Public is good: using democratisation against privatisation of public services

*Extended version of talk delivered in Zagreb, November 2015. Seminar with the title »Public is good: using democratisation against privatisation of public services», organized by Institute for Political Ecology.

I would like to thank the Institute for Political Ecology for the invitation and the opportunity to present experiences and thoughts on one of the most crucial pillars of the neoliberal trasformation: privatizations. I am going to present briefly the course of privatizations in Greece and I will outline the innovative features of the struggle against privatization of the water company in Thessaloniki. I will conclude with several thoughts regarding necessary requirements for a transformative process from a defensive struggle to protect public enterprises run by the state towards a more confident way of fighting that promotes a new model of democratic management and social control over enterprises that are related to common resources and goods.

1. The process of privatization in Greece began in the early 1990s. The right-wing government of the day considered privatization as the main policy objective. However, the implementation of this first wave of privatizations was blocked by strong political and labor union opposition.

The context changed after 1995, when Greece was admitted to candidacy in the European Monetary Union (EMU). This exerted pressure on the governments to implement structural reforms in order to foster policy credibility. During this second stage privatizations mainly involved public utilities (water, gas, electric distribution), banks, services, and telecommunications.

Since 2011 and under the rule of Troika the strategy of privatization became even more aggressive. A new Fund was created, responsible for gathering the state and public assets that were for sale and new legislation passed to facilitate the process. Indicatively, the assets were 35 state buildings, shares of the state in various enterprises like Athens International Airport, Hellenic Petroleum, Athens Water Company (EYDAP), Thessaloniki Water Company (EYATH), Hellenic Motorways, the companies of the major ports of Pireaus and Thessaloniki, Hellenic Post (ELTA) and 10 other Ports.

The major privatizations that are being pursued at this period of time is the two major ports of the country, the railway company, 14 regional airports, and the gas company. The further privatization of some major assets and companies of the electric companies group is postponed for the time being for reasons that are not connected to citizen’s or worker’s mobilization.

2. The movements that are developing against privatization of public enterprises and assets include apart from usual suspects like environmentalists – who are very well aware that privatization and subsumption of public properties under the logic of profit means severe threats for the environment – left and progressive groups, mainly include the relevent labor unions and local communities (especially in the case of ports and airports). These movements are mainly developed in traditional lines, namely by focusing on labor and community rights that are going to be compromised by the respective privatizations. That’s why they are having difficulties to build a wider front of social support and as we know from past experience they tend to dismantle if the government is willing to offer various types of compensation to the mobilized agents. This is a common pattern whenever the movement is centered exclusively on the rights of specific groups that are being affected directly by the process of privatization.

We could say that the majority of the movements and the citizens who were and are fighting against privatizations in Greece do not focus sufficiently on issues like democratization of public enterprises, participatory governance and citizen’s involvement in planning, implementation and control of the relevant policies. And this is the case mainly for two reasons: firstly, only recently the Greek society is gradually becoming aware of the dangers and the deadlocks of the privatization process: increase of price, underinvestment, poor maintenance of infrastructure and decrease of service quality. So, the citizen’s initiatives and movements are now realizing that we need a convincing rhetoric and a victorious strategy. So, we can speak of growing awareness but not a more radical – in terms of democratic processes – movement strategy yet.

Secondly, it hasn’t been developed sufficiently yet – both in practical terms and in terms of political imagination – effective methodological and organizational tools for functions like democratic management and control of public enterprises. However, due to the recent political developments in Greece – namely the insufficiency of traditional electoral politics to change the basic parameters of austerity and other neoliberal policies, like privatizations – plenty of people are beginning to explore ways and methods of impoving citizen’s real involvement in democratic, transparent and participatory processes that could take on the responsibility of running basic social and productive functions, part of which are the functions of controling and managing public enterprises.

On the other hand, there were various domains of social mobilization during the memorandum years that were characterized by participation, active involvement, self-organization,self-governing and deepening of democratic processes. Solidarity networks of various kinds, networks of distribution and social medical centers and drug stores developed organizational traits and shifts in social relations that point towards new models of collaboration and collective existence that can help us elaborate a different mentality of citizen’s control and management over basic functions of our societies. However, these features didn’t emerge through the struggle against privatizations which is the topic of our discussion here.

So, we could say that the Greek society is just beginning to follow the path that other european societies have already taken the last years. The path of increased confidence that leads to bolder goals like the remunicipalisation or bringing back services to public sector because of the negative effects of their privatization. A path that sometimes led also to democratisation of public services through experiments in participatory governance and involvement of various social groups in supervision and management of public companies and institutions. In other words, it seems that Greece has just begun to converge with what is already happening to other countries.

3. The struggle against the privatization of the water company in Thessaloniki was the most important one regarding the issues we are discussing here. A dynamic grass rooted movement managed to mobilize citizens and institutions and to spread the information concerning the consequences of water privatization, based on data extracted from the international experience.

In 2012 the government announced that will set the management and almost the total of the two biggest cities water companies stock capital under private control. When the government made the offer in 2012, apart from private firms, a component of the movement in Thessaloniki, the “initiative 136” proposed a model of social management and ownership. The initiative was named by the following idea: if we divide the estimate EYATH’s capital value out of the number of those it serves we would need 136 euros per each in order to have the company under social control. For that reason non-profit cooperatives per municipality have been created in order to be in charge of water management. The Initiative 136 collaborated closely with the workers of the company and the latter supported their proposal.

The interesting thing here is that a struggle against privatization didn’t use only the traditional arguments and tools but shaped a public proposal based on organizational principles of direct democracy: decisions would be taken at open assemblies, based on principles of self management and one person, one vote process. They proposed a deepening of democracy through social participation of public goods management and division to smaller local water companies, a development that could facilitate participation and control from the consumers due to the smaller scale. In that way they manage to overcome the reservations and dissatisfaction towards public companies and mobilise more people towards the fight against water privatisation.

