Global Political Risk: Surveying the GIPSI

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1. Ignacio August 4, 2013 at 5:51 am

   I feel no simpathy for the PIGS or PIIGS abreviations and prefer the use of GIPSI. I don’t think that Mr. Strether is being despective himself but the use of those abreviations has some despective aroma from its origin so it should be avoided.
   1. Maju August 4, 2013 at 6:55 am

      Totally in agreement, Ignacio. The use of the term “PIIGS” or similar is as racist as calling Kyenge “orangutan”. I believe I was the one who first proposed “GIPSI”, it’s surely less aggressive, but nowadays I would rather prefer some other term like “the periphery”, “Southern Europe” or, if you wish to be very precise maybe something “the Atlanto-Mediterranean periphery” (neither Portugal nor Ireland border the Mediterranean and Spain only partly so).

      But I also think that, regardless of the terms used, there is an actual element of intra-European racism in all the rest: from the myth (a total myth) of “lazy southerners” spread by the German and other media to the outragingly different treatment of saving banks in Southern Europe and Germany (these are being overprotected, for example).

      This is a pan-European problem that largely stems of a pan-European policy designed from nationalist parameters, notably German nationalist ones. If the euro (and related measures) would be designed to fit the needs not just of German capital but of all the Eurozone’s, then the problems would be much smaller for all and better distributed. An overvalued euro and extremely generous free trade agreements with the outer world are what actually damage Europe the most. Of course these measures harm much more average economies like those of the South than elite ones like the one of Germany – but the negative effects in the mid run are destructive for all Europe.
      1. from Mexico August 4, 2013 at 8:15 am

         The reigning racial order these days looks something like this:

         • White Americans are the master race

         • The White peoples of other Anglosphere nations (the UK, Australia, Canada, New Zealand) are inferior to White Americans

         • Europeans are inferior to them

         • Europeans of the perifiery are inferior to them

         • All other peoples of the world are inferior to them
         1. from Mexico August 4, 2013 at 10:21 am

            That should have read:

            • White Europeans are inferior to them

            • White Europeans of the periphery are inferior to them

            • All other peoples of the world are inferior to them

            The beauty of this is that those into race-thinking, regardless of where they rank in the order, can find a happy place in this order. Golden Dawn members, for instance, even though they rank very low in the order, have no problem finding people who are inferior to them and that they can look down upon. Thus they do not challenge the racial order, but relish it.

            Ralph Ellison, in “An Extravagance of Laughter,” explains how race-thinking works as an instrument of political and social control, and why TPTB so often evangelize it to the proles, even though they themselves are inveterate class-thinkers:

            In the South of that day the bottom rung of the social ladder was reserved for that class of whites who were looked down upon as “poor white trash,” and the area immediately beneath them and below the threshold of upward social mobility was assigned to Negroes, whether educated or ignorant, prosperous or poor. But although they were barely below the poor whites in economic status (and were sometimes better off), it was the Negroes who were designated the South’s untouchable caste. As such, they were perceived as barely uncontrollable creatures of untamed instincts, and a group against whom all whites were obligated to join in the effort required for keeping them within their assigned place. This mindless but widely held perception was given doctrinal credibility through oppressive laws and an endless rhetorical reiteration of anti-Negro stereotypes. Negroes wre seen as ignorant, cowardly, thieving, lying, hypocritical and superstitious in their religious beliefs and practices, morally loose, drunken, filthy of personal habit, sexually animalistic, rude, crude and disgusting in their public conduct, and aesthetically just plain unpleasant. If a few were not, it was due to the presence of “white” blood…

            In brief, Negroes were considered guilty of all the seven deadly sins except the sin of pride, and were seen as sometimes comic but nevertheless threatening negative to the whites’ idealized image of themselves. Most Negroes were characterized, in the jargon of sociology, by a “high visibility” of pigmentation which made the group easily distinguishable from other citizens, and therefore easy to keep in line and politically powerless. This powerlessness was justified and reinforced by stereotypes, which denied blacks individuality and allowed any Negro to be interchangeable with any other…

            In this denial of personality (sponsored by both law and custom), anti-Negro stereotypes served as an efficient and easily manipulated instrument of governance. They…helped bind the poor whites to the middle and upper classes with whom they shared ethnic identity. Being uncomfortably close to Negroes in economic status, the poor whites clung to the stereotypes as to a life raft in turbulent waters, and politicians were able to use their fear and antipathy toward blacks as a surefire source of power. Because not only were the stability of social order and the health of business seen as depending upon white dominance, but the sanctity of the moral order as well…

            Thus, by pitting the interests of the poor whites against those of the Negroes, Southern congressmen countered the South’s Civil War defeat by using its carefully nurtured racial conflict as a means for amassing great political power in Washington… Their memories of the War Between the States, of Reconstruction, and the difficult times that followed the Haynes-Tilden Compromise had long been mythologized both as a means for keeping Negroes powerless, and for ensuring the loyalty of poor whites in keeping them so…. It was Booker T. Washington who had warned that it is impossible to keep another man in a ditch without remaining there with him; unfortunately this advice came from a powerful Southern leader who was also an ex-slave.

            More and more, through depression and war, America lived up to its claim of being the land of opportunity whose rewards were available to the individual through the assertion of a second self. But for many poor and unambitious Southern whites the challenge of such an assertion was far less inviting than clinging to the conviction that they, by the mere fact of race, color, and tradition alone, were superior to the black masses below them.

