The resource price bust is already a few years old but it’s still hitting parts of Canada hard. Two guests talk about the impact of the downturn on fiscal policy in the Canadian prairies and what this augers for the bigger question of a transformation of the economy away from fossil fuels. First I speak with Charles Smith, associate professor of political science at the University of Saskatchewan. He is the co-author, with Andrew Stevens, of a great analysis of the Saskatchewan budget, titled “Building the “Saskatchewan Advantage” : Saskatchewan’s 2017 Austerity Budget” over at the Socialist Project Bullet. Next, I speak with Ian Hussey, research manager at the Parkland Institute, a social democratic thinktank in Alberta. He contrasts the Alberta NDP’s more stimulative approach to public finance; however, there remain many questions about the scale of the shift and the need for real climate action.
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With only two days left until Donald Trump’s inauguration, today’s two guests look at the turn to the right that’s already well under way across parts of the global South.
My second guest is Sabrina Fernandez, who discusses the permanent austerity being implemented in Brazil by the draconian Temer government. Sabrian is an activist on the radical left in Brazil and she recently completed a PhD in sociology focusing on the left in Brazilian politics from Carleton University. She spoke with me from Brasilia.
I finished each interview by asking what lessons the lefts of their countries hold for those of us battling an empowered right in the North.
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Recycling is supposed to be a good thing, so when the federal Liberals quietly announced that “asset recycling” would be part of their strategy for meeting their much-ballyhooed infrastructure promises, not many eyebrows were raised. They should have been. Asset recycling is an obscure code word for selling our public goods for private profit. It’s privatization by another name.
Don’t have the taxes to pay for new buses? It’s okay, you can sell your electricity utility to pay for them instead. In fact, this is precisely what the Ontario Liberal government is doing. Already 30% of the profitable Hydro One have been sold and another 30% will be sold before 2018. A public Hydro One could more directly fight climate change, lower energy costs for the poor or work with First Nations on whose lands generation often happens. A private Hydro becomes an instrument for profit first with other goals secondary.
What the Liberals have started in Ontario will soon be rolled out across Canada. Here are the problems with these schemes.
Wouldn’t it be great to get a cheque every month just for being you? This is the sweet, fuzzy vision the Ontario and federal Liberals, are counting on to sell their latest idea, a basic income. Just this year, the Ontario government laid the groundwork for a pilot project to test the idea. Any actual large-scale program is far off into the future, however, and that’s a good thing. We need to take a hard look at the idea, especially in Liberal clothing.
Pie-in-the-sky or slap-in-the-face?
A basic income is exactly what it sounds like: a monthly cheque provided to every person by the government with no strings attached. A recent Ontario poll suggests the idea has broad support: 41% of Ontarians support it compared with 33% who oppose. Yet when people are asked whether they think a basic income is a good idea, they are never asked what they would be prepared to lose to get it. The point isn’t that basic income is pie-in-the-sky. It’s just that it could be implemented as a slap-in-the-face.
Alternate title: #Gruster#$%k. My most recent piece from Ricochet on Syriza’s proposed austerity package.
There is acrimony and division in Athens, after the Syriza government submitted a revised list of proposals to its creditors. Despite a resounding victory in last Sunday’s referendum for Oxi — the “no” vote rejecting creditor demands that Greece fall in line — the government has presented austerity measures that exceed those previously on the table.
Despite dissension within the ranks of Syriza, the Greek parliament approved the government’s proposals in a bitter debate and vote that stretched into early Saturday morning.
The proposal now includes €13 billion in measures over three years rather than €8 billion over two. In short, it is a terrible austerity package. It enforces consecutive primary surpluses (calculated as Greece’s budget balance minus debt servicing payments) on a depressed economy, cutting expenditures on transfers like pensions and raising taxes.
In contrast to previous proposals and memorandums, the current proposal somewhat moderates the intense class bias of austerity measures. More of them are directed towards the rich in the form of small corporate tax hikes, a more progressive income tax, and cuts to spending on military contracts. All this, however, is far too little to talk about in any serious way. After so many “last chances” at the level of official negotiations, punitive austerity appears to be the edge of possibility in Europe today.
To say this shows the bounds of a neoliberal, technocratic Europe sounds a little hollow by now. Yes, a split has finally appeared between the creditors — France helped Greece draft its proposals, which Germany sees as insufficient — but if the political choice in Europe is between François Hollande’s technocrats and Angela Merkel’s, then it is the slimmest of margins to be toying with.