Of course, there were various debates within the movement mainly related to the efficiency of such a proposal. Water is too important and needs high expertise and big amounts of money for investments in infrastructure and maintenance, attributes that the state is in a position to secure. It is not the kind of recourse that we can take risks by experimenting with its management. Additionally to that, many people were asking ‘why we should pay again for an infrastructure that we have already paid for as tax payers?’.

As it was expected, K136’s proposal was not accepted by the government, even though it attracted wide international interest and publicity. In March 2013 the EYATH Workers Union made an open call for the creation of a great alliance against privatization. Municipalities, Initiative 136, the Citizen’s Union for Water (second level union of water cooperatives), 12 non-profit water cooperatives, several grass rooted movements and independent citizens, co-founded the coordinating body ‘SOSte to Nero’ (Save Water). It is indicative that ‘SOSte to Nero’ took the stance that water should be under public control.

Despite differences, the need for unity prevailed. And not only that. By being excluded from institutional and official ways of promoting their struggle and influence the decision-making process, ‘SOSte to Nero’ made another unexpected move: it decided to organise a local popular referendum on water privatisation. On the 14th of March 2014, the Regional Association of Municipalities of Central Macedonia decided unanimously to hold a referendum despite the fact that its legitimacy was debatable. The inspiration came by official and unofficial referendums that took place in other countries or cities like Italy 2011, Berlin 2011, Vienna 2013. Three-member steering committees have been created to organize it in each municipality and municipal community of Thessaloniki, involving one representative from each municipality, one of K136 and one of the EYATH Workers. ‘Soste to Nero’ circulated a call for support at European level. EPSU (European Federation of Public Service Union) took a lead in coordinating financial donations as well as volunteers in order to facilitate the process and provide international observers as a way to enhance credibility and legitimacy. The referendum took place on the 18th of May, the day of local and European elections, despite the efforts of the government to prevent it. 218,002 citizens participated in the referendum (half of those who participated in the local and european elections at the region) and 98% of these voters said No to privatization.

As a result, the privatization process was blocked and dignity and social empowerment were strengthened. It is interesting to point out that by using tools and methods that enhance people’s participation like referendums, participatory budget, popular legislative initiatives etc, it is possible to achieve legitimacy and the necessary power to enforce people’s will. There were also positive institutional shifts: the higher court of Greece decided that the state should remove the water company of Athens from the fund responsible for the privatization process, in order to comply with the Constitution. Since then, several initiatives, conferences and events from grass rooted groups, active on water issue were asking for the same thing. In any case, it became clear that once we organize resistance effectively and mobilize people approrpiately, there are ways to overcome the power of corporations and the state.

4. Now, let me conclude with a few thoughts regarding necessary requirements for upgrading our power in the fight against privatizations:

– Instead of just convincing citizens and workers in the relevant companies that democratic management and social supervision is the right way to go, we must focus on elaborating planning, implementation and monitoring tools and organizational schemes that facilitate the transition towards this direction. We know that people are demoralized when it comes to those issues because of the fact that they seem to be terribly difficult – if not impossible – to make them function. Let’s reorient our attention from the political argumentation towards the improvement of a democratic and participatory operating system.

– the progress in various areas of human intellectual and practical experience, the innovative configuration of know-how and expertise in colaborative work and new technologies could provide us the initial ground for the systematic elaboration of efficient models of co-management, democratic decision-making and social supervision.

– Democratic management and social supervision is the only way to confront corruption in various levels in a period of time in which our societies will have limited resources at their disposal. We can afford neither the imposition of profit nor corruption to the administration of our infrastructures and the relevant resources.

– Privatization is the highest stage of the non-transparent state function of public enterprises; not an answer to it. Non-transparent state function of public enterprises deprives us from the right to decide or have a say on crucial issues. But it is considered to be a problem, since we the citizens are still typically the owners. Privatization legitimizes the problem; it transforms it into normality; only the owner have a substantive say and we are no longer the owners; we are just clients. Privatization is the final destination of a gradual derpivation of people’s right to have access to crucial decisions regarding crucial issues for their lives such as vital infrustrures of our societies. Not having any control over infrastructure is a dangerous direction especially in the era of increased geopolitical instability and war we are gradually entering.

From my experience people are gradually aware that the era of innocence and naivity has passed. It’s time the citizens to step in and take direct control of their own societies.

JacobinMag: Creative Resistance

A former Syriza central committee member on building popular power when a left government is implementing austerity.

After Syriza accepted a third austerity memorandum for Greece and called early elections, much of its leadership left the party. Some formed Popular Unity, while others are still searching for a new home to continue the fight against austerity.

Andreas Karitzis is among the latter. Until this summer, he was a member of Syriza’s central committee and had been a key figure in the party’s electoral planning process before its triumph in January’s elections. Karitzis was also previously at the Nicos Poulantzas Institute, the research center affiliated with Syriza.

Now outside Syriza, Karitzis recently spoke with Michal Rozworski about charting an anti-austerity path when a left government is responsible for implementing austerity. “The Greek experience,” Karitzis says, “teaches us that we need to go beyond electoral politics, not against it.”

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Greece just held its second elections of 2015 a month ago and Syriza came out on top again. But it’s a very different Syriza than the one from January, one now committed to implementing a new, third memorandum with the European “institutions.” Can a left party implement and work against austerity policies at the same time?

I don’t think it is politically viable or socially useful to engage in a process of implementing austerity while trying to counterbalance the negative effects at the same time. It’s not easy to do this under the strict supervision of neoliberal institutions. An effort like this would require a different approach and a different mentality.

It could be possible only as a way of buying time. If you are inventive and systematic enough and have a strategy of disengagement, it could work for a short period of time. It would be a way of preparing yourself and your society for the duty of a hard conflict with the lenders. But I don’t think that the government will follow such a path, hence I don’t find what they are trying to do politically viable.

At the same time, Syriza is changing due to the fact that the plan of stopping austerity using traditional means — securing an electoral majority and then forming government — has failed. It was based on the idea that elites will not refuse to respect the democratic will of the people. In the absence of a serious discussion for a new, complex, and perhaps more difficult strategy, Syriza is gradually slipping towards a narrative of accepting the neoliberal coordinates of applied politics.

