Delivered at The South­ern Europe Crisis and Res­ist­ances, Birk­beck Insti­tute for the Human­it­ies, 25 Novem­ber 2012. Listen to the free pod­cast.

In the sum­mer of 1918, Con­stantin Cavafy met E. M. For­ster in Alex­an­dria. Cavafy com­pared the Greeks with the Eng­lish. The two peoples are alike, quick-​witted, resource­ful, adven­tur­ous. ‘But there is one unfor­tu­nate dif­fer­ence. We Greeks have gone bank­rupt. Pray, my dear For­ster, oh pray, that you never lose your cap­ital.’ Gior­gio Agam­ben, com­ment­ing on Cavafy’s mys­ter­i­ous state­ment, writes: ‘The only cer­tainty is that since [1918], all the peoples of Europe and per­haps the whole world have gone bank­rupt’. Greece was declared bank­rupt in 2010 albeit in ‘orderly fash­ion’ and only tem­por­ar­ily. Tem­por­ary default is a little like tem­por­ary death. It lasts forever.

What if Greece, and per­haps Europe, have been bank­rup­ted not eco­nom­ic­ally but mor­ally, cul­tur­ally, polit­ic­ally? What is the gain if the Greeks repay the debt, keep the euro, and lose their soul? Polit­ical and moral bank­ruptcy haunts not just Greece but the whole of Europe. Greece is the future of Europe. And as we know with the future, the best and the worst are next to each other. Let me start with the worst.

The cumu­lat­ive effects of three sep­ar­ate series of aus­ter­ity meas­ures are stag­ger­ing. The first memo imposed up to 50% salary and pen­sion cuts on civil ser­vants and an estim­ated 150,000 job losses by 2015. The second moved to the private sec­tor and slashed the min­imum salary by up to 32%, abol­ished col­lect­ive bar­gain­ing and vari­ous other long-​established labour pro­tec­tions. These meas­ures are accom­pan­ied by increases in dir­ect and indir­ect taxes, pub­lic trans­port fares and road tolls, and the impos­i­tion of a prop­erty tax col­lec­ted through elec­tri­city bills. The remain­ing pub­lic assets and util­it­ies, includ­ing ports, air­ports and even islands, will be privat­ized at bar­gain base­ment prices. Akropolis will be next. The eco­nomy shrank by 24% over five years, the largest any­where in peace­time. In 2012, unem­ploy­ment stands at 25% and youth unem­ploy­ment at 55%. It is the killing of a whole gen­er­a­tion, a gene-​cide to coin a term. Aus­ter­ity led to a devel­op­ing human­it­arian crisis with home­less­ness, men­tal ill­ness and sui­cide at unpre­ced­en­ted levels. Hos­pit­als can­not work for lack of basic medi­cines, schools have no text­books or fuel for heat­ing, soup kit­chens have pro­lif­er­ated, 2 mil­lion people live below the poverty level.

How did we get there after all these sum­mit meet­ings and expert ana­lyses? It does not take great wis­dom to explain this abject fail­ure. Pub­lic spend­ing cuts and tax increases dur­ing a deep depres­sion reduce demand, increase unem­ploy­ment and halt growth. Tax rev­en­ues shrink, spend­ing for unem­ploy­ment and other bene­fits increases. The defi­cit increases, the fiscal tar­gets are missed, lead­ing to new aus­ter­ity to plug the gap. It is a vicious spiral dic­tated by the toxic idol­atry of dom­in­ant eco­nom­ics. If the IMF func­tion­ar­ies were first-​year eco­nom­ics stu­dents, they would have failed their exams. Unfor­tu­nately, their diktat makes mil­lions fail their lives.

But the fail­ure and respons­ib­il­ity of the Greek elites is even greater. The politi­cians, bankers and media bar­ons who brought the coun­try to its knees over 40 years now sense that their cor­rupt, cli­en­tel­ist cap­it­al­ism is com­ing to the end. They will do everything in their power to delay the inev­it­able end. Greece is a text­book case of a moral decay and polit­ical col­lapse of a sys­tem of power. Con­sid­er­able evid­ence exists that the Greek gov­ern­ment ‘doctored’ the mac­roe­co­nomic fig­ures in 2001 to gain entry to the euro. The spiralling loans and mount­ing debt were then used by the rul­ing elites to oil the wheels of pat­ron­age and cli­en­tel­ism. The Papandreou gov­ern­ment upgraded the defi­cit by 3% to 15.4% trig­ger­ing the European inter­ven­tion. To cap it all, every set of meas­ures adop­ted increased the debt. The Greek debt was 120% of GDP in 2009. It will be 190% next year and, after the pain of a dozen years, will reach 125% in 2021, still above the 2009 pos­i­tion. The aus­ter­ity meas­ures are mul­ti­pli­ers of debt, which keeps increas­ing and meta­stas­ing like a malign tumour. Greek soci­ety is col­lapsing before our eyes and the only answer is more loans to pay the past loans, which increases the over­all loan. It is bor­row­ing on the Visa to pay the Mastercard.