            I myself never cease to be amazed at the tremendous material sacrifices so many people will make in order to gain some feeling of superiority over others.
            1. from Mexico August 4, 2013 at 10:22 am

               Marxist thinkers, as Hannah Arendt explains, because they are so deeply consumed by class-thinking, are almost blind to the fact that TPTB “feed the prejudices of the masses” and that race-thinking is such an effective “instrument to rule masses” because racist slogans are “highly effective in mobilizing large strata of the population”:

               In Marxist terms the new phenomenon of an alliance between mob and capital seemed so unnatural, so obviously in conflict with the doctrine of class struggle, that the actual dangers of the imperialist attempt — to divide mankind into master races and slave races, into higher and lower breeds, into colored peoples and white men, all of which were attempts to unify the people on the basis of the mob — were completely overlooked.
               1. Lambert Strether Post authorAugust 4, 2013 at 1:58 pm

                  I think that quote is a little outdated. These days, most if not all those to the left of, say… David Brooks? have a visceral, if not necessarily a systematic, understanding of the cultural (even spiritual) tools used to divide us. There was certainly a great of labor done in this field post-60s, a lot of it coming from Gramsci’s notion of hegemony.
               2. Lambert Strether Post authorAugust 4, 2013 at 2:38 pm

                  Well, as you point out, “TPTB … are inveterate class-thinkers.”

                  So given that the people who rule the word are, in your words, “deeply consumed by class-thinking,” it probably makes a good deal of sense to understand how they rule the world, how they think they rule the world being part of that ongoing project.
                  1. zygmuntFRAUDbernier August 4, 2013 at 3:58 pm

                     Sycophants, yes-men and those who are loyal to the elites are rewarded with “higher status”, no hassles, and good money. These lower-tier forces of the status quo in turn distribute patronage, favours and so on to obedient tier 3 tools, who deal with tier 4 tools, … who deal with little bosses, who deal with working class men, who deal with their wives, who deal with the kids; at the bottom of the hierarchy lies the family dog.
                     1. Social Climber August 4, 2013 at 4:36 pm

                        Or as never more succinctly said:

                        http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mURhNIjc-Kw
               3. Tim Mason August 5, 2013 at 8:32 am

                  I am surprised. I had thought that Arendt would have read Marx. Evidently she did not. Marx was well aware of the use of the mob by the ruling classes. How could he not have been? It was not, as Arendt suggests here, by any means a new phenomenon even when Marx was writing, and he had occasion to see it in action.

                  As to racism, here is Marx in 1870 :

                  And most important of all! Every industrial and commercial center in England now possesses a working class divided into two hostile camps, English proletarians and Irish proletarians. The ordinary English worker
                  hates the Irish worker as a competitor who lowers his standard of life. In relation to the Irish worker he feels himself a member of the ruling nation and so turns himself into a tool of the aristocrats and capitalists of his country against Ireland, thus strengthening their domination over himself. He cherishes religious, social, and national prejudices against the Irish worker. His attitude towards him is much the same as that of the “poor
                  whites” to the “n…..s” in the former slave states of the U.S.A. The Irishman pays him back with interest in his own money. He sees in the English worker at once the accomplice and the stupid tool of the English rule in Ireland.

                  This antagonism is artificially kept alive and intensified by the press, the pulpit, the comic papers, in short, by all the means at the disposal of the ruling classes. This antagonism is the secret of the impotence of the English working class, despite its organization. It is the secret by which the capitalist class maintains its power. And that class is fully aware of it.

                  But the evil does not stop here. It continues across the ocean. The antagonism between English and Irish is the hidden basis of the conflict between the United States and England. It makes any honest and serious cooperation between the working classes of the two countries impossible. It enables the governments of both countries, whenever they think fit, to break the edge off the social conflict by their mutual bullying, and, in case of need, by war with one another.
         2. Alejandro August 4, 2013 at 11:47 am

            Insert WASP pre-qualifier in 1 & 2 and the pyramid applies within our borders as well. The broken-mirrored hypocrisy is in the “P” as JC himself inquired; “If a man cannot love his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?”
         3. Jose August 4, 2013 at 11:50 am

            Wait a minute!

            White Americans (number one) are themselves a mixture of Anglo whites (number two in the ranking) euro whites (number 3) and europeriphery whites (number 4).

            How can then white Americans, who include a large component of euro and europeriphery whites, be “superior” to “pure” anglo-whites? The racial “math” simply doesn’t add up.

            Looks like American exceptionalism, caught in its own contradictions, has just taken another hit here.

            Lol
            1. from Mexico August 4, 2013 at 1:50 pm

               Yes, but what you fail to see is that this is a feature, and not a bug:

               Without the elite and its artificially induced inability to understand facts as facts, to distinguish between truth and falsehood, the movement could never move in the direction of realizing its fiction. The outstanding negative quality of the totalitarian elite is that it never stops to think about the world as it really is and never compares the lies with reality.

               [….]

               [The intellectual elite has a] terrible, demoralizing fascination in the possibility that gigantic lies and monstrous falsehoods can eventually be established as unquestioned facts, that man may be free to change his own past at will, and that the difference between truth and falsehood may cease to be objective and become a mere matter of power and cleverness, of pressure and infinite repetition.

               [The elites] are surrounded by a carefully elaborated system of “scientific” proofs which do not have to be convincing for the completely “uninitiated,” but still appeal to some vulgarized thirst for knowledge…

               [….]