So accepting the bounds that elites place on politics . . .

If you want to have a statistical idea of what happened to Syriza around these latest elections, consider that about 50 percent of the central committee, a third of cadres at the intermediate level (for instance, from regional structures), and about 15 to 20 percent of the general membership have resigned. So, a large portion of the leadership left, while the picture at the local level is different because people tend to be connected with each other also as friends.

However, this doesn’t mean that all those who stayed in Syriza remain hopeful. Many of them are also demoralized. While they do not see prospects for this government, they still hope that something will simply happen. Many do not have a coherent strategy or narrative.

How resilient are the social movements — the health centers, the solidarity networks, and so on? Is this the base out of which something new will be built? My conversations earlier seemed to suggest some tensions between the movements and those engaged in traditional politics.

Yes, part of the “raw materials” for something new are the people who are already engaged in solidarity networks, the cooperative movement and similar organizations. Then there are those who left Syriza searching for a new strategy.

My goal today is to connect these two groups — these two tribes fighting against austerity. I want to connect those who are doing things in the field, already trying to gain some autonomy over spheres of their lives, and those who were committed to traditional politics but are not willing to pursue this anymore.

Both of them have energy, capacities, and determination, and together, they can form a strong backbone for a resilient and dynamic network that can produce the economic and social power necessary to defy the elites’ control over the basic functions of our society. Perhaps from the combination of these two groups, a political organization of a new kind can emerge.

It’s ambitious and in some ways hard to grasp, but in the given situation, what else can you do?

I tend to be optimistic because the situation in Greece remains unstable. If I was in Canada or Denmark, I would be frustrated and pessimistic that the Left could come back. It’s not the same in Greece, however, and we can expect the Left to be cornered once again when the Syriza government falls. This will happen, even if a few years down the road.

Since the next government will be a very conservative one, we don’t have the luxury of not fighting. And since we have to keep fighting, I am optimistic that we will adapt ourselves to the new conditions and emerge better organized, not only because we are very committed but because we cannot do otherwise.

What would the alternative strategy you’re describing broadly look like, especially in a context where elites are unwilling to budge?

We experienced a strategic defeat. Now we need to set up processes that will empower people — for example, by advancing social economy and cooperative initiatives or community control over functions such as infrastructure facilities, energy systems, and distribution networks. These are ways of gaining a degree of autonomy.

No matter how difficult or strange this may sound in light of the traditional ways of doing politics, it is the only way to acquire the necessary power to defy the elites’ control over our societies. We can do this by extracting the embodied capacities of the people and putting them into use for the liberation of society.

Who will do this?

People who are committed to continue the fight against austerity. During the referendum, many engaged in this battle personally for the first time. Many are gradually coming to understand that it’s not possible to change our basic coordinates without exploring new ways of creative social mobilization. There are many in Greece who are ready for this (and I don’t mean only those who left Syriza). What we need is to find ways to make this more widespread within society.

This is the only way to truly liberate ourselves — whether by staying in the eurozone with a degree of autonomy or leaving the eurozone with a degree of autonomy. Independently of what we may think is the right decision in terms of the currency, we must make sure first that we have the power to carry out our plans under the severe pressure of elites. For this, we need new organizational forms, political imagination, and methodology, and that’s what we are trying to invent and figure out.

The first half of 2015 in Greece showed just how strong the interests of capital are across Europe. How do you reconcile your strategy with the crippling power of elites? How do you reconcile the big international forces at the official political level with action at the most local level?

According to my understanding of our situation, it’s not that there isn’t enough space for alternative politics. What we need most is to increase our real power. If we had greater power, we could use electoral politics and a left government to initiate a process of liberating our society.

The Greek experience teaches us that we need to go beyond electoral politics, not against it. We need to have a broader idea of what it means to do politics in the new conditions. We have entered a new era in which our societies are deprived of the right to have access to crucial decisions.

It goes beyond the eurozone, though that is important. Look also at the TTIP and other trade agreements. All these new institutional forms and regulations create a universal problem, but in order to respond universally, we need to fight efficiently on the local level.

My main concern is to grasp and put into action new ways of mobilizing people in order to gradually reclaim control over basic social functions that are local but are today under the control of anti-democratic institutions shaping the ground for our enslavement. Organizing efficiently at the local level allows us to eventually scale up to the European or international level.

How do you implement this in a very practical way? How do you get over the fear and blackmail that to some extent has been proven effective?

The main problem in Greece, and likely in modern society in general, is not just fear but whether there are organizational and methodological principles to make any mobilization powerful enough to counterbalance the power of elites. Our inherited principles are not adequate to what we need to do today.

The signs of collapse of the standard economical circuit are obvious in Greece but not only here. There is a growing exclusion of people from the economic circuit — having a job or a bank account, having a “normal life.” Modern society in general is in decline.

From history we know that societies in decline tend to react in order to survive. It is up to us to grasp this and start building networks that can perform basic social functions in a different way — one that is democratic, decentralized, and based on the liberation of people’s capacities.

First, this would allow society to survive and give people who are today excluded the means to survive in meaningful ways. Second, this could begin a transition towards a better and mature society.

There are no empty spaces in history, so if we do not do this, the nationalists and fascists — with their militarized way of performing these basic functions — may step in to finish off the decline. In Greece, a left government that implements austerity creates fruitful conditions for the nationalists and fascists to grow, especially in the poorest regions and neighborhoods.

Has this fascist current gotten worse recently? It seems that in terms of the electoral arena, Greece’s far-right party Golden Dawn has been relatively stable. What is the strength of the fascists more generally?

This is something you can’t anticipate. When the Left is in government, who stands to benefit? That another left, largely nonexistent right now, could benefit today by being a major opponent of the government seems unlikely.

On the other hand, New Democracy and the other systemic, pro-memorandum parties cannot make a turn towards popular demands; they are forced to support the agreement. As a result, the nationalists have an open space.

While the recent election results didn’t show them making any gains, this is due mainly to the timing of the election. The election took place before the implementation of the agreement, when Syriza still had an air of tough negotiators and people hadn’t seen how the agreement will affect their lives. We will be better able to assess the strength of the nationalists six months from now.

