along with massive capital concentration has helped to create the image that the banking system is now safe, banks have failed to be the engines of growth. This is because they are far too timid to risk making business loans amid a very uncertain climate that stems from a weakened state structure. In short, the IMF-EU deliberately weakened the public sector, while on the other hand they have a private sector fearing for a weakened public sector.

e) As a result of austerity and neoliberalism, the European Union, multinationals and comprador bourgeoisie have become stronger than they were during the recession of 2008-2012 that finance capital created. The euro as reserve currency has retained its value against all hard currencies, the public sector weakened and the weaker smaller and mid-sized businesses that have failed make room for the healthier strongest enterprises to remain.

Examples of neoliberalism in practice under the austerity regime:
i. Janitorial services:
In the quest to privatize, the government began to outsource services previously carried out by the public sector. One of those includes cleaning of office buildings. In a specific case, the government contracted the services of a private cleaning company for hospitals and other buildings. The women working for the company are invariably immigrants, divorced, and over fifty years old. The contractor signed with the government to pay a basis scale with these women. However, the contractor demanded and received from from them one-third of their wages as soon as they cashed their checks. As far as the tax system is concerned the workers are taxed for the amount shown, but in reality the company receives kickbacks, which are laundered and tax free for the employer. If any employee refuses the kickbacks, she is dismissed. Meanwhile, this well know practice goes unchecked by the government where corruption continues to prevail, given that government contracts cannot be secured in the absence of political connections and kickbacks.

ii. Toll Roads:
The government has handed over to large contractors the building and maintenance of toll roads. In return, the government receives a set amount for long-term contracts, while the contractor receives all fees from the toll as well as upfront capital, partly funded by the EU, to build the roads. In no case does the contractor place a single dime of the company money, while the contracts received are designed to guarantee profits to the contractor. In this case, the contractors are owners of media outlets - TV, radio, newspapers - molding public opinion in favor of corporate welfare and privatization under austerity. The most 4recent case, involves a government proposal to provide $2.5 billion to contractor to finance road building, while also giving them the green light to raise tolls by as much as 60% because the four years of austerity and recession have meant a drop in tolls collected. In short, the government guarantees profits to the private contractor, paying at least 40% higher for road building and maintenance than if government carried out such projects. However, if the public sector carried out the work, the bribing process to everyone from the minister of public works all the way down to trade union bosses would make sure the project would cost as much.

3. The political arena:
PASOK, (Socialist) and New Democracy are the two major political parties that have ruled Greece since the downfall of the military Junta in summer 1974. The two parties that have been partners in government from June 2012 until the present adopted the austerity measures and neoliberal policies, arguing that this is what the country needs, and nothing else will do.  The reasons the government provides for following the austerity/neoliberal path are as follows:

a) To modernize and conform to EU policies that best serve to stabilize the euro zone economy. After all, this what other debtor nations are doing as well.
b) To become more competitive and achieve greater economic prosperity in the future so that there would be greater “national prosperity”.
c) To fight endemic public sector corruption by ending the welfare state and the politics of clientism and baksheesh capitalism.
d) Liberalization of all professions, from taxis and truckers to pharmacists and freeing of professions that would entail best prices and service for consumers.

It is true that the EU insists there is no alternative if a member wants to remain in the zone. The question is whether austerity and neoliberalism have achieved the publicly stated goals of best serving the consumers, putting an end to corruption, clientist politics and replacing baksheesh capitalism with legitimate free enterprise, considering that illegal means remain a core issue in doing business, partly to avoid paying taxes. Moreover, there is the issue of whether the country will emerge stronger or much weaker in the next ten to twenty years, and whether the political economy will be closer to that of a northwest European country like Denmark or somewhere between a Balkan and Middle Eastern one.