               [The scientific aspect of racism] is secondary and arises first from the desire to provide watertight arguments, and second because their persuasive power also got hold of scientists, who no longer were interested in the result of their research but left their laboratories and hurried off to preach to the multitude their new interpretations of life and world.

               [….]

               Totalitarianism in power invariably replaces all first-rate talents, regardless of thier sympathies, with those crackpots and fools whose lack of intelligence and creativity is still the best guarantee of their loyalty.

               –HANNAH ARENDT, The Origins of Totalitarianism

               Franois Haas very much stresses the role that science played in transforming racism from a mere ruling device to the main ideological weapon of imperialistic politics:

               Although notions of race have a long history, it was ironically the Scientific Revolution followed by the Enlightenment and then the Age of Reason, emphasizing science and rationality, that were the wellsprings for biologically based racism. The earlier division of humans into races had produced opposing views that were hotly debated. The nonhierarchical, biologically homogeneous model held no race as superior. The hierarchical model placed whites, most notably Northern Europeans, at the top and Blacks at the bottom (7). The hierarchical construct eventually won out and Blacks were relegated to inferiority. This concept of intrinsic value or defect (popularized in the 1860s as Social Darwinism) was clearly articulated by Sir Francis Galton (1822–1911) in “The science which deals with all influences that improve the inborn qualities of a race (8).”

               [….]

               It is important to remember that the Germans looked to U.S. antimiscigenation and sterilization laws as models for their racial laws. Antimiscigenation laws in the U.S. had a history dating back to the colonial period.

               [….]

               Despite the outrage at Nazi racial policy, Allied authorities were unable to classify sterilizations as war crimes, because similar sterilization laws had been enforced in some states since 1907 and had been upheld by the Supreme Court. In Buck v. Bell (1927), the majority decision, written by Chief Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., used modern opinions of science to support the Virginia sterilization law: “It is better for all the world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from breeding their kind. The principle that sustains compulsory vaccination is broad enough to cover cutting Fallopian tubes. . . Three generations of imbeciles are enough.” Although compulsory sterilization ended after the war in Germany, in the US, 11 African-American girls were sterilized in 1972. The Oregon Board of Eugenics, which was renamed the Board of Social Protection, existed until 1983, the last forcible sterilization occurring in 1981.

               http://www.fasebj.org/content/22/2/332.full.pdf+html
            2. Lambert Strether Post authorAugust 4, 2013 at 2:41 pm

               Confederate (white) cavaliers are definitely superior to Yankee (white) roundheads. Or vice versa.
         4. Maju August 5, 2013 at 7:47 am

            More or less like under the Nazis, right?

            However don’t forget that racism is a social-cultural construct to justify on alleged cultural or biological grounds the status quo. That way, for example, Japanese were considered “whites” in Apartheid South Africa, etc.
      2. Jim Haygood August 4, 2013 at 10:36 am

         ‘There is an actual element of … racism in … the myth (a total myth) of “lazy southerners”

         Eh, we used to get that in the U.S. too. For instance, Frederick Law Olmsted (designer of New York’s Central Park) in The Cotton Kingdom:

         Interested in the slave economy and commissioned to write articles for the New York Times, Olmsted made extensive tours throughout the South from 1852 to 1857.

         Olmsted was a fervent opponent of slavery, and his journeys through Texas and the other slave states confirmed his deep-seated antipathy to forced servitude and to the South in general.

         http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fol05

         Glad that ol’ regional prejudice is all gone now! /sarc
         1. from Mexico August 4, 2013 at 11:37 am

            That’s just great.

            As Robert Huges explained in Culture of Complaint:

            Since our new-found sensitivity decrees that only the victim shall be the hero, the white American male starts bawling for victim status too.
   2. skippy August 4, 2013 at 7:12 am

      Just think… American Securitized Security State.

      skippy… whats good for the thingy..
      1. Lambert Strether Post authorAugust 4, 2013 at 2:02 pm

         I like the pun in “securitized.”
   3. Lambert Strether Post authorAugust 4, 2013 at 2:00 pm

      The headline and the text have been revised; I should really do more European work. I wasn’t aware that the FT had banned the acronym since since 2010. Yikes!
      1. Maju August 5, 2013 at 7:57 am

         Better late than never, Lambert. However it still surprises me somewhat that you needed FT confirmation and some criticisms instead of just your own train of thought to understand something so blatantly obvious.

         “GIPSI” may be somewhat less outrageous but it’s still an acronym full of racism, I must say. And, as I said before, I believe I was the one inventing it, in comments to this blog, as some sort of lesser evil. However I realize that it still conveys the myth of southerner “laziness” (romantic idealized vision of the “Gypsy” lifestyle) and it may also be offensive to the Roma (Gypsy) people as well.

         So I would discourage its usage as well.
   4. Bobito August 5, 2013 at 4:46 am

      Given the virulent racism against gypsies in most of the Mediterranean, I think the GIPSI acronym is at least as problematic as the PIIGS acronym.
   5. Lambert Strether Post authorAugust 5, 2013 at 11:00 am

      IPSIG, for pity’s sake. Can be pronounced and doesn’t have any connotation at all, unlike the proffered GIPSI, Southern Tier, periphery, etc., all of which could give rise to the same discussion from a different starting point.