Finally, what are the lessons for the broader European left from the Greek experience of the first Syriza government?

We now know for a fact (this is not an assessment) that it is not enough to engage in traditional ways of doing politics to reverse our declining course. We must move beyond elections, not against them. We have to combine what we used to do with new elements, and we need new priorities.

Both within society and within the economy, we need to build our own networks that extract people’s capacities and produce real power that can then be used to make meaningful change. That’s a positive lesson from what happened here.

If we think differently, we will realize that we are far stronger than we think. Our established political imagination — which sees the political and social conditions underlying postwar social democracy as not having changed — was wrong.

Things have been changing for years. If we train ourselves to see things differently, we will realize that we are stronger than we think. This is the message for the Left everywhere.

*Published on Jacobinmag.com

Parties and movements: the European experience

Extended version of talk delivered in Montreal 08-22-2015

Thank you so much for the invitation and the opportunity to present some thoughts regarding emancipatory politics and especially the need for important modifications of mentality and methodology based on the experience of being in the government in a weird and unstable situation such as the one we are having in Greece.

It is true that in the current global context, things are pretty tight when it comes to the implementation of non-neoliberal policies. Especially in Europe, today’s neoliberal structure is designed in such a way that it discards without the need for political argumentation any attempt to follow an alternative economical and social path. I am talking about a vast network of regulations, norms and directives, a huge bureaucratic apparatus of processes and mechanisms that blocks implicitly any alternative. We are talking about the institutional instantiation of the famous phrase “TINA”.

After the Greek experience we now know that the elites are today openly hostile to democracy. In the first days of June, after months of negotiations the lenders made their first proposal. They openly sidestepped the negotiation process until those days and demanded that the Greek government should openly violate the democratic will of the people. At the end of June they openly declared that Greece should comply with their demands in 48 hours. Few days later, in the middle of July and after the referendum, they openly threatened that Greek society will face the consequencies of a sudden default if their demands will not be accepted. In one and a half month, in Europe, democracy was openly rejected. I am stressing the fact that that happened openly and not in a disguised way because I believe that it is of extreme importance. We wittnessed a major historical event: democracy is no longer relevant when it comes to serious social, economical and financial issues.

Of course, this is not the first time. In all over the world – even in Europe, in Eastern Europe particularly few decades earlier – we had and we are having similar anti-democratic developments. However, the true receiver of the message this time was not the specific society but rather the people in the what is called developed western societies. The elites are no longer willing to share with the people the crucial decisions. Democracy – which is a name for any social and institutional configuration allows some kind of access to crucial decisions of people with no considerable economic power – will no longer be tolerated. The message should be clear and reach every one of us, independently of our nationality, religion, origin or political conviction. That’s why the rejection of democracy had this open cheracter. We should not underestimate the importance of a historical event when it takes place just because we might be able to assess its coming beforehand. Our analysis of the neoliberal character of eurozone, of global capitalism etc should not make us devaluate the fact that we witnessed a clear defeat of democracy in Europe. Things will never be the same any more.

Is this surprising? Yes, if we take for granted that the post-war social and institutional configuration in western countries of liberal capitalism, or democratic capitalism is irreversible. No, if we have a wider historical view and take into consideration the profound and structural distress of the elites towards democracy. Neoliberalism is not an economical policy; it’s an ambitious strategy of fundamentally transforming the physiognomy of modern societies and subjectivities as well, of ending once and for all the democratic and emancipatory wave that emerged in human history after the french revolution. Under this light, the aggressiveness towards the Greeks, the suffering of this small nation is just the bearer of a universal – and thus even more dangerous – message. In the era of the despotism of the market, in the era of the neoliberal order, democracy – in any any of its varieties, even the most moderate and systemic ones – is not accepted.

So, is there any room for emancipatory politics? It depends. No, if we seek quick and easy ways to implement alternative policies. Ways that presuppose the respect of the democratic will of the people by the elites. Ways that will not disturb the naïve and comforting conception that we – as people – do not really need to engage profoundly into collective practices. Today, the only thing we – as people – are willing to give is singular moments of participation. The idea is that through demonstrating and voting we can somehow solve the urgent problems of our societies with orthodox means, through the state and governments that are sensitive to our demands.

I do not mean that representative democracy has no value. Neither do I mean that governments sensitive to people’s needs are not crucial factors in this battle. I am just stressing the fact that we must have a broader view of the agents and the processes needed if we want to change things.

Is there any room for emancipatory politics? Yes, if we are determined and systematic enough to work under the radars of the neoliberal configuration and inventive enough to formally coincide with it while at the same time we empower people against it. In order to respond adequately in these suffocating conditions, new organizational standards and methods are needed for the engagement of thousands of people in this day-to-day and multi-level fight. Negatively put, without the people with the knowledge needed, aligned into groups of collaboration and embedded in a vast network of democratic decision-making that produces policies of our own logic no government will be in a position to wage this battle.

But in order to engage in such a shift we must abandon the tendency that things will change easily and quick through the revival of the previous institutional and political configuration of post war liberal capitalism. We must finally confront the reality that neoliberals are “burning” the bridges with the past behind them.

We know for quite some time that transforming the state and social practices beyond it are two crucial aspects of emancipatory politics. Although they are autonomous in the sense that they have their own temporalities, different organizational and methodological requirements etc they stand or fall together in the end. The present-day orientation of the state and the intensity of the neoliberal attack on societies attribute an existential twist to the theoretical claim that we must work both within the state and outside it. A bundle of important policies and powers once belonged to the state has been tranfered either to external authorities or directly to the elites – in both cases out of the reach of the people. At the same time, a vast number of neoliberal regulations and norms governs the function of the state and sections of social life. These two conditions combined, render the governmental and state power not the political power but just one of the poles of such a power, shaping a hostile environment in which considerable effort is needed just to open some space for the implementation of different policy.

