Be informed

Increasingly, it is clear that globalisation has globalised wealth in the hands of a number of elites – from oligarchs in Russia, bankers in the UK and land speculators in Bombay. When the crash came in 2008, the perpetrators – the financial services elites – ‘hoovered’ up the public money pumped into the system to obviate a capitalist meltdown. No one went to jail; but Europe’s people were handed down a dose of austerity in return for their support. What is perplexing is how any sane policy-maker can sustain an argument that austerity helps declining economies. In Greece, for example, something in the order of 70 per cent of the country’s under 25s are unemployed. They are neither economically active nor productive. In the UK, unemployment goes down not because the economy is growing and the demand for labour is increasing; rather because people are taking zero-hour jobs or, indeed, taking jobs for an hour through ‘freelancer’ websites. Or, most disturbingly, if unskilled – at the unconnected end of the labour market – ads in supermarkets and shop windows.

Syriza’s victory in the Greek general election last week represents something positive. It is populist, but from the left rather than the right. The rhetoric is one of alternative, fairness and equality. It is a David and Goliath story in the making. The new Greek Prime minister, Alexis Tsipras (left), takes his secular oath, appoints radicals to his government (such as Yanis Varoufakis as Finance Minister), halts privatisations, reappoints the cleaners who were sacked from their jobs in the finance ministry, initiates tax reform and targets corruption. They have even put up all of the ministerial BMWs up for sale.

We learn that the first port of call is not the IMF, the European Commission or even the German government in Berlin, rather opposition parties in Italy and Spain – next up on Europe’s election merry-go-round. I wait and see what happens, but there is optimism about Europe’s prospects and the rightness of Syriza’s approach to the crippling debt that they have inherited. I trust the elites do not share my optimism.

Flag: Fry1989, Wikipedia

Photo: Lorenzo Gaudenzi