      Works as a mnemonic too, since the initials run from West to East. Oh, no….
      1. Maju August 5, 2013 at 5:32 pm

         I simply say “the periphery” but don’t worry too much, what matters is the intention.
2. middle seaman August 4, 2013 at 6:35 am

   Our OWS seems a more profound, better spread and with global implication. Notably, the permanent political system was quite apathetic about OWS. While federal, state and local governments have forcefully and sometime brutally disrupted, evicted and jailed the protesters.

   We have, therefore, a plus on depth and organization and a big minus on force and brutality. Not your typical American reaction.
   1. andrew August 4, 2013 at 7:30 am

      The google translation of Grillo’s comment leaves a lot to be desired …

      Per Grillo «l’indignazione verso Calderoli è giusta. La sua battuta razzista verso un ministro di origini congolesi è da condannare». Ma questa «battuta razzista da ubriaco da bar ha il dono della tempestività».

      That should be something more like

      “For Grillo, ‘the indignation toward Calderoli is right. His racist joke directed at a minister of Congolese origin is to be condemned.’ But this ‘racist joke of a drunk in a bar has the gift of causing a commotion.'”

      On my brief reading, the “But” and “gift” in the above are both ironic: he is saying (this follows the rest of the article in context) that the joke has the utility, to the interested media, of permitting the creation of a scandal and a ruckus that distracts from actual policy/consequences of a racist character, in this case the deportation of a mother and her daughter (the Ablyazov case) to Kazakhstan.

      I want to emphasize that this is a brief reading in an attempt to correct a problematic translation — I don’t follow Italian politics / current events closely, and welcome correction of my interpretation from more informed parties …
      1. Lambert Strether Post authorAugust 4, 2013 at 2:22 pm

         It would be nice if other Italian-reading commenters could chime in. I’m trying to get a reading on Grillo. Italian politics is almost completely opaque to me, and it doesn’t help that AFAIK all Italian journalists are licensed by the state, and all AFAIK Italian journals are organs of one party or another.

         Ezra Klein is what he is and writes what he writes, but he has, it seems to me, greater relative autonomy than the typical Italian pundit. (And is all the more effective playing his systemic role because of that.)
         1. Tim Mason August 4, 2013 at 4:34 pm

            Well, from inside Italy there’s Wu Ming’s ‘Grillismo : Yet another Right Wing cult coming from Italy’ – http://www.wumingfoundation.com/english/wumingblog/?p=1950
         2. nobody August 4, 2013 at 5:12 pm

            Here’s some commentary from a few months ago:

            http://www.thestar.com/opinion/commentary/2013/03/10/italys_baffling_election_was_not_just_about_austerity.html
3. from Mexico August 4, 2013 at 7:20 am

   Lambert Strether said:

   Many strikes, some marches and demonstrations, nothing at all like the indignados, and above all no sense of a “European idea” from the ground up… I’d love to be wrong on this, but I think the lack of coherence is the story right now.

   It would be impossible to overemphasize the importance of this: the absense of a unifying idea or theory to counter that of neoliberalism (which is in reality not more nor less than a rebirth of the liberalism that precipitated the upheavals of the 1914 to 1945 era). There was a wonderful discussion of this in one of yesterday’s links:

   So here’s an important German word, which we could well import into English: Deutungshoheit . This translates literally as “interpretative superiority” and is analogous to “air superiority”.

   Deutungshoheit is what politicians and their spin doctors attempt to win by putting forward their interpretations and framings of the semirandom events that constitute the “news”…

   The battle for Deutungshoheit, therefore, consisted in denying any German involvement and projecting the German government, like the people in question, as passive victims of US intrusion….

   In this second phase, the German political elite has shifted its feet; rather than trying to deny any involvement whatsoever, they have instead tried to interpret the possibility of something really outrageous as being necessary for your security, and part of fundamental alliance commitments which cannot be questioned within the limits of respectable discourse. The ur-text here is Die Zeit‘s interview with Angela Merkel, in which Merkel argues that she knew nothing, further that there was a balance to strike between freedom and security, that although some kinds of spying were unacceptable, the alliance came first. The effectiveness of this, at least in the context of the interview, can be measured by astonishingly uncritical questions like the one in which she was asked “what additional efforts were necessary from the Germans to maintain their competitiveness”.

   http://fistfulofeuros.net/afoe/edward-snowden-and-the-political-west/
   1. from Mexico August 4, 2013 at 7:57 am

      And if we look at how issues get framed these days, I don’t believe things have changed much, if at all, since Hannah Arendt wrote The Origins of Totalitarianism:

      Hitlerism exercised its strong international and inter-European appeal during the thirties because racism, although a state doctrine only in Germany, had been a powerful trend in public opinion everywhere. [I]n political warfare racism was calculated to be a more powerful ally than any paid agent or secret organization of fifth columnists… Racism was neither a new or secret weapon, though never before had it been used with this thoroughgoing consistency.

      The historical truth of the matter is that race-thinking, with its roots deep in the eighteenth century, emerged simultaneously in all Western countries during the nineteenth century. Racism has been the powerful ideology of imperialistic policies since the turn of our century… Not until the end of the century were dignity and importance accorded race-thinking as though it had been one of the major spiritual contributions of the Western world.