I have called the com­bin­a­tion of European neo-​colonialism and Greek elite servile obed­i­ence ‘the desire of debt’: As a ‘double gen­it­ive’, debt’s desire’, raises two ques­tions. Who desired the debt and what does the debt desire? The only con­sist­ent explan­a­tion is that the elites desired the debt, first by crazy bor­row­ing and spend­ing and then by delib­er­ate increases in its cal­cu­la­tion. What does the debt desire? Because Greece owes, the Greeks must des­troy the old and adopt rad­ic­ally new eco­nomic, cul­tural and moral val­ues. The evil debt will allow the return to the path of vir­tue. Like the Pla­tonic phar­makon, the debt is poison and cure, curse and bless­ing, the cause of pas­sion and resurrection.

Aus­ter­ity aims at a whole­sale restruc­tur­ing of life in the late cap­it­al­ism of chronic crisis. Work prac­tices are get­ting close to those in China. The social ethos of the people, the rem­nants of friend­ship, solid­ar­ity and hos­pit­al­ity the pre­vi­ous period of cap­it­al­ist mod­ern­isa­tion had left stand­ing, is under­mined. Cyn­icism and nihil­ism become the dom­in­ant mor­al­ity. The aus­ter­ity tested in Greece is expor­ted to Por­tugal, Ire­land, Spain, Italy and Bri­tain. A return to Vic­torian cap­it­al­ism kept in place by an author­it­arian state awaits us all. Greece may be the future of Europe.

Now for the good news. The back cover of the Greek edi­tion of a book I pub­lished last Decem­ber states: ‘Europe used Greece as a guinea pig to test the con­di­tions for restruc­tur­ing late cap­it­al­ism in crisis. What the European and Greek elites did not expect was for the guinea pig to occupy the lab, kick out the blind sci­ent­ists and start a new exper­i­ment: its own trans­form­a­tion from an object to a polit­ical sub­ject. The mean­ing and lim­its of demo­cracy are rene­go­ti­ated in the place it was born.’ Friends told me at the time that I was excess­ively optim­istic or, even worse, I had lost touch with real­ity. The protest move­ment was in abey­ance, the usual Left mel­an­choly had returned.

Where did I base my optim­ism? Res­ist­ance against aus­ter­ity grew through­out 2010 and 2011. More than 25 one-​day gen­eral strikes, min­istry occu­pa­tions, non-​payment of prop­erty taxes, increased trans­port fares and road tolls and vari­ous types of civil dis­obedi­ence. No major change in gov­ern­ment policy was achieved. By May 2011, the res­ist­ance seemed to be run­ning out of steam, the usual left mel­an­choly had returned. This changed on 25 May with the spon­tan­eous occu­pa­tion of Syn­tagma Square in cent­ral Athens, and some sixty cit­ies by a group of people call­ing them­selves agana­kt­is­menoi (indig­nant) in a trib­ute to the Span­ish indig­na­dos. People came from all ideo­lo­gies and none, old and young, unem­ployed and the middle class, Greek and for­eign­ers. The occu­pa­tion rejec­ted the logic of rep­res­ent­a­tion, party ideo­logy, or polit­ical lead­er­ship and opened to large parts of the pop­u­la­tion who were not polit­ic­ally act­ive or were voters of the estab­lished parties. The occu­pa­tions las­ted for three months. Partly as a res­ult of the occu­pa­tion, the Papandreou gov­ern­ment resigned twice in June and finally in Novem­ber. It was a reminder that West­ern gov­ern­ments too can fall when they aban­don basic prin­ciples of demo­cracy, decency and independence.

