By Alex Steiner
A fascinating
interview with the newly elected member of the Greek Parliament, Costas Lapavitsas,
recently appeared in the periodical Jacobin.
[1]
 |
| Costas Lapavitsas |
Lapavitsas, who
represents Syriza in Parliament, is a well-known left wing economist and a self-described Marxist. And unlike the Minister of Finance Yanis Varoufakis, Lapavitsas
is no "erratic Marxist" but is very much at home in the language of
orthodox Marxism. He says that he is in favor of a socialist revolution
and would like to see that come about in Greece and throughout the world.
He even invokes the Bolsheviks, favorably mentioning Lenin and Bukharin.
However when we take a
closer look at his statements, it becomes plain that his form of Marxism is
much closer to the Menshevik variety than to Bolshevism. He says,
“You don’t need a
socialist revolution, and you don’t need to overthrow capitalism at every
minute of the day to do small things. Of course, we aim for the overthrow of
capitalism, and of course ultimately we would like to see the socialist
revolution. But that’s not in the cards at the moment.”
Setting aside the
straw man of those calling for the “overthrow of capitalism at every minute of
the day”, Lapavitsas clearly expresses
the notion that while he thinks socialism is a good idea in some vague and
distant future, it is not a realistic possibility in the immediate future or
even in what he calls the “mid term”. Instead, he thinks that in the near and mid term the best
that we can hope for is a more benevolent form of capitalism. And he thinks this completely achievable,
“You don’t need
socialist revolution in Greece, and you don’t need to overthrow capitalism in
Greece to get rid of austerity. You don’t.”
This in itself is
hardly an unusual position within Syriza.
After all, Syriza’s election manifesto promised to put an end to
austerity without in any way challenging capitalism. But what puts Lapavitsas in conflict with
the majority of his colleagues in Syriza is his thesis that Syriza must abandon
its commitment to remain within the EU and make plans to break from the
Euro. He thinks that policy of
remaining within the EU that has been carried out by all the previous
governments, whether they were Pasok or New Democracy, and now Syriza, has been
a disaster. He emphasizes this point several times in the course of the
interview,
“…you certainly need
to get rid of the institutional framework of the euro. That simple position is
not understood — or is not widely appreciated — within Syriza and not within
the European left, and that has been a tragedy for years.”
What I found
interesting in reading the interview with Lapavitsas was not his politics, which is that of a garden variety reformist
social-democrat of the old type – in contrast to the new type of social
democats whom you can find in the German Social Democratic Party or in New
Labour in the UK, who have adopted neo-liberal
economic policies. Nor are his
differences about the Euro with the majority of Syriza that interesting. Indeed the
likelihood is that exiting from the Euro will become the prevailing view
within Syriza in the next few months as the impossibility of remaining in the
EU becomes more and more apparent.
But by far what is most
interesting in this interview was Lapavitsas’ discussion of what concrete
policies need to be implemented to bring about a Grexit. He calls this ‘Plan B’. He
summarizes some of the measures required for the implementation of Plan B as
follows:
“So the government
would have to impose capital controls immediately, and it would have to impose
bank controls immediately. It goes without saying. It would have to do what the
EU did in the Cyprus case. Now, how long these controls will last and what form
they will take will be a matter of how the situation unfolds. They will
certainly last for a significant length of time. And some form of capital
controls will of course remain, as they ought to…
Then the state will
have to intervene once it has nationalized the banks and re-denominated their
balance sheets, to restructure the banks. The banks need reorganization to see
which banks will remain and on what terms. That’s a process that will take some
time, and it will not be easy.”
Capital controls and
nationalization of the banks are quite radical policies. Lapavitsas later even
admits that the economic policies he is proposing will necessarily lead to some
form of rationing. The radicalism of
these policies must be understood however within the broader context of radicalism
to what end? For Lapavitsas the end is clearly to save capitalism, if
not exactly the kind of capitalism of the Eurozone. He frankly acknowledges
the pedigree of his proposals in the theories of John Maynard Keynes,
“Keynes and
Keynesianism, unfortunately, remain the most powerful tools we’ve got, even as
Marxists, for dealing with issues of policy in the here and now…
Marxism is about
overturning capitalism and heading towards socialism. It has always been about
that, and it will remain about that. Keynesianism is not about that. It’s about
improving capitalism and even rescuing it from itself. That’s exactly right.”