      Until the fateful days of the “scramble for Africa,” race-thinking had been one of the many free opinions which, within the general framework of liberalism, argued and fought each other to win consent of public opinion. Only a few of them became full-fledged ideologies, that is, systems based upon a single opinion that proved strong enough to attract and persuade a majority of people and broad enough to lead them through various experiences and situations of an average modern life. For ideology differs from a simple opinion in that it claims to possess either the key to history, or the solution for all the “riddles of the universe,” or the intimate knowledge of the hidden universal laws which are supported to rule nature and man. Few ideologies have won enough prominence to survive the hard competitive struggle of persuasion, and only two have come out on top and essentially defeated all others: the ideology which interprets history as an economic struggle of classes, and the other that interprets history as a natural fight of races. The appeal of both to large masses was so strong that they were able to enlist state support and establish themselves as official national doctrines. But far beyond the boundaries within which race-thinking and class-thinking have developed into obligatory patterns of thought, free public opinion has adopted them to such an extent that not only intellectuals but great masses of people will no longer accept a presentation of past or present facts that is not in agreement with either of these views.

      –HANNAH ARENDT, The Origins of Totalitarianism
      1. Lambert Strether Post authorAugust 4, 2013 at 2:12 pm

         On Totalitarianism was published in 1951. It’s surely of the same order as Das Kapital, or Theory of The Leisure Class, or Gramsci’s Prison Notebooks (the latter first published in the 1950s, and in a critical edition only in the 1970s, so Arendt cannot have taken his work into account). However, for all of those three books, I would most definitely not make the claim that “I don’t believe things have changed much, if at all.” Quite the contrary, and for Arendt, too. For some definition of “change,” of course.

         Adding… And especially for “how issues get framed these days.” If what is meant by this is “how” the conventional wisdom gets formed and propagated, the media and the party environment is not the same as pre-Hitlerian or Hitlerian Germany, or Russia under the Communist Party. Possibly from the 30,000 foot view things look similar, in the same way that Genoese capital looks much like Dutch capital looks like British capital looks like American capital (to move over the globe in historical sequence) but must of us don’t live or work at that rarefied level.
         1. Lambert Strether Post authorAugust 5, 2013 at 12:51 am

            Adding, re 1951: Braudel began in 1949, it’s hard to see how Arendt could have taken account of that school; Wallerstein on world systems; Arrighi; E.P. Thompson with Making of the English Working Class and other books… It borders on absurd to say that “I don’t believe things have changed much, if at all”, and and one of the things that has changed is, exactly, our notion of change, given the historiography (much of it Marxist-inflected) that has appeared since Arendt’s day.
4. Charis August 4, 2013 at 9:57 am

   The south europeans have “prepared” themselves for the “next crisis” since many decades.I would say since the mid-70s.

   80-90% of homeownership in greece,italy,spain and portugal,very little private debt (in italy and greece),the family and the solidarity between relatives and friends is still the basis for everything.The pillar of the society.It is absolutely normal that if the young people dont find a job the whole family and relatives will help.It has been normal even during good times that young people live in the house of the parents untill they marry.And even more important for the survival is that almost every family has her roots still on the country side.”Leaving the city” and “surviving at the country side” has already becoming a serious alternative.Actually this is the new form of protest.Let me explain..

   Most people have already started to ignore the whole political party-system which is now seen as completely corrupt and useless.This is to some degree “dangerous” as extreme left and right wing parties may get more attention.This is what the governments all over europe not only expect but they also support this.Chaos is the only really task.Chaos and afterwards some kind of dictatorship like we have seen it during the last crisis after 1929.These dicatorships in south europe have been kept alive till 1974(in greece and portugal) and 1982(in spain).Italy already was under the rule of the mafia since the end of the WW2.

   The so called PIGS are actually already “ready” to survive this crisis as they survived all the former ones.There is no young PIGS who has a mother,father,uncle,relative who does not tell him what to expect for the next years.The solidarity in our societies are still very,very high.Otherwise for example in greece you would have much more homeless refugees and hungry asylum seekers turning as consequence criminal on the streets of the big cities.I have many friends in athens and they tell me that at least 10-15% of the athens population are now “illegals” from asia,middle east or north africa.You can find food for free almost every where.Not only in form of organisations and the church but even more so from normal people who are cooking in front of their home,their shop,their bar and give this food for free to everyone who needs it.

   This is my take on things.Since I am a PIGS you may find my analysis somehow interesting.Maybe it looks like that our resistance has been “sleepy” during the last months but this means nothing.We know very well what the ruling class soon will “unleash” on us and I believe that we are as good prepared as possible.But the next stage of mass resistance will not be against some austerity laws or some corrupt politicians but against the attempts of the ruling class to spread chaos,to divide the society and the following dicatorship.
   1. Lambert Strether Post authorAugust 4, 2013 at 2:17 pm

      Charis, I think that’s really useful. One the one hand, it’s nice to have some of the sources of GIPSI resilience (I did say “so-called”) explained. On the other hand, these sources must be under tremendous stress, if what Galbraith says about elders going through garbage cans in Athens for food is correct.
   2. Lambert Strether Post authorAugust 4, 2013 at 2:33 pm

      On food:

      You can find food for free almost every where.Not only in form of organisations and the church but even more so from normal people who are cooking in front of their home,their shop,their bar and give this food for free to everyone who needs it.

      I’d love links on that if you can point me to a Greek blog or site.

      Second, I like this a lot because it creates a picture of Golden Dawn’s soup kitchens as parasitically created on top of this organic solidarity. Both oppose the State as currently constituted but in your telling the social basis is different. (GD would serve as a catchment for those who, for one reason or a another, are unable to connect to the networks you describe.)