In other words, as I mentioned previously, state power is not enough to wage the battle we are engaged in. We, more than ever, need the expansion of democracy and cooperation in social practices and new social institutions. The fate of a left government depends on our ability to build new social and institutional structures that it will empower the people. And the duty of a left government is not just to exercise the diminished power it has, but to function as facilitator for such an empowerment of the people to take place. Hence, we need a operational conception of transforming the state and a new model of leadership as well. Being in the government is a way to use the remaining resources of the state (by transforming them accordingly) to facilitate social agents to decide, plan, implement and monitor policies and projects of an alternative political orientation. And this is not a path that our ideology forces us to follow; there is no other way to implement a different policy today than to liberate and use the embodied capacities of the people.

The question is how are we going to transform the established relation between movements and active people in general with the political parties, the state and the government. The traditional relation is marked by the institutional framework of representative democracy; people vote and movements demand. As I said twice already this is not viable anymore.

We need a new mentality that promotes cooperation and joint efforts of the state and the movements. In order to move towards this new mentality the state and the government must transfer decisions and allocation of resources to the social agents maintaining a coordinating role and safeguarding the political orientation (in terms of criteria such as democratic decision making, multi-dimensional planning, priorities and goals, long term sustainability etc). And the social agents must overcome a partial view on the issues, and share with the political parties and state institutions we have access to the responsibility for results that serve the public interest and good.

I am talking about the gradual transformation of the state and the social agents of the previous social and political configuration towards an institutional and social configuration based on our ideology and logic. Widening the logic of cooperation and democracy within the state and society, even building new institutions shaped by our logic and principles (both at the level of scope and at the level of functioning) is our duty especially in a period of time that – as I already said – traditional means and tools are not available anymore.

Since the lenders of Greece refused to make a mutually benefitial agreement – which boils down to the fact that eurozone allows economic pluralism, or at least it tolerates different economic orientation based on democratic choices of the people – we ended up with a punitive agreement that traps SYRIZA in a neoliberal and austerity framework.

This agreement will hit SYRIZA and the left in general badly and society even more so. Gradually but fast, rationality, civic mentality and the notion of respect to community and society will be compromised. No one will feel obliged to follow any kind of rule, since the government itself is following the orders of the powerful ellites despite the fact that the government and the majority of the people disagree and the rules of democracy are violated. The “rule of the powerful” will be the only social norm in people’s minds and behavior.

Without SYRIZA being the hope for a substantial change, Golden Dawn – or something similar – will rise as the dominant political power. Needless to say that this would be the successful outcome of the memorandum period: tranforming a developed society (with many many problems of mentality and orientation) into a social desert in which barbarism and fascism will prevail.

Apart from the social decline and its consequences for everyday life, the continuation of austerity and recession will shake even further the administrative capacity of Greek authorities shaping threatening conditions for the integrity of the country in a region that destabilizes rapidly. In the southeast part of Mediterranean sea borders and peace are disappearing and in the Balkans a gradual division between the West and Russia is emerging.

On the other hand, choosing to follow the elites at the escalation of the fight they are dragging us through blackmails requires, as I already said, a strategy of empowering the people so that we will be in a position to perform the basic functions of our society in an alternative way. No matter difficult this may seem to us it is necessary since the lenders control the flow of money and the various fundings and through them the whole network of the basic functions. That’s why I was saying that in order to be able to confront them we need not only the traditional means of doing politics – since the elites are gradually free themselves from their obligations and commitments towards our societies cancelling those means to a considerable extent out – but a different strategy of empowering the people, extracting their capacities, combining them with the remaining resources of the state and creating economical and social circuits able to take on the responsibility of running the basic functions. You cannot be free unless you acquire the neseccary power to run basic social functions.

This is extremely crucial if we add into the equation the fact that we cannot foresee the reaction of the elites. We know that they lack any sense of respect of democracy, wisdom in the deep sense of the term and social responsibility. Moreover, we know that neoliberals actually want the emergence of chaotic situations for they believe that the disorientation of the population and the collapse of the existing institutions and modes of social functioning create favourable conditions for setting up the new neoliberal order.

At this point, I would like to underline the difficulty for a society to accept that its future is severely compomized; that ordinary life as we know it is no longer available is difficult to digest. This is a delicate issue to handle. Strong psychological defensive mechanisms are involved, arguments are not convincing and people prefer to think transforming their desperate hope into reality, ovelooking at the same time the clear signs that are in front of them.

In any case, it seems that we – people in western societies in general – are entering a period that will be marked by economical, social and political turmoil. Political action in this new environment will challenge the political imagination of the previous decades. We must adapt ourselves quickly into the new conditions in order to be effective.

We are analyzing, monitoring, explaining etc of what the opponents are doing, what is their strategy, what kind of techniques they use etc and that’s something extremely useful. However, we need to think how are we going to face today’s challenges and problems according to our logic. The modern world is declining fast and at the same time we have never before been in a position with so many potentials. It’s not only a matter of seizing the power, it’s a matter of identifying the deep reasons for such a decline and engage in a process of transformation based on the existing potentials.

We often tend to believe that overthrowing our opponents from power means that somehow the problems caused by them and the new challenges we are facing will be disappeared. It is true that it is extremely important to get rid of these guys, the neoloberals; however, neolibealism is deeply entrenched in social practices and the state, things are moving this way by themselves so to speak.

We must put them in different tracks, we must develop ideas and ways of doing things differently. And in order to do it, we must think without our opponents on sight. And actually, there are huge developments today in many areas and fields in which the human intellect and practice produce new elements that combined properly could give us the first glimpses of a mature society. If we think this way we will realize that we are actually more stronger than we think. If we launch such a project then we will gradually acquire the necessary self-confidence to truly rule our societies, and I strongly believe that this is the most crucial part in actually doing it. If we start really believing that we can do it then the fall of neoliberalism would be a matter of time.

Democracy is the best way to activate fully the embodied capacities that people have. By transferring the decisions to the people, by giving them the space and the freedom to realize and mobilize their capacities, we can unlock crucial reserves of creative power. Unlocking these reserves will change substantially the balance of forces between the popular classes and the elites giving us the degree of freedom needed to truly defy our opponents control over our societies. If we elaborate effective ways and means of democratic functioning we will realize that we are actually much stronger than we think. We will be able to extract and mobilize the human reserves of creative power which are the only form of power we can have at our disposal in this struggle.