Belatedly, here is an article I wrote on Greece’s agreement with the Eurozone for Ricochet. It focuses on the next four months with their opportunities and pitfalls. Given that the list of reforms authored by Yanis Varoufakis looks to get the approval of the Eurogroup member states, the article remains relevant, the breathing room actually in place.
Assuming its plan of reforms is accepted by the Eurogroup on Monday, Greece’s Syriza government has gained four months of breathing room — albeit in the same stuffy space, already full of the nauseating fumes of austerity, the window barely cracked.
No one was humiliated in Friday’s compromise between Greece and the Eurogroup. Nevertheless, Syriza had to concede much, most painfully the continued involvement of external observers from the Troika. In return, Germany’s no-compromise hard line was finally broken. Friday concluded but the first skirmish in a long battle.
If anything, the resulting agreement demonstrates the weakness of Syriza’s position. Syriza has inherited an economy and financial system in tatters — years of economic depression compounded by sadistic austerity. Yet its leaders, for now, calculate that change outside the bounds of European institutions, including the euro, would open the gates to something far worse. Whatever the precise distribution of gains and losses, which will only come to light as the agreement is implemented, the fact remains that Syriza has four months to act.
Four months to stop the bleeding
First, of course, there is the pressing need to start enacting change in state policy. Existing austerity measures will be hard to dislodge for the time being. But breathing room means that Syriza will be able to spend more, even run a smaller primary surplus this year than stipulated in the old program, perhaps by up to 3 per cent of GDP. It can also start breaking the old oligarchy’s grip on the Greek economy and go after the unpaid taxes of the rich.
Beyond this, there is space for creativity. One Greek journalist tweeted that he’d already overheard Greece’s delegation at the Eurogroup talking about creative ways to raise the minimum wage. Though a far cry from simply raising the minimum wage, such creativity would be a testament to Europe’s intransigence.
Altogether this amounts to a program that can stop the bleeding and subtly fortify the patient before the next round of negotiations.
How to characterize the mainstream media reaction to the unfolding debt negotiations between Greece and Europe (not the financial press mind you, which knows what it’s about though sides largely with the creditors)? For those looking for the simplest angle, it is merely a stand-off without context: a horse race or Wild West shoot-out. Here, the problem is not so much a particular internalized economic doctrine, though that’s there too, but an additional utter lack of context.
A significant chunk of reporting, however, tries to give at least some context. Often, it starts with the “fundamental fact” of the debt: hark! there’s a huge pile of debt. Even this choice of starting point is already open to significant unacknowledged assumptions. One such natural assumption is “oh it’s probably the result of profligacy” or some variation on this theme. Debt is moralized from the outset rather than a search begun for potential structural causes. (Krugman is actually quite good on critiquing this.)
A second theme often almost immediately follows, “well, clearly belt-tightening is in order” — austerity is the natural remedy to the crisis. This is the household budget view of government finances that has little basis in economic theory, but is a central plank of excuses given for the politics of austerity: you’re in debt so save your way out, pinch pennies even if starts to cause immense suffering. The suffering is acknowledged but in similar terms as collateral damage is in so much mainstream war reporting.
Yet while the focus is often the sum of debt and how it can be repaid, both are in many ways meaningless if the debt is truly unsustainable. Greece, with the Troika and the other European states, is involved in an argument partly over symbols, albeit symbols with very real effects. If Greece is insolvent, then further repayment on harsh terms brought about via financial lifelines to enable this repayment is also disciplining device, one that conveniently also sends a message to other EU states. The tool is the austerity program, which produces real suffering, dislocation, enormous unemployment and massive shrinkage of the social sphere.
All this is too often left out. The amount of debt figures large in reports, the billions and debt/GDP ratios frightening and pushing the austerity narrative. Sometimes, the fact that 25 percent of Greeks are unemployed sneaks in, or 50 percent of youth. But how often is it mentioned that the Greek government needs to be able to redirect spending towards its social programme, which at a basic calculation provided by Syriza before the election actually amounts to a modest 11 billion Euros? Similarly, the question of how the state can even collect revenues to pay for anything — measures to end the tax strike by the oligarchs and clientelist state-business relations — is a side issue at best.
This interplay between media assumptions and reality was in rather full effect in the recent interview with Yanis Varoufakis on BBC Newsnight. Take the phrase “structural reforms” — clearly the presenter and the interviewee meant very different things but assumptions obscured this away. The other elements were there: the Wild West metaphor, surface level yes/no questions, the eschwing of ambiguity in favour of a horserace. Entertaining if demoralizing to watch:
[This is an extended version of a short commentary I was asked to provide for Al-Jazeera’s Listening Post on the mainstream media’s handling of the Greek debt talks.]