One could hardly ask
for a clearer statement of the direction of the official Left wing of
Syriza. And Lapavitsas admits that his
brand of “orthodox” Marxism pretty much amounts to the same thing as the
“erratic Marxism” of Yanis Varoufakis.
But whatever one
thinks of the policies themselves one has to acknowledge that Lapavitsas
criticism of much of the Left, that they have never thought through any
concrete policies, is on the mark. He
says,
“There’s a traditional
saying in Greek that a man who doesn’t want to get married keeps getting
engaged. Well that’s what the Communists have been doing, unfortunately.
Because they don’t want to tackle the question of dealing with the situation in
the here and now, they talk about revolution.
So, if you do that,
you don’t have to confront the question of the euro. You pretend the question
of the euro is somehow either a minor question or a side question or whatever.
Or you elevate things beyond: what you need is to get out of the European
Union, to get out of NATO, to get out of this, that, and the other thing. In other
words, you’re not offering any specific answers, because you’re answering
everything.”
And while Lapavitsas
remarks here are directed specifically against the Stalinist Communist Party of
Greece (KKE), they could just as easily
apply to much of the Left. The KKE has a history of combining the worst sort of
opportunism with a dogmatic sectarianism. So while they have had no problem in
the past in participating in coalition governments with the bourgeoisie, they
have steadfastly refused all demands for joint action in any of the
demonstrations or general strikes against the previous Pasok and New Democracy
governments. And the KKE, like most
sectarian outfits, steadfastly avoids putting forward any concrete policy
proposals in its platforms but instead rely on abstract slogans. Lapavitsas criticisms are certainly justified
when it comes to these sectarian outfits (which Lapavitsas tries to identify
with the entire Left.)
On the other hand, the
opportunist ANTARSYA coalition ran in the last elections on a platform that has
been correctly characterized as one of “left nationalism”. It made an alliance with the MARS group which
has been advocating a return to the drachma. Unlike the sectarians ANTARSYA did have lots
of “concrete proposals.” In fact they advocated
policies not so different than those proposed by Lapavitsas. As one observer noted, for ANTARSYA,
“…the best alternative
to a program of reform is to offer a rival program of greater reforms. In this
revolutionaries are different from reformists principally in that they ask for
more.” [2]
The author of those
remarks also notes that ANTARSYA saw its role as that of playing a game of
one-upmanship against Syriza,
“So Syriza offered
Greek nationality to the children of all migrants; and, like a poker player,
Antarsya “raised” them by offering to legalize all immigrants in
Greece.”
But this raises an
important question. What would a
revolutionary alternative to Syriza look like?
It would certainly not be the vacuous slogans offered by sectarians. Lapavitsas
makes a valid point in that regard. But neither would it be Lapavitsas “Plan B”
or the more radical version of “Plan B”
offered by groups like ANTARSYA.
Let’s call the
alternative Plan C, the socialist alternative.
And unlike Lapavitsas, for us
socialism is not a dim goal in a far
removed future, but an objective we can
begin to move towards immediately and realize well within the span of one
generation. The socialist alternative implies the reorganization of society on
the basis of production for need instead of production for profit. It does mean
that Greece’s future lies not with the EU or with a return to the drachma based
on some kind of revival of Greek capitalism, but on the establishment of the
Socialist United States of Europe. But how
does this come about? Contrary to the sectarian
ultra left groups, fighting for the socialist revolution internationally does not mean we are absolved from developing
concrete policy proposals for the here
and now. In that respect Lapavitsas has
a valid point. What then would the
concrete proposals needed to fill out Plan C look like?
To elaborate such
policies involves some degree of speculation,
and by that I don’t mean elaborating a purely imaginary plan but
something more like a thought experiment based on historical
precedents whose applicability is very tentative and projections based on a
course of events that cannot be predicted with any degree of precision. Given that caveat, the exercise may nevertheless
prove useful to those seriously working toward a socialist alternative for
Greece. I will outline what I think are some of the key economic issues that
need to be addressed. There are clearly
other issues relating to foreign policy, political organization, science and
culture, etc that also need to be addressed in a serious program dealing with the
transition to socialism. These could perhaps be the topic of a separate essay.