Let me conclude with a final remark. The Greek government – whose only real plan from the beginning was that a shred of democracy will be respected at some point during the negotiation process, since we didn’t manage to modify our mentality and methodology fast enough – decided to use the last institutionally available democratic tool, the referendum, in an effort to achieve an agreement that it will include some kind of respect to the fact that Greek society cannot endure anymore a policy that destroys it. For a lot of us it was clear back then that there was no possibility that the european elites would show some respect to it.

However, the importance of the referendum exceeds the strategy of the government. During the week before the referendum a massive biopolitical experiment took place. The closed banks, the extreme propaganda by the media, the threats by the domestic, european and international political and financial establishment, the terrorism in workplaces, the hostility and threats towards “no” supporters at the interpersonal level etc created an environment we have never encountered before. Our opponents used all their resources at the maximum and they lost! Greek people refused to voluntarily declare that they embrace a life without dignity instead of a sudden death. We are talking about an extremely hopeful and important event for the battle against neoliberal irrationality. Greek people proved that the biopolitical control and influence over people is not so powerful as we might think it is. The battle is not over yet and human societies will not surrender easily.

Actually, it is up to all of us to change the course of things if we deeply appreciate the fact that manifesting the various logics of cooperation and democracy we are far stronger than we think, especially today that for the first time in our evolutionary history we have so many embodied capacities from so many different fields of human intellectual and practical activity and values from so many diverse cultures within our reach.

And the same is true about the final assessment of the SYRIZA experience that ended at least in its current form while this conference is taking place here in Montreal. It is up to all of us to learn from this experience and evolve so that the forces fighting for emancipation will be better adapted and more efficient from now on. Actually, if you think about it, most of the historically important episodes of emancipatory politics typically failed. But that’s the beauty of human history; we are evolving as long as we maintain the capacity to learn and adapt. So, please let’s make all of us the SYRIZA experience a success through our future actions. Thank you.

 

Democratically-driven transformations in the era of neoliberalism: the case of Syriza

Talk delivered in Amsterdam, 06-20-2015 (TNI annual meeting)

Thank you very much for the invitation and the opportumity to share with you some thoughts based on the experience of these four months of Syriza being in the government. I will focus mainly on modifications in our understanding and methodology of promoting emancipatory politics from the perspective of being in the government in a weird and unstable situation such as the one we currently have in Greece.

Is there any room for maneuver towards emancipatory politics in the current global context?

1.1. It is true that in the current global context, things are pretty tight when it comes to the implementation of non-neoliberal policies. Especially in Europe, today’s neoliberal configuration is even more harsh towards other political orientations. It is designed in such a way that it discards without the need for political argumentation any attempt to follow an alternative economical and social path. I am talking about a vast network of regulations, norms and directives, a huge bureaucratic apparatus of processes and mechanisms that blocks implicitly any alternative. We are talking about the institutional instantiation of the famous phrase “TINA”.

1.2. I could go on mentioning many other aspects of our current situation. There is absolutely no reason to argue whether the current battlefield is negative or not for emancipatory politics. It is obvious that it is. It has always been negative, it will always be negative. We are talking about overthrowing a dominant brutal, exploitative and disastrous system by a dominated, fragmented and feeble conception of emancipation. Successful emancipatory politics in a hostile and toxic environment is our task; our “job description”.

What is extremely valuable is to specify the exact nature of present-day modes and techniques of power in order to engage with them effectively. And at the same time we must radically transform our political imagination that – at least from my experience – is dominated by various coordinates that prevent us from having access to the only resource of power that we really can have at our disposal: people’s embodied capacities.

1.3. So, is there any room for maneuver? It depends. No, if we seek quick and easy ways to implement alternative policies. Ways that presuppose the respect of the democratic will of the people by the elites. Ways that will not disturb the naïve and comforting conception that we – as people – do not really need to engage profoundly into collective practices. Today, the only thing we – as people – are willing to give is singular moments of participation. The idea is that through demonstrating and voting we can somehow solve the urgent problems of our societies with orthodox means, through the state and governments that are sensitive to our demands.

I do not mean that representative democracy has no value. On the contrary I think that it is a crucial dimension of a mature society. But we often ask too much from it and its failure to deliver on our expectations generates a misguided devaluation. Neither do I mean that governments sensitive to people’s needs are not crucial factors in this battle. I am just stressing the fact that we must have a broader view of the agents and the processes needed if we want to change things.

1.4. Is there any room for maneuver? Yes, if we are determined and systematic enough to work under the radars of the neoliberal configuration, inventive enough to formally coincide with it while at the same time we empower people against it and decisive enough not to give in to threats and blackmail.

In order to respond adequately in these suffocating conditions, new organizational standards and methods are needed for the engagement of thousands of people in this day-to-day and multi-level fight. Negatively put, without the people with the knowledge needed, aligned into groups of collaboration and embedded in a vast network of democratic decision-making that produces policies of our own logic no government will be in a position to wage this battle.

1.5. Are we moving towards this direction in Greece? Not wholeheartedly. However, the everyday inability to implement alternative policies through traditional governmental means has created the conditions for the emergence of a new awareness inside SYRIZA: the new level requires new qualities and a shift to our organizational and methodological principles.

But in order to engage in such a shift we must abandon the tendency that things will change easily and quick through the revival of the previous institutional and political configuration of post war liberal capitalism. We must finally confront the reality that neoliberals are “burning” the bridges with the past behind them.

Is the state the suitable place for emancipatory politics?

2.1. The first thing I would like to note is that I cannot see any theoretical reason why one should actually choose between working within or outside the state. We know for quite some time that transforming the state and social practices beyond it are two crucial aspects of emancipatory politics. Although they are autonomous in the sense that they have their own temporalities, different organizational and methodological requirements etc they stand or fall together in the end.

