I think making Greece an illustration of the irrelevance of the nation-state vis-a-vis the"market state" mystifies the fact that, behind the diffusive power of "market states" lies the territorial power configurations of certain all too nameable countries (Germany, France, United States etc). It also fails to account for the recent new salience of the nation as an ideology in places as different as the Ukraine and the UK, or its prominence in the discourse and praxis of the contemporary South American left.
I do think though that these recent events underlie what has been manifest since at least the defeat of Fascism in WWII: Anyone striving for global hegemony need to be neither "anational" (whatever that means) nor narrowly chauvinistic but multinational. Because even if the nation is not the highest form of social existence (was it ever?), it still remains one of the central building blocks of global economic life and international law. What we are seeing is not its simple disappearance but its sublation--a preserving abolition.
Edited by RedMaistre ()
Now that they've completely capitulated and reversed course (someone said the Tspiras expected to lose the referendum (Yes vote) and therefore have political cover) we can all agree that socialism is ftl. Or actually that left-reformists, like all social democrats, should be hanged for the ineffectual traitors they are.
all the good greek info is form Naked Capitalism which has really good financial reporting and also Yves called that Syriza didn't know what it was doing and was negotiating terribly (not threatening to print, not putting capital controls in place, etc. etc.) like a year ago. The stuff about the Bank of Greece is true, if they wanted to they could even be printing Euros.
to be fair to the greeks it seems like the EU wanted to make an example of them, so it's possible even if they had cravenly capitulated a year ago instead of today that they still would be run out. but it's probably the fact the syriza is leftist that makes the example-making even more valuable and thus necessary.
RedMaistre posted:The Nation state never had a free standing power-meaning "in itself"-it existed, and exists, as a way to give form to contents outside of itself: regional differentiated economic zones in the world-system, states of relation forged by class struggle, cultural-religious heritages, etc....
I think making Greece an illustration of the irrelevance of the nation-state vis-a-vis the"market state" mystifies the fact that, behind the diffusive power of "market states" lies the territorial power configurations of certain all too nameable countries (Germany, France, United States etc). It also fails to account for the recent new salience of the nation as an ideology in places as different as the Ukraine and the UK, or its prominence in the discourse and praxis of the contemporary South American left.
I do think though that these recent events underlie what has been manifest since at least the defeat of Fascism in WWII: Anyone striving for global hegemony need to be neither "anational" (whatever that means) nor narrowly chauvinistic but multinational. Because even if the nation is not the highest form of social existence (was it ever?), it still remains one of the central building blocks of global economic life and international law. What we are seeing is not its simple disappearance but its sublation--a preserving abolition.
i thought this sort of thing had an interesting treatment here, i think crow (??) posted it either here or twitter (???) but it was a pretty great read imo
drwhat posted:a nation has no power-meaning in itself anymore.
c_man posted:i thought this sort of thing had an interesting treatment here, i think crow (??) posted it either here or twitter (???) but it was a pretty great read imo
cool, thank you.
a book on new configuration(s) of neoliberal imperialism that has been supposedly very influential among current leaders is "The Shield of Achilles" by Phillip Bobbitt, which is also where the market-state thing comes from. it is on my reading list so i can't comment on it but it's a Thing. i get pretty fascinated when marxist concepts get reinterpreted through late capitalism
HenryKrinkle posted:if Greece turned to Russian and/or China for help in kickstarting a new currency i suppose there would be economic sanctions including severe trade restrictions from the West?
wow. it really seems as if the Greek people are caught between a....uhhh...a thing....and....another thing?
RedMaistre posted:the defeat of Fascism in WWII
c_man posted:RedMaistre posted:The Nation state never had a free standing power-meaning "in itself"-it existed, and exists, as a way to give form to contents outside of itself: regional differentiated economic zones in the world-system, states of relation forged by class struggle, cultural-religious heritages, etc....