      Third, I like this because it connects to the permaculture work that I periodically point to. In case the food chain goes pear-shaped, for whatever reason, it will be good if people are prepared to grow their own food with an ethos of sharing with others.
      1. charis August 4, 2013 at 8:16 pm

         Ofcourse you have people searching food in dustbins in athens.Dont you have these people every where in the USA?I have seen such people (and even more than in greece) here in germany where I am right now for my buisness.There are 1,5 million germans who depend on the soup kitchens of the private organistaion “die Tafel””.The only difference is that the soup kitchens in south europe are not “hidden” but on open places where everyone can see it.

         As for my comment about the private persons how give food to the poor..you can see it every where in athens.And they give not only food but also rooms for people to sleep in.This is one reason we have “only” 20.000 homeless people all over greece despite the huge number of illegals..If you compare this number to other european countries like germany or france it is very small even in relation to the population size.
         1. charis August 4, 2013 at 8:43 pm

            As for sources:

            http://athensmagazine.gr/portal/newsnpeople/38205

            Just one example.I choose this link because the guy who does this is jobless himself.

            http://crisis.med.uoa.gr/elibrary/13.pdf

            The english version of the detailed “homeless-report” of the athens university.

            http://www.inews.gr/261/i-krisi-se-arithmous-40000-astegoi-250000-merides-fagitou-se-syssitia-3-ekat-ellines-zoun-kato-apo-ta-oria-tis-ftocheias.htm

            All over greece 250.000 persons need the soup kitchens from the church and private persons.

            http://ellinikioikonomia.com/2012/03/19/στη-γεωργία-βλέπουν-ανάπτυξη-15-εκατ-έλ/

            A report about people from athens and thessaloniki who say that they have already started to return to the country side.The numbers are high.Over 1,5 million.

            Hope it helps.
            1. Lambert Strether Post authorAugust 4, 2013 at 9:29 pm

               Neat. Thanks a lot. One more story that hasn’t appeared over here…..
         2. Lambert Strether Post authorAugust 4, 2013 at 9:31 pm

            Well, we’re used to it here. For some definition of “we.” But I understand it’s new in Athens.
            1. charis August 4, 2013 at 10:32 pm

               This is true.Soup kitchens have not been seen since WW2 in athens.Homeless people did not exist untill 2011.

               As for the last link..

               I know.Actually this is what the ruling class fears most.Hundreds of thousands people returning to “their roots” is not exactly what they wanted.They expected chaos and “civil unrests” in athens even back in 2011 when everyone talked about a military junta.This was their wet dream.Greece as example of what will happen to every country which does resist to austerity:Chaos and civil war.What a coincidence if this example would also be the ancient birthplace of democracy?

               The so called PIGS returning to the country side in big numbers is equal to a silent revolution.It does not only means that you turn the back on the state and the corrupt system.In south europe it also means to return to your own culture,your family,your own arts,your folklore,your ethno music and traditional dancing,language and much much more..

               Me and many,many other PIGS are convinced that this is the only real way of resistance.Me personally thinks this could be a step into more direct democracy.
               1. Paul August 5, 2013 at 10:31 am

                  Hello Charis – Central Italy here
                  inlaws bitterly complaining about the fact that it is no longer possible to breed livestock at home — due to EU regulations borne from the necessity of “safeguarding” public health (hem…).

                  So the ordinary, non agrarian folks (i.e. those who do not work the land to generate income) that used to have their own pigs, cows, sheep can no longer afford to comply to the rules & regulations… .and at the end of the day must buy most of their staples at the supermarket (want to talk about food safety!?)…

                  On the other hand unemployment is rising, and cash-at-hand to invest in good land is scarce. So sooner or later they will be forced to sell their land just to make ends meet. I think we all know who is going to be on the buying side and at what price….

                  Yes the close-knit familial network is still surviving, but with the better hands and brains emigrating to work to Germany, Sweden or to the study at universities overseas, the least fortunate are the ones left manning the fort. And for the lack of any visible sign of economic improvement they are increasingly keeping their resources (food, money) at home instead of sharing amongst the community.

                  Sadly many influential observers (i.e. Barroso in 2009 IIRC) had warned that EU would implode in a mess of civil unrest and suffering.
                  But as we know a crisis is too much of a good thing to waste, especially for those who have the financial resources to “buy when the blood is running in the streets”….
                  1. Lambert Strether Post authorAugust 5, 2013 at 10:48 am

                     So the EU is trying to destroy local food sovereignty. I can’t imagine why…
                     1. Paul August 5, 2013 at 4:09 pm

                        …Care to ask Mr. Peter Brabeck?
                        He would probably answer that food isn’t a right, and it’s best regulated by market forces, ’cause shareholders and CEOs know better
                        Heh…
                  2. Charis August 5, 2013 at 5:37 pm

                     Hi Paul..I expect this same sooner or later here in greece.To be more precise it has ofcourse already started.But till yet they failed completely to implement these “EU-laws”.It may be because we greeks are a little bit more anarchistic than you folks..(joking).

                     I guess if the situation in italy gets as worse (I mean jobless rates over 20% like in greece or spain) no government will dare to shut down any private dwellings.Or at least you should ignore such laws like we do.They cant forbid you to feed yourselves in the midst of a global crisis..We do not live in a feudalistic slavery.Or do we?