There is no way to transform the state in a meaningful and durable way without strong interrelation with processes of expansion of alternative social practices, democratically organized productive units, respective non-commodified circuits of distribution, a different civic mentality etc. And alternatively, there is no way to promote seriously and in a non-marginal way alternative social practices – which are feeble and hard to sustain in a hostile environment – without the support, the protection or at least the concession by the state of free space in order to develop roots and size that allows a quasi-sustainable reproduction and expansion.

2.2. However, in politics choosing so to speak between the two is often a real question: in practice, we have limited resources at our disposal and we must allocate them according to the criterion of efficiency. Then the question is not whether we should work within the spheres of state power or not but what is the optimal allocation of resources and time between working within it and outside it. And secondly, in practice we are engaged in a brutal war and sometimes you must focus on seizing state power or other forms of power just to wrest them from the hands of your opponents. For example, in Greece, we couldn’t afford leaving state power to the neoliberals.

2.3. On the other hand, the present-day situation of the state and the intensity of the neoliberal attack on societies attribute an existential twist to the theoretical claim that we must work both within the state and outside it. A bundle of important policies and powers once belonged to the state has been tranfered either to external (european or domestic but “independent”) authorities or directly to the elites – in both cases out of the reach of the people. At the same time, a vast number of neoliberal regulations and norms governs the function of the state and sections of social life. These two conditions combined, render the governmental and state power not the political power but just one of the poles of such a power, shaping a hostile environment in which considerable effort is needed just to open some space for the implementation of different policy.

In other words, as I mentioned previously, state power – as it is traditionally conceived in isolation from the social movement and bureaucratic in nature – is not enough to wage the battle we are engaged in. We, more than ever, need the expansion of democracy and cooperation in social practices and new social institutions. We need social innovation for the empowerment of the people in new ways. The fate of a left government depends on our ability to build new social and institutional structures that it will empower the people. And the duty of a left government is not just to exercise the diminished power it has, but to function as facilitator for such an empowerment of the people to take place.

But such a duty requires a new political imagination that transcends the established view of being in the government. The traditional methodology dictates that people through demonstrating and voting express their demands and will and then the governemnt uses the state to respond to them. This is no longer viable even if we wanted to do it. Instead, we need a different conception of the state and a new model of leadership as well. Being in the government is a way to use the remaining resources of the state (by transforming them accordingly) to facilitate (by organizing efficient democratic decision making and productive processes) social agents to decide, plan, implement and monitor policies and projects of an alternative political orientation. And this is not a path that our ideology forces us to follow; there is no other way to implement a different policy today than to liberate and use the embodied capacities of the people.

What is the relation between the new government and the social movements in Greece?

3.1. It is not easy to answer this question. We are in a vague, fragile and transitory situation in Greece. The government is not allowed to govern yet and people are on hold for the time being. In respect to the negotiations there were no significant movements the last months. There are of course demonstrations for a variety of reasons.

We do not have a clear view for the relation of the government with movements in general. It seems to be very close for the time being but we are at the beginning and it is not easy to decode the growing tendencies in various domains.

Additionally, this relation is overdetermined by the unique situation we are facing due to the crucial negotiations. It seems like the political function is suspended and the various agents are waiting to situate themselves in the new context that the result of the negotiation will create. It is reasonable to assume that in the case of an agreement that includes austerity demands of the lenders a tension between various movements and the government will be the case.

3.2. However, the question that concerns me and others inside SYRIZA is how are we going to transform the established relation between movements and active people in general with the state and the government. The traditional relation is marked by the institutional framework of representative democracy; people vote and movements demand. As I said twice already this is not viable anymore. The state cannot deliver what people need and want if we do not change the mentality both of the people in public administration and the government and the people that participate in the movements.

We need a new mentality that promotes cooperation and joint efforts of the state and the movements. In order to move towards this new mentality the state and the government must transfer decisions and allocation of resources to the social agents maintaining a coordinating role and safeguarding the political orientation (in terms of criteria such as democratic decision making, multi-dimensional planning, priorities and goals, long term sustainability etc). And the social agents must overcome a corporatist mentality, a partial view on the issues, and share with the state and the government the responsibility for results that serve the public interest and good. Instead of acting solely for the satisfaction of the demands by the state of the groups of people they represent, social agents must think of their contributing role in a broader effort.

I am talking about the gradual transformation of the state and the social agents of the previous social and political configuration towards an institutional and social configuration based on our ideology and logic. Widening the logic of cooperation and democracy within the state and society, even building new institutions shaped by our logic and principles (both at the level of scope and at the level of functioning) is our duty especially in a period of time that – as I already said – traditional means and tools are not available anymore.

One of the major problems towards this direction is our own – people of the traditional left – political imagination and commitment to the previous social and institutional configuration. For a number of reasons I won’t mention now, there is the implicit assumption that any suggestion, proposal and innovation regarding a different role and function of the state and the social agents like trade-unions is considered to be dangerous and suspicious. However, we are lucky since the difficulties to implement a different policy in traditional ways create the conditions for a new methodology to emerge.

How does SYRIZA approaches the notion of development:

The truth is that SYRIZA is very traditional when it comes the idea of “developement”. The implicit dominant view is the classical one: we must develop the productive forces and capacities of the country based on a growth-oriented pattern in order to recover. We are sensitive to labor and environmental issues, we might even want to create productive activity through public means so that the benefits will return to society, but we do not conceptualize a different framework in which the economic growth is not its cornerstone.

Of course, there lots of us who understand deeply the fact that we need a strategy of transforming the productive matrix. The question is how we can shape an economic recovery based on merging efficiently today’s social needs and social needs in the future by transforming our productive and consuming patterns. Even though there are voices inside SYRIZA that posit these considerations and specific policy projects that actually promote a different model of priorities and organizational principles, we continue to think and act according to the established coordinates of development.