I think making Greece an illustration of the irrelevance of the nation-state vis-a-vis the"market state" mystifies the fact that, behind the diffusive power of "market states" lies the territorial power configurations of certain all too nameable countries (Germany, France, United States etc). It also fails to account for the recent new salience of the nation as an ideology in places as different as the Ukraine and the UK, or its prominence in the discourse and praxis of the contemporary South American left.
I do think though that these recent events underlie what has been manifest since at least the defeat of Fascism in WWII: Anyone striving for global hegemony need to be neither "anational" (whatever that means) nor narrowly chauvinistic but multinational. Because even if the nation is not the highest form of social existence (was it ever?), it still remains one of the central building blocks of global economic life and international law. What we are seeing is not its simple disappearance but its sublation--a preserving abolition.i thought this sort of thing had an interesting treatment here, i think crow (??) posted it either here or twitter (???) but it was a pretty great read imo
Many good points, this in particular is key:
“96 percent…have their headquarters in only eight countries, are legally registered as incorporated companies of eight countries; and their boards of directors sit in eight countries of metropolitan capital. Less than 2 percent of their boards of directors’ members are non-nationals…. Their reach is global, but their property and their owners have a clear national base.”53
The internationalization of production under the regime of giant, multinational corporations thus follows a pattern first explained by Stephen Hymer, and recently underscored by Ernesto Screpatini, who writes that “the great multinational companies” are characterized by “decentralized production but centralized control…. As a consequence the process of expansion of foreign direct investments involves a constant flow of profits from the South to the North, that is, from the Periphery to the Center of the imperial power of multinational capital
drwhat posted:sorry if i'm a baby's first marxist or whatever and i say stupid things that are obvious and redundant, i haven't read all the things
c_man posted:i thought this sort of thing had an interesting treatment here, i think crow (??) posted it either here or twitter (???) but it was a pretty great read imo
cool, thank you.
a book on new configuration(s) of neoliberal imperialism that has been supposedly very influential among current leaders is "The Shield of Achilles" by Phillip Bobbitt, which is also where the market-state thing comes from. it is on my reading list so i can't comment on it but it's a Thing. i get pretty fascinated when marxist concepts get reinterpreted through late capitalism
Bobbitt is most interested in the current incarnation, which he calls the market-state: one whose borders are scuffed and hazy at best (certainly compared to earlier territorial markers) and whose strengths, weaknesses, citizens, and enemies roam across cyberspace rather than plains and valleys.
Except when they literally do that too....
Petrol posted:RedMaistre posted:the defeat of Fascism in WWII
If Fascism had won, Neoliberalism would have been unnecessary.
This is not a denial that they are in the same family, though.
getfiscal posted:Panopticon posted:i dont think they have control over issuing currency though so they are reliant on the ECB for loans whomever controls the greek banks
The guys argument is that they could issue bonds on the domestic market because he doubts interest rates would be high. Greece is prevented from doing this because they essentially consolidated their debt. Like if you owe a loan shark money and you borrow from someone else you'll have a bad day. I think most people would disagree that Greece has the capacity to issue a large amount of new debt after a new default at low rates without some sort of angel like China or Russia.
Yanis is now claiming that reclaiming the power to issue short term debt was in fact part of his plan, but he was in a "minority of two" and so nothing was done about it:
HL: Right. So there were two options as far as I can see – an immediate Grexit, or printing IOUs and taking bank control of the Bank of Greece ?
YV: Sure, sure. I never believed we should go straight to a new currency. My view was – and I put this to the government – that if they dared shut our banks down, which I considered to be an aggressive move of incredible potency, we should respond aggressively but without crossing the point of no return.
We should issue our own IOUs, or even at least announce that we’re going to issue our own euro-denominated liquidity; we should haircut the Greek 2012 bonds that the ECB held, or announce we were going to do it; and we should take control of the Bank of Greece. This was the triptych, the three things, which I thought we should respond with if the ECB shut down our banks.
I leave it to your discretion to evaluate how much of this is fabrication or not.