I spoke in Syn­tagma last June; The lucky few whose num­bers were drawn were anxious and nervous. One man in par­tic­u­lar was shak­ing and trem­bling with evid­ent symp­toms of stage fright before his address. He then pro­ceeded to give a beau­ti­ful talk in per­fectly formed sen­tences and para­graphs, present­ing a com­plete and per­suas­ive plan for the future of the move­ment. ‘How did you do it?’ I asked him later, ‘I thought you were going to col­lapse.’ ‘When I star­ted speak­ing’, he replied non­chal­antly, ‘I was mouth­ing the words but someone else was speak­ing. A stranger inside me was dic­tat­ing what to say.’ This tran­sub­stan­ti­ation, the stranger in me, is the name of the de– and re– sub­ject­iv­isa­tion, the removal of people from the eco­nomy of desire-​consumption-​frustration of biopol­it­ical cap­it­al­ism and their moral and polit­ical regeneration.

In Syn­tagma and other occu­pa­tions I was reminded of the scary and thrill­ing days of 1973. The occu­pa­tions at the Law School and the Poly­tech­nic in Athens star­ted the pro­cess of decay of the mil­it­ary dic­tat­or­ship. The stu­dents walked down the streets with their heads held high, weighty aca­demic tomes in their hands, badges of iden­tity and pride. In 2011, in the midst of the cata­strophe that has befallen Greece, people smiled at strangers in squares and streets again, with that moment­ary twinkle in the eye so dif­fer­ent from the empty gaze pre­val­ent in Greece today.

My optim­ism was con­firmed by the astound­ing res­ults of Syr­iza, the rad­ical Left party, in the elec­tions of 2012. Was there a link between the res­ist­ance and the elec­tion res­ults? After all, the old parties are still in power. but they are like the undead or zom­bies. Let me explain. The res­ist­ance brought to an end the post-​civil-​war divides between a vic­tori­ous Right and a defeated Left. People from opposed ideo­lo­gical and his­tor­ical tra­ject­or­ies found them­selves in the same place. An unem­ployed left­ist suf­fers the same as a right-​winger; com­mon class interests became more import­ant than ancient enmit­ies. After Syn­tagma, the power sys­tem reached its end. Only the final push was required. On 6 May and 17 June, the mul­ti­tude of the squares became a people and voted massively for the Left. Dir­ect demo­cracy acquired its par­lia­ment­ary companion.

Why Syr­iza and not some other anti-​austerity party? Party mem­bers joined the res­ist­ance from the start without hege­monic ambi­tions. Syr­iza did not try to lead or use the squares to recruit. Secondly, Syr­iza had adop­ted intern­ally the ideo­logy of plur­al­ism and dir­ect demo­cracy well before the crisis. The party is a coali­tion of twelve parties and groups, with Euro­com­mun­ists eco­lo­gical, post Marx­ist, rad­ical demo­cratic and post-​anarchist roots. Tend­en­cies and fac­tions are allowed. It is a ‘new type’ of party that has jet­tisoned the char­ac­ter­ist­ics of the ori­ginal Len­in­ist party and comes closest to the ethos of the mul­ti­tude and the organ­iz­a­tion of the occu­pa­tions. The squares adop­ted Syr­iza as their obvi­ous choice. A dual track strategy developed: social mobil­iz­a­tion and par­lia­ment­ary pres­ence, dir­ect and rep­res­ent­at­ive demo­cracy, in and against the state. The meet­ing between the occu­pa­tions and the rad­ical Left was serendip­it­ous; it was pre­pared by the ‘cun­ning of history’.

To use an expres­sion that will put a smile on many a Marx­ist or cyn­ical lip, the end of the power sys­tem is a mat­ter of his­tor­ical neces­sity. Through­out his­tory, revolu­tions suc­ceed when a power sys­tem has run its course and has become obsol­ete and harm­ful. This is the case in Greece. His­tor­ical neces­sity is not enough. Three ele­ments are required. A strong pop­u­lar desire, a polit­ical agent pre­pared to take power. Finally, a cata­lyst which com­bines the other ele­ments into a com­bust­ible whole. All three ele­ments have con­verged Greece, pop­u­lar will in the res­ist­ance, Syr­iza as the polit­ical agent and aus­ter­ity as the cata­lyst that will lead to a the first rad­ical left gov­ern­ment in Europe. Is the left ready, how can it succeed?

Left strategy must mit­ig­ate the cata­strophic effects of aus­ter­ity while start­ing at the same time heal­ing the torn social fab­ric. An end to cor­rup­tion and pat­ron­age, the col­lec­tion of taxes and the pun­ish­ment of tax eva­sion are obvi­ous moves. But such a gov­ern­ment can­not and must not rely on a gradual return to nor­mal­ity. It will face a hos­tile European Union; polit­ical time will be com­pressed. Pal­li­at­ives and lim­ited reversals of aus­ter­ity meas­ures will not be enough. The Left will be obliged to move towards a demo­cratic social­ist order, some­thing that has not been achieved before and for which no blue­print or exper­i­ence exists. The exper­i­ence, energy and memory of the res­ist­ance and occu­pa­tions are the best hopes for success.