First of all one has
to acknowledge that any such program cannot under any circumstances be
implemented by Syriza, not only because Syriza is wedded to a program of
reforms within capitalism despite its rhetoric, but also because by its nature the
transition to socialism cannot be entrusted solely to the vehicle of
parliamentary politics. It will require
action from the ground up, by the masses taking their destiny into their own
hands and creating their own forms of organization. It is
also inconceivable that such actions can succeed without a trained
revolutionary leadership. Nevertheless, in keeping with our thought experiment,
let us imagine that Syriza was a genuine revolutionary organization. In that case
it could do plenty, even within the framework of parliamentary politics, to
encourage a powerful movement by the
masses.
So in this thought experiment we would be
imagining what policies would be advocated by a parliamentary party, which unlike
the real Syriza, saw the alternative to austerity as the inauguration
of socialism.
And the first thing we
can say is that many of the policy proposals suggested by Lapavitsas would
indeed be instituted immediately by a socialist government. An exit from the
Euro would certainly be one of the first measures that would need to be
implemented. Capital controls to prevent the flight of capital out of the
country and the nationalization of the banks would also follow. Even a form of rationing would undoubtedly be
necessary in order to deal with the inevitable shock of a sudden transition to
a different economic system. One can say
that these are “Keynesian” policies, although their purpose would be very different
than that envisioned by Lapavitsas. They
would be measures on the road to socialism instead of measures meant to “save
capitalism from itself”. The context of such measures makes all the difference.
Such measures by themselves are certainly not “socialist”. They are clearly undertaken within the framework of a market economy. But such measures will be necessary for a
period of time as the economy is in transition to socialism. To imagine that no period of transition is
required to go from the rule of the law of value to the society of associated
producers is sheer fantasy, especially for a small country like Greece that at
least for a period, can be expected to be relatively isolated. Clearly
replacing the mechanism of the market that governs the production, distribution
and consumption of an entire nation with another, completely new mechanism, is
not a trivial task and if not thought through on the basis of the best
available expert knowledge could have catastrophic consequences. In all likelihood, even under the best of
circumstances, the transition will be
accompanied by a period of perhaps severe privations, even worse than those
suffered by the austerity measures imposed by the EU. A revolutionary government would honestly
explain that to its supporters. If the
masses believe in the prospect of socialism and are involved at every level of
democratic decision making they will agree to the sacrifices required. Most left wing groups who have not thought
deeply about the implications of the
transition to socialism, seem to have forgotten this. This was a point once made by George Orwell,
though writing in a very different context, on the victory of the Labour Party
after World War II and the repudiation of Churchill’s leadership.
“The weakness of all left-wing
parties is their inability to tell the truth about the immediate future. When
you are in opposition, and are trying to win support for a new economic and
political programme it is your job to make people discontented, and you will
inevitably do it by telling them that they will be better off in a material
sense when the new programme is introduced. You probably don’t tell them, what
may very well be true, that they won't experience these benefit immediately,
but only after, say, twenty years. The British people have never been warned, i.e.
by the Left, that the introduction of Socialism may mean a serious drop in the
standard of living.” [3]
Orwell’s estimate of
20 years is needlessly pessimistic, but he is undoubtedly correct in his main
point, that a transition to socialism will entail a period of deprivation and
that a party that advocates this course needs to be honest about it. Lapavitsas also, speaking as a professional
economist, recognizes that a transition period will entail a period of perhaps
severe deprivation. He says that even a “controlled exit” from the Euro would
lead to worsening of conditions for workers,
“...wages must rise,
but even if they rise, you’re not going to go back to where you were. It’s just
not feasible at the moment. We need a growth strategy for that.”
Given the reality of a
period of deprivation, why then continue to advocate a strategy of “saving
capitalism” when one can embrace a strategy of a transition to socialism. Why
go through all that pain for such a
meagre “gain”?
In any case a revolutionary
government, while recognizing the necessity of sacrifices, would adopt a goal of
minimizing them as far as possible and speed the transition to socialism. That will mean looking for assistance from
the international working class and the establishment of socialist regimes in
other countries. Were Greece to embark on the road to socialism it could in
turn spark political movements in other countries. But even so, assistance from abroad will not
happen overnight and until that is forthcoming the new regime must work out a
plan for survival in the face of the near certain cut off of credit and trade
by the EU and North America. An economic
boycott will be a certainty once the government repudiates the debts. One can
expect that trade relations with countries that may be sympathetic to the new
government may ease the burden. Russia,
China,Venezuela could possibly fill in some of the gap caused by the end of
trade with the EU.