YV: The answer is no, and the reason is very simple: from the very beginning those particular countries made it abundantly clear that they were the most energetic enemies of our government, from the very beginning. And the reason of course was their greatest nightmare was our success: were we to succeed in negotiating a better deal for Greece, that would of course obliterate them politically, they would have to answer to their own people why they didn’t negotiate like we were doing.
HL: And partnering with sympathetic parties, like Podemos?
YV: Not really. I mean we always had a good relationship with them, but there was nothing they could do – their voice could never penetrate the Eurogroup. And indeed the more they spoke out in our favour, which they did, the more inimical the Finance Minister representing that country became towards us.
All this fluff talk for years about these various anti-austerity movements building a new Europe, and when push comes shove, they jump on the fast sled to the bottom---as if any of them could ever succeed against Brussels in a one-on-one fight.
But no one questions the value of the valiant defense put up by Sparta's King Leonidas and his small band of warriors against a vastly larger Persian army at Thermopylae in 480 BC.
All the Greek warriors were killed and the lost battle enabled the Persians to take Athens. But the courageous effort rallied all the Greek states and ultimately the Persians withdrew without ever conquering Greece.
Tsipras, to maintain the dignity of Greece's citizens, took a stand against a narrow, neo-liberal view of how economies work.
Even in defeat, he has sent a resounding message that Europeans throughout the continent have heard.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2015/07/13/greece-deal-analysis-delamaide/30076523/
ilmdge posted:Many Greeks are now asking whether the six months of the Tsipras government defying the creditors were worth it.
But no one questions the value of the valiant defense put up by Sparta's King Leonidas and his small band of warriors against a vastly larger Persian army at Thermopylae in 480 BC.
All the Greek warriors were killed and the lost battle enabled the Persians to take Athens. But the courageous effort rallied all the Greek states and ultimately the Persians withdrew without ever conquering Greece.
Tsipras, to maintain the dignity of Greece's citizens, took a stand against a narrow, neo-liberal view of how economies work.
Even in defeat, he has sent a resounding message that Europeans throughout the continent have heard.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2015/07/13/greece-deal-analysis-delamaide/30076523/
250 out of 300 parliamentarians voting 'yes' to capitulation here being the equivalent to the 300 dying to a man after three days of fighting between cliffs and sea.
Whether you think neoliberalism actually recovered rates of profit or not is for another time, whats important is that Japan has been in stagnation for over 20 years and is frightened of Chinese economic power and the TPP is the only idea that's even on the table that gives Japan the power to become competitive on the world market. Also for another time is whether Abe is an actual fascist or not, whats important is that neo-fascists are ushering in neoliberalism, just like in Ukraine, and we need new ideas about what fascism is as an economic system.
ilmdge posted:Many Greeks are now asking whether the six months of the Tsipras government defying the creditors were worth it.
But no one questions the value of the valiant defense put up by Sparta's King Leonidas and his small band of warriors against a vastly larger Persian army at Thermopylae in 480 BC.
All the Greek warriors were killed and the lost battle enabled the Persians to take Athens. But the courageous effort rallied all the Greek states and ultimately the Persians withdrew without ever conquering Greece.
Tsipras, to maintain the dignity of Greece's citizens, took a stand against a narrow, neo-liberal view of how economies work.
Even in defeat, he has sent a resounding message that Europeans throughout the continent have heard.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2015/07/13/greece-deal-analysis-delamaide/30076523/
lmao
shriekingviolet posted:this... is... NEOLIBERALISM!!! *kicks self into pit helpfully labeled FASCISM*
this... is... JOURNALISM!!! *kicks self into pit helpfully labeled BUZZFEED*
The media took up fantasies about Russia riding to Syriza's rescue, but Putin is too crafty to take on a mess like this. If there were anything to be gained, he knew he could get it cheaper later, with far less geopolitical hassle as conditions in Greece worsen (which they will under continued austerity).
But she herself had reported months ago that Syriza had chosen to spurn an offer of Russian aid that was "ready for signatures."
Edited by RedMaistre ()