                     One other rather “positive sign” for us PIGS:
                     http://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/soziales/oecd-deutschlands-einwanderer-wandern-oft-wieder-aus-a-905446.html

                     According to the OECD 50% of the young south europeans who left during the last years for germany and scandinavia to find work (the article is talking about spaniards and greeks) do not stay longer than 12 months.For me this is no surprise.The job situation in germany and scandinavia is horrible.You may find many part time and low wage jobs.But after paying your rent(most of the time more than half of a part time/lowcost-job-wage) almost nothing is left.This for being far away from your family,friends and culture is not enough for most PIGS to stay in the north.
   3. Bobito August 5, 2013 at 4:52 am

      While there is truth to what you write, it overlooks how demographics have changed. In much of Spain the immigrant population (many by now citizens), reaches 1/5 or 1/4 of the population. Most of us do not have any extended family nearby, nor own a home, nor have any other obvious safety net. This is surely the reason that many immigrants are returning to whence they came (most of the current emigration from Spain consists of former immigrants to Spain). We are a substantial portion of the population, although completely unrepresented in the political process.

      On the other hand it is completely true that people, native Spaniards or immigrants equally, have lived through crises before, and take it in stride, even if they are angry about it and its causes, and know how to deal with it.
      1. charis August 5, 2013 at 5:47 pm

         Hi Bobito,

         I hear you my friend.And to be honest it is the same in greece.The immigrants and most of all the desperate refugees and “illegals” are the real victims of this crisis every where in the south.Allthough you will find solidarity from the “natives” it is the immigrants who “pay” for all the desperation and the anger from many citizins.The chrisi avgi-fascists do not habe gained because “of the crisis” but because nobody from the government,EU or UNO cares about the refugees and immigrants in general.So many,many refugees and “illegals” get so desperate that they have no other choice than to steal or becoming a “criminal”..which again works for the racists and fascists.We live in difficult times.I wish I could give some reasonable “advise” for you what to do but there is none.I guess to return to the homelands in which now civil wars and unrests are raging would be a stupid and arrogant advise.
5. Paul Tioxon August 4, 2013 at 11:42 am

   There is no alternative, right now. Systemic risk, a global nation state system, transnational capital flows based on national currencies means that most people are incorporated into a global system. We would not have systemic risk, if there were alternatives. Cuba and N Korea are not significant enough and are not my idea of any kind of alternative that I would want. TINA means that we are all socialized to live this way, in our times and to live differently would mean that we would not be the people who are today, with the learned expectations and sets of behavior that we use everyday to get by and live. TINA does not mean that we are paralyzed from envisioning, thinking, planning or acting for a different future. Aside from any individual efforts to change, the unified results of individual efforts will still need social efforts. Building social relationships as one person or family to live in concert with others is confronted with already established social orders, set by powerful economic and political networks of other families and their instrumental extensions of their will and vision for life, the corporations.

   So, for me, TINA is a reality. But TINA is not paralysis of my ability to act based on deliberated differences of thought, ideas, plans and carefully considered analysis, shared and developed with others. Building new social relations with others, with the purpose of building alternative institutions that are a conscious reflex to the collapsing capitalist order has grown beyond old labels and categories but can be identified by common traits that can be easily observed by many people from many political perspectives. One of the oldest, and I believe tried and true alternatives, is cooperation over competition. The first modern attempts to provide a counter to the expanding capitalist model of social relations taking over England was the cooperative movement. The first use of the word socialism has been traced to the founders of cooperatives in England. This is simple enough to to understand. Social isolation from rising individualism in the market based economy was to be countered by building social relations, interconnections among individuals in their everyday lives, via cooperatives. A cooperative society vs a competitive individuals in aggregate, atomized, transactional, one off meetings over and over and over, until you are too old to work and be productively profitable.

   Here is a link to hear about anti-TINA activity.

   https://www.freespeech.org/collection/2013-left-forum
   1. zygmuntFRAUDbernier August 4, 2013 at 4:40 pm

      There was an early computer game called Hamurabi, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamurabi . If the player (as dictator), tried for example to favor trading in grain for exotic luxuries, a famine could ensue and he would be overthrown. With the mediocrity/vices inherent in (a portion) of humans, things get pretty bad and then “the people” reassert themselves over the rulers, with revolution and counter-revolution or “restauration”. The cycle goes on forever (maybe).
   2. F. Beard August 4, 2013 at 10:34 pm

      Cuba and N Korea are not significant enough and are not my idea of any kind of alternative that I would want. Paul Tioxon

      Oh, so our way of life REQUIRES a government-backed counterfeiting cartel or else … dull, grey Communism?

      uh, no.

      And now that we aren’t threatened by significant enemies is when we have NO EXCUSE for not reforming our money system to make it ethical since the money system itself is now our Enemy Number 1 and perhaps has been for centuries.
6. AnwenT August 4, 2013 at 3:35 pm

   Dear Lambert:

   Re: the Irish case, there are multiple protests ongoing every week throughout the country; – though you won’t find them in the national papers for the most part.

