Above all reasons, this is essential to the extent that holding governmental positions is a new experience for the radical left in Europe and hence one acknowledgment is crucial: we don’t know how to deal with it.
Written for AnalyzeGreece!
This has even more practical consequences than one may initially think: having been through 30 painful years of neoliberalisation and in absence of a Left that deserves its name, state and transnational governance mechanisms are fundamentally adverse to progressive politics. Or to simplify even further: the men (and the few women, alas) who now assumed governmental positions in Greece haven’t done this before and they don’t even have the previous generation to turn to for advice.

This ‘gap’ in skills but also this gradual erosion of our political imagination is one of the major impediments to our joint efforts. It is exactly this ‘blindness’ of ours that renders preposterously very strong opinions of either declaring the ‘death of neoliberalism’ or mourning our defeat or even worse ‘sell out’. Ours is a condition of radical uncertainty and must be treated as such.
When this short piece was written, the details of the final deal had just started to emerge. On the negative side, SYRIZA’s government was unable to secure any write-down or even an amicable settlement of the debt, while all major reforms still need to be assessed and agreed with by the ‘Institutions’ (meaning the IMF, the EC and the ECB). Some (unclear, yet real) targets for primary surplus are still in place, while the government had to commit to ‘fiscally neutral’ measures for combating the humanitarian crisis that emerged as a consequence of post-2010 austerity measures. It is therefore uncontroversial that one cannot declare victory.
My view is that declaring defeat is equally problematic. Politics, radical politics even more so –paradoxically- are firmly situated in reality, and more specifically in the social (and international) balance of social powers. In this context, some measures that might appear ‘liberal’ or ‘technocratic’ to a strangers’ eye have the potential of opening up significant ‘breathing space’ for SYRIZA. For example, its commitment to raising taxes and combating various forms of tax fraud might appear as an initiative of ‘bourgeois rationalisation of the administration’. 

Undeniably, it is. That said, it is also a unique opportunity to confront not only the so-called oligarchs, but also these strands of the Greek society that have been benefiting to the detriment of the public good. Tax avoidance in Greece has never been primarily an issue of institutional incapability. It was and still is a profitability strategy, and crucially, a materialisation of a class alliance between the ‘oligarchs’ and upper/middle classes.
Hence, this commitment reveals the willingness of SYRIZA to confront this alliance. Moreover, even at the privatisations front, which is admittedly one of the most problematic in the agreement, there appears to be significant space for manoeuvre. That is because privatisations in Greece were always meant to happen at the margins of (even neoliberal) legality and for peanuts. Hence, a government determined to stop this process reminiscent of the transition to capitalism of the former Eastern Bloc is objectively a government that will freeze privatisations. SYRIZA’s commitment to these causes remains to be seen. And this is exactly why these four months are important. If domestic confrontation is indeed important, the current agreement provides numerous opportunities thereof. No one can be sure that this will be the case. But those that are confident that it won’t are forgetful of the fact that it was exactly this domestic confrontation that brought SYRIZA to power.
This brings me to my final and, I believe, potentially most helpful point. It is urgent both for SYRIZA and the social movements to realise that what we are doing right now resembles running a marathon. In this process, there will be confrontation, but hopefully we are all heading towards the same direction. SYRIZA needs to understand that the fact that it assumed governmental power does not mean that social confrontation, with all its colourfulness and multiplicity is going to stop. Presumably, there will be clashes between the government and particular social movements. Terrifying as this may seem, this can also be extremely helpful. At the same time, it is essential for every movement, every union and all active citizens to understand that this is the time to assume action.
This is a government that is not inimical to social struggles and hence, if the unions decide to go on strike to raise the minimum wage, they will help their members as much as they will help the government to negotiate in Europe. Accordingly, any debate about Grexit that does not explicitly emanate from this position, appears to be putting the cart before the horse. State politics (for example the choice of a national currency over the euro) result not only from international pressure, but more crucially from domestic conditions. Hence, both those that want Greece to remain and those that want Greece to exit the Eurozone in the left, need to work towards the same (interim) goal: the revival and strengthening of confrontational trade unionism, grassroots movements and co-operatives. Otherwise, any ‘grand’ governmental plan will be redundant- and this applies regardless of the currency used in the calculations.
Ntina Tzouvala is a PhD candidate and part-​time staff at Durham Law School

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