At the rhetorical level, the economic and social disaster in Greece is considered to be a political condition that does not allow the exploration of an alternative productive framework which is thought as a luxury we cannot afford. At the same time, the same reason, the economic and social disaster, taken together with the economic pressure in Greece by the lenders and the economic elites, in practice cancels out any prospect of economic recovery in a traditional way. So, we are in the middle of a situation in which the dominant traditional conception of development is not working but we do not have an overall alternative framework to replace it. There is a window of opportunity for a different path here. But we need a clear and unified strategy towards a different direction.

How is SYRIZA preparing for the future?

We are in front of a historic crossroad in Greece. Since the lenders of Greece refused to make a mutually benefitial agreement – which boils down to the fact that eurozone allows economic pluralism, or at least it tolerates different economic orientation based on democratic choices of the people – we are in front of two painful choices: either a bad agreement that traps SYRIZA in a neoliberal and austerity framework or a non-agreement that sets in motion a series of events that they will radically change the coordinates of Greek political, social and economical context.

The first scenario will hit SYRIZA badly and society even more so, crashing the last democratic hope for Greece. The hit will be a decisive one in a society that is already collapsing. Gradually but fast, rationality, civic mentality and the notion of respect to community and society will be compromised. No one will feel obliged to follow any kind of rule, since the government itself is following the orders of the powerful ellites despite the fact that the government and the majority of the people disagree and the rules of democracy are violated. The “rule of the powerful” will be the only social norm in people’s minds and behavior.

Without SYRIZA being the hope for a substantial change, Golden Dawn – or something similar – will definitely rise as the dominant political power. Needless to say that this would be the successful outcome of the memorandum period: tranforming a developed society (with many many problems of mentality and orientation) into a social desert in which barbarism and fascism will prevail.

Apart from the social decline and its consequences for everyday life, the continuation of austerity and recession will shake even further the administrative capacity of Greek authorities shaping threatening conditions for the integrity of the country in a region that destabilizes rapidly. In the southeast part of Mediterranean sea borders and peace are disappearing and in the Balkans a gradual division between the West and Russia is emerging.

The second scenario will initiate immediate political, social and economic turmoil. SYRIZA will be cornered but it will maintain its unity and its support by the people who have been pushed in poverty. However, we cannot foresee the reaction of the elites. We know that they lack any sense of respect of democracy, wisdom in the deep sense of the term and social responsibility. Moreover, we know that neoliberals actually want the emergence of chaotic situations for they believe that the disorientation of the population and the collapse of the existing institutions and modes of social functioning create favourable conditions for setting up the new neoliberal order.

We can speculate about their reaction but we are living in a period of time that no one can actually assess the dynamics of the situation. Who would have thought 2 years ago that a war will take place again in Europe, in Ukraine, and the EU and US would openly support neonazis! So, we are talking about a turbulent situation.

Of course, there is always the possibility that the lenders will postpone the difficult choice. In this case, the lenders will let Greece sink even further into recession due to the liquidity suffocation and they will wait to see whether broader changes will take place in Europe. Spanish elections are critical in this scenario and perhaps other events that will take place and may change the current balance of forces.

At this point, I would like to underline the difficulty for a society to accept that its future is severely compomized in any case; that ordinary life as we know it is no longer available is difficult to digest. And it is not easy to accept and fully embrace that you cannot control or influence it. It’s not easy to accept the fact that you cannot escape from what is going to happen. This is a delicate issue to handle both inside SYRIZA and greek society. Strong psychological defensive mechanisms are involved, arguments are not convincing and people prefer to think transforming their desperate hope into reality, ovelooking at the same time the clear signs that are in front of them.

We are entering a period that will be marked by economical, social and political turmoil. Political action in this new environment will challenge the political imagination of the previous decades. The sooner we overcome the perfectly normal feeling of denying reality when it becomes harsh, the better. We must adapt ourselves quickly into the new conditions in order to be effective.

So, ahead of such a crucial moment, we cannot prepare ourselves for the mid- or long-term future. Fundamental parameters of today’s situation are going to change rapidly shaping a future we cannot foresee for the time being.

Let me conclude with two final general remarks for our duty today:

– we need to engage efficiently and profoundly in transforming the people’s way of thinking themselves and their lives. In the last decades in the western world at least, people were raised believing that a good life is essentially an individual achievement. Society and nature is just a background, a wallpaper for our egos, the contingent context in which our solitary selves will evolve pursuing individual goals. The individual owes nothing to no one, she lacks a sense of respect and responsibility to the previous or the next generations, and indifference is the proper attitude regarding the present social problems and conditions. There is no way to achieve our goals, saving the planet, transforming the economy, coping with social problems and modern challenges etc without transforming the spoiled teenager-like modern subjectivity into a mature grown-up subjectivity ready to bear the responsibility and duty of taking on the difficult and demanding task that our goals dictate.

– We are analyzing, monitoring, explaining etc of what the opponents are doing, what is their strategy, what kind of techniques they use etc and that;s somethning extremely useful. However, we need to think how are we going to face today’s challenges and problems according to our logic. The modern world is declining fast and at the same time we have never before been in a position with so many potentials. It’s not only a matter of seizing the power, it’s a matter of identifying the deep reasons for such a decline and engage in a process of transformation based on the existing potentials.

We must develop a conception of ruling the world differently, of actually performing the every day activities of societies with a different way. We often tend to believe that getting rid of the opponents means that somehow the problems caused by them and the new challenges we are facing will be disappeared. It is true that it is extremely important to get rid of these guys, the neoloberals; however, neolibealism is deeply entrenched in social practices and the state, things are moving this way by themselves so to speak.

We must put them in different tracks, we must develop ideas and ways of doing things differently. And in order to do it, we must think without our opponents on sight. We must think our own world and how is going to be like. And actually, there are lots of goor practices, social innovations etc that actually point towards a mature society. If we think this way we will realize that we are actually more stronger than we think. We must combine the existing elements effectively, incorporate them in a unified – but not one-dimensional – conceptual and organizational framework. If we launch such a project – and I am feeling from these two days here that it is already happening – then we will gradually acquire the necessary self-confidence to rule the world, and I strongly believe that this is the most crucial part in actually doing it. If we start really believing that we can do it then the fall of neoliberalism would be a matter of time.