Over at Ricochet, I’ve transcribed my podcast interview with Yanis Varoufakis, economist and Syriza candidate in tomorrow’s Greek elections. With Syriza looking to get the most votes and possibly an outright parliamentary majority, I asked Yanis about the Greek economy, Syriza’s economic plans, his views on what these mean for Europe and how we can expect Greece to take its place in Europe come Monday. Here is the interview in full.
Michal Rozworski: I know this is an enormous topic but what is the current economic situation on the eve of the elections in Greece? Can you give a kind of snapshot?
Yanis Varoufakis: In brief, everyone owes to everyone, and no one can pay. The banks are bankrupt; they owe money to the state, to each other, to foreign banks. Citizens owe money to the banks and owe money to the state. The state owes money to everyone. So we have a triple insolvency: bankrupt banks, a bankrupt state and a bankrupt private sector. There are of course pockets, like everywhere, within society of people who are really well off. They have money in banks in Switzerland, in the city of London, on Wall Street, in Frankfurt, and even some money in the Greek banks.
But the overall situation is that — even though in the last year or so there’s been a small rebound, not in terms of income but in terms of expenditure — the economy is quite clearly still in a downward spiral that is filling everyone’s soul with negative expectations.
It’s interesting you mention that slight rebound. What I found interesting is that there seems to be a bit of a reversal of 2012. So, on the one hand, now some of the economic indicators have improved in minimum ways, if we can even use that word, but on the other hand, the population seems to be more immune to the fear-mongering on behalf of Greek and European elites against the left. What’s changed? What’s led to Syriza actually having a chance of gaining a majority in parliament?
Well, two things mainly. Firstly, Syriza has matured over the last two years; there is no doubt about that. So it has inspired more confidence in the electorate. Secondly, and perhaps even more significantly, now it is abundantly clear that the whole narrative of a “Greek-covery” — if you remember a year ago or so — was just utterly bogus. It was a piece of propaganda, a bubble that burst and Greeks are sick and tired.…
Look, I was in a taxi this morning. The taxi driver said to me — he recognized me as a candidate — “Look, Greeks fall into two categories. There are those who are really scared of losing what little they have left. The rest don’t give a damn; they just want to vote in a way that states it in a way for everyone outside of Greece to see that we’re not interested in this vicious cycle anymore.”
I’ve been visiting family in Poland for the past few weeks so, fittingly, this week’s podcast deals with the situation of the left at two opposite ends of the European periphery: Greece and Poland. My first guest is Yanis Varoufakis, professor of economics at the University of Athens and candidate for SYRIZA in this Sunday’s parliamentary elections. Syriza is the main Greek left party and is poised to take the most votes, potentially even form a parliamentary majority, on Sunday. Yanis spoke with me about Greece’s economy on the eve of the elections and Syriza’s economic program.
My second guest is Jakub Dymek, Polish academic, journalist and editor. Jakub is, among other things, the Polish correspondent for Dissent Magazine and a member of the editorial collective of Krytyka Polityczna (Political Critique), the major journal of Poland’s “New Left”. Unlike its Greek counterpart, Poland’s electoral left is currently at its lowest point since the post-Communist transition. I spoke with Jakub to get a sense of this electoral decline, the situation of left social movements and the future prospects of Poland’s left.
Very briefly, I say that Greece and Poland are at the opposite ends of the European periphery for two reasons. First, Greece has undergone years of recession and brutal austerity in response to the global crisis of 2007/8; Poland, on the other hand, has managed to grow through the crisis, at least according to the major economic measures. Greece and Poland are also opposed when it comes to the fortunes of the electoral left. It is in Greece that the left has may well take government this Sunday or at least become the largest force in parliament, whereas in Poland the electoral left is currently virtually non-existent. Looking at these two lefts and the political economic conditions that led to their different fortunes makes for a fruitful juxtaposition.
I have another piece up at Ricochet: a review of Naomi Klein’s big book on climate change, This Changes Everything. It’s friendly but critical, looking at what the book’s themes of austerity, the local and extractivism mean for how we build politics against climate change. I’ve included it in full below…
Naomi Klein’s big book on climate change, This Changes Everything, is at once an extensive catalogue of climate change failures and a passionate defence of budding shoots of resistance. Much more than just an up-to-date account of where we are and how we got here, it is also a meditation on how to move forward — one that needs to be critically examined.