What are the les­sons of the squares? First, the redis­covered prin­ciples of pub­li­city, col­lab­or­a­tion and equal­ity. Place, time and intens­ity were cent­ral. Place: the loc­al­isa­tion in a square oppos­ite Par­lia­ment cre­ated a new fluid and open spa­cing of polit­ical power. Time: the lin­ear time of work became the tele­olo­gical time of praxis. Finally, the intens­ity of bod­ily and emo­tional prox­im­ity, cre­ated by a com­mon polit­ical desire, had the char­ac­ter­ist­ics of a con­stitu­ent power.¹ The social com­pos­i­tion of post-​fordist cap­it­al­ism means that the age of lead­ers, cent­ral­ized parties and uni­ons, of solid and con­scious polit­ical sub­jects await­ing rep­res­ent­a­tion is on the way out. Co-​operation and net­work­ing, solid­ar­ity and hori­zontal organ­isa­tion, shar­ing of know­ledge and skills are the guid­ing prin­ciples. The squares transfered these prin­ciples from work to polit­ics, revers­ing the hier­archy, dis­cip­lin­ing and auto­cratic man­age­ment of cap­it­al­ism. The left should adopt and spread the spirit of the occu­pa­tions through vir­tual camps and local gath­er­ings, assem­blies in neigh­bor­hoods, sub­urbs and towns, solid­ar­ity net­works and cul­tural events. The prin­ciples of the tran­si­ent occu­pa­tions should become a per­man­ent fea­ture of polit­ics. The social ethos of hori­zontal work should be insti­tu­tion­al­ized and dis­sem­in­ated, keep­ing the cit­izen­ship of the squares active.

‘WE are the squares, we are every­where’, should be the guid­ing prin­ciple The extend­ing these ideas to all areas of eco­nomic, social and cul­tural life. Ini­ti­at­ives from below, dir­ect demo­cracy, phys­ical and vir­tual col­lab­or­a­tion, bring­ing people and skills together would revive the fal­ter­ing sense of com­munity. Eco­nom­ic­ally prof­it­able and socially use­ful enter­prises would be based on these prin­ciples. Work­ers in fail­ing indus­tries, for example, could take over their place of busi­ness and run it as a co-​operative. A spe­cial bank, fun­ded by a solid­ar­ity levy and one off taxes on the rich, would fin­ance pro­jects that pro­mote col­lab­or­a­tion and net­work­ing. ‘Uni­ver­sit­ies of the squares’ would dis­sem­in­ate altern­at­ive views chal­len­ging expert objectiv­ity. Dir­ect demo­cratic meth­ods could be intro­duced in local and even­tu­ally cent­ral gov­ern­ment. Pub­lic debate and vot­ing of coun­cil budgets and all import­ant local issues could be a start. Pub­lic and free artistic and lit­er­ary events would mark an altern­at­ive polit­ical cul­ture. Polit­ics should be repol­it­i­cized and the col­lect­ive ethos intro­duced into all aspects of pub­lic life. Greece needs a cul­tural and moral renais­sance. Deep­en­ing demo­cracy and mak­ing it the form of every type of activ­ity and life is the main les­son of the squares.

The Greek Left has a major moral advant­age based partly on its clean past but, more import­antly, on its com­mit­ment to uni­ver­sal val­ues. Every policy pro­posal must be assessed against the prin­ciples of equal­ity and social justice. Only a com­bin­a­tion of polit­ics with rad­ical intent and social mobil­iz­a­tion can suc­ceed. The task of the Greek Left is to develop the ‘idea of com­mun­ism’ for an age of cap­it­al­ist crisis.² It is a tall order for a small coun­try and organ­iz­a­tion. It can suc­ceed only if the European move­ments learn from the Greek exper­i­ence and fol­low sim­ilar strategies. In such case, the Greece of res­ist­ance will become the future of Europe.

Cos­tas Douz­i­nas is Pro­fessor of Law and Dir­ector of the Birk­beck Insti­tute for the Human­it­ies, Uni­ver­sity of Lon­don. His most recent books include Philo­sophy and Res­ist­ance in the Crisis: Greece and the Future of Europe and, with Conor Gearty [eds], The Cam­bridge Com­pan­ion to Human Rights Law.