Many details would have
to be worked out. A plan for regulating what for a time would be a “mixed” economy
would have to be developed. Some
enterprises, especially smaller ones, should be allowed to and even encouraged
to continue operations on a for profit basis, though now they would be managed
by and run democratically by their workers.
A master plan for regulating the chain of supply and demand in each
industry and in the different branches of agriculture and their place in the
overall economy would have to be worked out.
Finally, an analysis of how each industry and the economy as a whole
impacts the environment and the climate would have to be integrated into any
economic plan. This would clearly
require the combined expertise of specialists in economics and the social
sciences as well experts within each industry. It would be an opportunity to
harness the enthusiasm of students and
professionals in these fields and bring them together with workers in
the different industries all working together cooperatively to come up with a
viable economic plan.
There are of course
some historical precedents the new government could examine for assisting it in
formulating its economic policies, especially the policies adopted by the
Bolsheviks immediately after their seizure of power. But these are likely to be of only limited
value given the vastly different circumstances of Russia in 1917 and Greece in
2015. Without discounting the rich history of lessons to be absorbed from a close study
of the policies of the Bolsheviks and other historical precedents, the new
government would be largely on its own blazing new trails in the making of
history. Which is not to deny that they will have a vastly changed potential
for coordinating economic planning and democratic participation as a result of
the communications revolution brought on through the Internet.
We can continue this
thought experiment in more detail, but the basic outline is clear enough. A real
alternative to austerity is neither the wishful thinking or sloganeering of
sectarians or the kind of false pragmatism of Lapavitsas. Rather it means thinking concretely and
deeply about what policies are entailed for a genuinely practical transition to
socialism.
There is one last
point in Lapavitsas interview that is worth a comment. At one point he takes to tasks those Leftists
who think that politics determines everything.
He says,
“Geopolitics and
domestic politics, the balance of political forces, that’s what Marxism has been reduced to,
unfortunately. And, when you do that, when you commence with the politics — the
balance of forces domestically or internationally — it is easy to engage in
flights of fancy. It is easy to begin to think that, in the end, everything is
politics, and therefore you can change the balance of political forces, and
anything is achievable.
Well, I’m sorry,
that’s not the case. And that’s not Marxism. As Marxists, we believe that
politics, in the end is derivative of the material reality of economic and
class relations. That’s a very, very profound statement by Karl Marx, so long
as it is understood properly, so long as it’s not mechanical. The bottom line
is this statement means that not everything is possible through politics.”
Here I would have to
say that Lapavitsas is at once correct and incorrect. It is true that many so-called Marxists
engage in “flights of fancy”, that is to
say they view the possibilities for action simply within the framework of political action
without paying any attention to the constraints imposed by the economy. But while Lapavitsas is correct in pointing
out that for Marxists, “politics, in the end is derivative of the material
reality of economic and class relations”,
he forgets that there is a dialectical relationship between economics
and politics and that is also a truism for Marxists. Although economics is certainly the final
determinant in shaping the configuration of a society the political struggle
can be the decisive factor in either opening or closing off an avenue of
economic development at a critical moment.
Lapavitsas would have done well to recall an observation of Trotsky’s,
who in writing on the impact of the Stalinist bureaucracy on the Soviet economy,
noted the critical role of political forces,
“The processes of
economic construction are not yet taking place within a classless society. The
questions relating to the allotment of the national income compose the central
focus of the plan… All these questions by their very nature do not allow for a
priori decisions by the bureaucracy, which has fenced itself off from
intervention by concerned millions.
The struggle between
living interests, as the fundamental factor of planning, leads us into the
domain of politics, which is concentrated economics.” [4]
Lapavitsas “forgets”
this part of the dialectical relationship between politics and economics
because he has decided to limit his choices to that between continuing the Euro
and more austerity or Plan B, a transition to the drachma and a hopeless form
of Greek capitalism. He removes from the
table any consideration of the real alternative to the Euro, Plan C, the transition to socialism.
[3] Essays, Journalism and Letters: Volume 3, As
I Please, 1943-1945. Letter from London. Page 396.
