I denne ukens Manifest Orientering skrev vi om hvordan Hellas ser ut til å stå overfor en storstilt tvangsprivatisering, diktert utenfra, i et forsøk på å redusere landets gjeldsforpliktelser. Samtidig var det i helgen igjen enorme protester i Athens gater.
I et utdrag fra sin kommende bok «Debts that Can’t be Paid, Won’t Be», skriver Michael Hudson om hvordan finanskapitalen har festet grepet i Europa: «Politics is being financialized while economies are being privatized. The financial strategy was to remove economic planning from democratically elected representatives, centralizing it in the hands of financial managers. […] Governments should run their economies on behalf of banks and bondholders. They should bail out at least the senior creditors of banks that fail (that is, the big institutional investors and gamblers) and pay these debts and public debts by selling off enterprises, shifting the tax burden onto labor. To balance their budgets they are to cut back spending programs, lower public employment and wages, and charge more for public services, from medical care to education.»
Den greske økonomen Yanis Varoufakis omtaler den pågående prosessen som «Privatisation without representation», og skriver: «This is a poignant moment in Europe’s history. A moment when democratically minded Irish, Scots, French, English, Italians, Germans, Welsh, Portuguese ought to observe with a minute’s silence. For this is the moment when Europe’s democratic soul is being buried. In Athens where it was born.»
Les hele Michael Hudsons artikkel «Politics Financialized, Economies Privatized» her.
Les to artikler av Yanis Varoufakis her og her.
Se videoer fra protestene i Athen her.
En rekke avsløringer, blant annet Adecco-skandalen, viser at vi har fått tilbake uverdige arbeidsforhold i Norge. Denne utviklingen blir drevet fram av kommuner som konkurranseutsetter velferdstjenester og presser prisene stadig nedover. Nå krever fagbevegelsen at det ryddes opp.