a) Domestic political developments under austerity:
i. Baksheesh capitalism continues to permeate the entire society to such a degree from top to bottom that austerity has done nothing except to make the bribes smaller and only on the margins has the hand of the law reached out to contain the problem. According to OECD, Greece remains the EU’s most corrupt country.
ii. As a result of the austerity regime, there is a much stronger executive branch that has emerged to impose fiscal discipline and neoliberal policies that would otherwise never pass through the parliamentary and judicial mechanisms. This has entailed authoritarian capitalism, otherwise common in non-Western democracies, has become a mechanism to impose policies against the background of massive public resistance.
iii. The IMF and EU have not complained about the erosion of democracy, attributing it to “local and national cultural and political factors” rather than the economy’s sharp downfall. Apologists of austerity and neoliberalism insist that such policies transcend democracy and entail the triumph of the new model of German-imposed patron-client integration. In short, austerity has meant the political consolidation in Greece and in the EU of the neoliberal monetarist forces representing finance capital.

4. International status:
Austerity and neoliberal policies have entailed that Greece along with Portugal and much of southern and eastern Europe have become more competitive as far as the IMF, ECB, EU and the multinational corporations and banks are concerned. That the country is much friendlier to international capital owing to much lower asset and labor values makes it attractive for foreign investment. However, the north Balkan countries are even more attractive to foreign investors because of even lower taxes, wages and few complications with bureaucratic entanglements.

One could argue that all of EU experienced recession, but the weaker EU countries suffered greatly, given that the entire regional economy was contracting. The integration model change from inter-dependent to patron-client has entailed that the role of Greece, along with Portugal, has been downgraded from a semi-developed country trying to move closer to the core (G-20), to a country falling closer in terms of living standards and position in the international economy to the Balkan and East European countries.

5. Austerity’s Failures
After it borrowed $110 billion euros in 2010 (to service existing loans for the next two years), Greek debt-to-GDP ratio will be about 170% by 2014, or larger than in was before austerity. Much more pessimistic than the Greek government and the EU, the OECD has argued that all savings from the Greek haircut of $140 billion was lost owing to the persistence of economic contraction induced by austerity measures. Therefore, Greece without the state as a force to stimulate new growth, the economy is utterly dependent on direct foreign investment that would only come if the government offers very attractive terms. 

No matter how well the national economy performs in the next ten years, Greece will not be in a position to service its debt, in the absence of some policy measures that result in payments adjustments. Meanwhile, billions will be made by bondholders in extra payments primarily at the expense of Greek workers and the middle class who are enduring lower living standards and higher costs for the privilege of keeping foreign bondholders and their governments managing the Greece debt crisis.

The OECD maintains that every dollar "saved" from the Greek haircut of $140 billion was actually lost owing to the persistence of economic contraction induced by austerity measures. The most resounding contradiction of the “success” myth under austerity is that the IMF-EU saved country (inside the euro zone), but incomes and social security benefits declined by one-third, while poverty rose from about 18% before austerity to one-third of the population at the end of 2013, with more to come in 2014.  

a. Political polarization
The history of IMF austerity programs throughout the world in the last six decades has been characterized politically as divisive, diverting a country’s political institutions from a democratic route toward authoritarianism. In many cases, from Latin America, Africa and Asia where austerity was imposed in the last six decades, the political result was often the decline of democracy and emergence of dictatorship.
Decline of democracy and constitutional rights along with sociopolitical polarization to reflect socioeconomic chasm are realities of austerity/neoliberalism. To justify crushing the labor unions, which for the most part were appendages of the two ruling parties now in government, media and government equate constitutionally protected rights of workers to strike and demonstrate with the illegal activities of the extreme right wing using force and violence against immigrants and leftists. This early Cold War tactic essentially stigmatizes the left and deprives its struggle for social justice of legitimacy in the eyes of voters.

At the same time, the rise of neo-Nazism (Golden Dawn Party) amid a weakened democracy signals loss of public confidence in a parliamentary system that people no longer see as protecting their rights and interests. When average citizens believe that the country under austerity/neoliberalism is under a form of dictatorship by foreign creditors, then it becomes difficult to convince them that democracy works in their interest. Besides looking to neo-Nazism, many people, especially the young are so disillusioned that they have embraced a form of neo-nihilism and simply reject all political parties and all institutions. Apathy and neo-nihilism, of course, works as much in favor of the austerity/neoliberal apologists as does neo-Nazism as far as it means keeping people away from embracing leftist politics. Therefore, political polarization and apathy are part of the “success story” that the defenders of austerity and neoliberalism try to sell to the public. Finally, there is the core issue of the degree to which IMF-EU austerity has serious diluted national sovereignty as much as it has liberal democracy. This is an issue around which both rightist and leftist groups have rallied, leaving the neoliberals in the center attemtping to project themselves as nationalists while they are agents of closer international integration and loss of national sovereignty.

b. Economic decline
Every year, apologists of austerity promise that next year the country will see growth, reduce unemployment and lower debt to GDP ratio. The reality has been higher debt, lower GDP, and higher unemployment. Government claims to have a budgetary surplus, but is has unpaid obligations that far exceed the fake "surplus" created as a result of pressure from the EU and IMF. The ultimate absurdity in this claim is not the infamous “Greek statistics” claim intended to show symbolically how fiscal conservatism has prevailed. Rather, this misleading claim becomes the basis on which the government can secure more EU (band aid) funds, and project the political image of “success” on paper against the background of a society that will have lost its vibrant middle class and will be a debtor colony for the balance of the 21^st century. For a very long time, the economy will feel the impact of the decline of small shopkeepers and national bourgeoisie, of incomes for two-thirds of the population, of social security system, health care, education and social services, and a sharp increase in the “brain drain” (young college-educated people) leaving the country.

Naturally, there will be economic growth at some point in 2015, after five years of a deep recession. Growth will come with very low wages and benefits, no job security, and slim chances of upward socioeconomic mobility for the vast majority. Moreover, the economy will be producing few quality jobs, as the focus will be in capital-intensive enterprises rather than labor-intensive ones. Whether it is on the matter of medications and hospital care, foodstuffs, or any other essential product or service, the result of austerity and neoliberalism is loss of market share of domestic producers and increase of multinationals.

One obvious sign of how public debt results in income redistribution from the middle and lower classes to the upper income group is a) sharp rise in private debt as a result of higher living standards and higher taxes under austerity - in Greece, the unserviceable private sector loans could reach 50% in 2014 or early 2015; and b) the sharp drop in salary and wage scales has meant a sharp drop in the social security system receipts, which is expected to run into serious trouble by 2015. This means that retirement age will rise sharply and benefits will drop to reflect levels closer to Portugal and the Balkans, while cost of living will continue to rise.At the same time, the income gap between the bottom one third and the top ten percent of the population has risen significantly under austerity, making it one of the worst in Europe.

c) Social Injustice
Among some of the more significant aspects of austerity’s impact on people is the rise in scavenging through garbage and dumps, homelessness, soup kitchens, suicides, psychological depression and related emotional illnesses, and crime rates rising. In a country, where about 5000 people own most of the wealth and avoid paying taxes, poverty is between 25 and 30 percent, depending on the source, and it will be rising much higher in the next three to five years.

The government has been unable to deal with the social ills resulting from austerity. Besides having the media on its side, its strategy has been to place one group of workers or professionals against the other, and all of them theoretically against society, against God and Country. By attacking one group and insisting it does not serve the public by going on strike to demand its rights, government stigmatizes and marginalizes it, using all kinds of tactics from exposing its corrupt trade union officials to exposing workers cheating by calling in sick, etc.

In record time under austerity, the governments of PASOK and New Democracy have smashed trade unions effectiveness, ended collective bargaining, ended worker protection from layoffs with compensation, and created conditions where some employers refuse to pay their workers for weeks or months, without any repercussions. In one extreme case, a strawberry field owner actually shot his Pakistani workers for demanding back pay wages. Human rights organizations and the EU have repeatedly accused Greece of violating the basic human rights of immigrants, but the government has refused to permit legislation that would protect minorities from hate crimes. Playing the nationalist and religious/traditionalism card at a time of austerity actually mobilizes support for the government that has absolutely nothing else to offer to the middle class and workers.

Conclusions:
In various reports, the IMF has acknowledged that the austerity experiment in Greece as carried out failed, although a great deal of the blame must go to Greek officials who refused to implement it exactly as the IMF-ECB-EU demanded. Given that massive capital injections into the Greek financial system and government in bailout programs, the IMF agreed the result is hardly satisfying. Apparently, the lesson from all this according to the IMF is not that there is anything wrong with austerity or neoliberalism, but with the mechanisms of implementation. That is what they intend to fix when they move on to the next country.  

The case of Greece under austerity from spring 2010 to the present ought to give people pause to all analysts and interested observers about what they read and hear regarding policies that prestigious institutions like the IMF, ECB as well as governments and large banks advocate as “successful” policies. This case goes to the heart of the obsolete and anachronistic Bretton Woods system of the 1940s that the core countries are trying to keep alive in order to retain their advantage in the international economic order. Naturally, if one believes that society is best served by concentration of money in the hands of a few people, then the success story I have described holds true. On the other hand, if one sees that the persistence of the decaying Bretton Woods system is devastating societies and representative democracies, then the question is at what cost to retain a system so destructive to the social fabric and political system that is rooted in bourgeois democracy.

Partly because the former Communist bloc and Communist China are thoroughly integrated into the Western-rooted capitalist system, there is no discussion of alternative the existing system based on geographic and social inequality on a world scale. The assumption one the part of apologists of the system is that the economy along with society experience upward growth and improvement over the long term, while having some bumps along the way. Even those who may be experiencing downward instead of upward socioeconomic mobility support the system because of the promise it holds rather than the reality of the present. The proof of this is that some of the more enterprising individuals have managed to experience upward mobility. Therefore, the system must work for all, were it not for individual instead of institutional deficiencies.

Others believe that achieving the ideal of lowering poverty and raising living standards along with quality of life materially and culturally is unattainable because people and societal institutions have limitations.  The question is whether there ought to be struggle for a better society, or should people be docile as the mainstream public institutions, the media and corporate capitalism wants them. What is the ideal solution? Is the solution:

a) Maintain the status quo by going along with IMF-EU policy directives. After all, a country under austerity is one that is thoroughly integrated into the world capitalist system and there is not much it can do except to follow directives of the core countries. When former Greek premier Papandreou proposed a national referendum on continuing austerity, EU leaders forced him out of power, with former French President Sarkozy calling him a “f----ing psychopath” for daring to ask the voters what path they wished government to take.
b) Remain in the EU and the euro zone while restoring some semblance of social justice in fiscal policy, welfare and labor-wage measures that would address health, education and pensions. This would be the position of reformist elements, including Greece’s main opposition SYRIZA. A center-left party that tries very hard to present itself as Socialist and its opponents label Communist, this party is a reincarnation of the early 1980s PASOK that is now a hard core behind neoliberal and austerity policies.
c) Forging coalitions with the debtor members of the EU and acting in concert with them. This sounds easy, but each country tries to secure the best terms for itself and cooperation within the EU is difficult unless it enjoys the backing of Germany and the creditor countries.
d) Leave the eurozone, create a national currency and build a national capitalist economy. This option would cost the EU more than keeping Greece in the zone, and it would be devastating for Greece short-term, with possible longer-term benefits depending what policies the government follows. 
e) Build a Socialist society by electing the Communist party and go at it alone. This is highly unlikely in a country where the Communist party receives just six percent of the vote. Moreover, it would be very difficult to find allies around the world that would provide sufficient aid and trade to maintain the economy and regime.
f) Help to organize a grassroots revolution that has no links to existing political parties but represents different disgruntled social forces that come together out of despair. This too is highly unlikely for the immediate or inter-mediate future, but a very realistic possibility for the future. If political, economic and social conditions deteriorate further and people lose all faith in existing institutions, grassroots revolution is a realistic possibility.   

There is no ideal solution, and we certainly have no ideal citizens in Greece or anywhere else. Nor is there an easy solution on which all people would agree given that they have a strong sense of immediate and long-term personal interest combined with ideological/political leanings. If the existing system is flawed to the degree of destroying much of society, people, at least a segment of them will eventually build a consensus around a new social contract. What we know for certain now is that the existing system does not serves society as a whole, but only the political and socioeconomic elites that own most of the wealth and control society’s destiny.