   You might try here: https://www.facebook.com/ProtestsMeetingsMarchesIreland?fref=ts as well as the various SWP, SIPTU, People Before Profit, Dublin Says NO, Anti-Eviction Taskforce, etc websites.
   1. Lambert Strether Post authorAugust 4, 2013 at 4:13 pm

      Thanks very much. Sounds like the US. However, I have to say, whenever I see an activist group using FaceBook I am filled with despair. Forget about the NSA because they’ll get what they want [waves!] — think of the insitutional memory and documentation of the past just disappearing into the ether….
7. Black Coffee and Sardines August 4, 2013 at 5:25 pm

   Remember the Arab spring (version 1.0) where social media (american corporate networks) were touted as makin’ all the difference? That might be so, and whether making all the difference is good or bad, depends on who controls the technology. As it is now ,Egypt is blighted and foreclosed upon.
   1. Lambert Strether Post authorAugust 4, 2013 at 5:31 pm

      That was a popular narrative, but union organizing had a lot to do with it, even more to do with it.
8. Dan Kervick August 4, 2013 at 7:48 pm

   I think part of the issue is that the ideal of European unity is a profound one, with deep historic roots, that has long characterized the progressive and universalist strain in European thought. It’s not going away. Americans make a mistake is advocating disaggregation of the Eurozone and a return to national currencies. For one thing, it’s none of our business. Secondly, it is a relic of American Europhobia. Third, it plays into the hands of the nationalist right, which is why most European progressives want nothing to do with it.

   Perhaps Europeans made a mistake in moving into the unified currency to quickly without building some kind of fiscal union at the same time. But it’s too late now, and returning to nationalism and national currencies is a non-starter. It will be viewed as a catastrophic defeat for the European ideal.

   Fiscal union seems unrealistic in the present moment, but movements in that direction are the only way for Europe to emerge from stagnation.
   1. F. Beard August 4, 2013 at 11:02 pm

      Actually, the Euro might survive as a purely private money, backed by the existing private debts owed in it. But a pseudo gold-standard is way too stupid to be government-privileged … not that any private money creation should be privileged by government since that’s fascism.
9. scraping_by August 4, 2013 at 10:05 pm

   The standard history books I zipped through as a school lad said that England and France gave up their Asian and African colonies after WWII from financial and moral exhaustion. Made them all independent nations because they couldn’t afford the military to keep the locals down and couldn’t find enough second sons of the upper crust to run the local shadow governments.

   Wonder if these protests will raise the cost of Germany’s Southern European colonies past what the homeland can bear…
10. allcoppedout August 5, 2013 at 12:34 am

    Excellent compendium Lambert. Writing-up day-job admin today with the Test match on and occasional flips to rolling news, the only EU story in the UK was the Gibraltar dispute with Spain (could have been a re-run of coverage when Spain still suffered Franco).
    On the racism, Mexico’s use of Arendt remains appropriate. We’ve just had Farrage, leader of UKIP (respectable fascism), complaining that stops of foreigners by our immigration cops were despicable and just ‘not the British way’. Farrage is a very likeable performer, maybe not unlike Colonel Blimp – and thus may be very dangerous. Quite what the ‘British way’ is given our vile real history is largely unknown here. Everyone here thinks the denizens of Gibraltar sensible in accepting British rule rather than that of oily Spaniards short on democratic abilities etc.

    We should say that racism is not just a white thing – everyone does the ‘chosen people’ rubbish and debate of the real issues has been lost in political correctness – itself a vile form of superiority. One can even think of some clowns who would accuse Mexico of being racially inspired in laying out the status quo. Even Dennis Healy (Labour oldie) was able to describe those south of the olive line as inveterately corrupt recently in New Statesman. Some Indians in the UK still adhere to their vile caste system. Our politicians urge us to be proud of British heritage, whilst requiring ‘foreign Britishers’ to do tests those born here fail.

    The issue of racism allows politicians to escape dialogue on the real issues, knowing various hints can appeal to our lazy ignorance and prejudice. Only weather in the English Channel of 1558 prevented a slightly darker white colour dominating the world – and possibly a much worse one in racist terms. We need to know more about how what tolerance we have arises and to develop more. Sooner or later we have to declare what we will not tolerate and understand it is not racist to despise miserable treatment of women, others and so on. From what space do we make such claims given racist ignorance is prevalent in all societies? What would a moral science be? – some modern answers can be found at edge.org in the conversations and video sections.

    An important issue for those of us who want fairness and tolerance is how so much racism, sexism and the rest survive longstanding education. Mexico’s scheme is right – until you go to, say, places in the Middle East. How do we create a moral landscape in which love for our nearest and dearest is just one beacon on a hill amongst many others such as the one of fraternal care of the Other? And where does chronic sexist, gay hating, women demeaning religion lie in such a landscape, or neo-liberalism and the rich?
11. Paul August 5, 2013 at 6:40 am

    Sorry – from my italian perspective I don’t see the incoherence (unfortunately).
    It’s the old adage of the frog in the pot of warming water – the dire news trickle down amongst the summer infotainment reports, intermixed with the occasional show of starlets, quasi-nudity, soccer team acquisitions, Berlusconi’s desperate comeback, his 27 yo fiancée, etc,etc.
    The social fabric has frayed long time ago and this nuclearized and unconnected mass of millions of households just isn’t up to any form of organized protest…

    And let’s put it this way: if a competent movement like OWS / Zuccotti Park (THAT was a highpoint) has apparently disintegrated* how can we expect anything similar to ever emerge in southern Europe, where folks traditionally tend to yield to the stronger powers?

    Paul

    * (yes, feeble echoes of that protest just survive on these pages, on zerohedge, amongst the teapartiers, on motherjones…but still not at the level of tension/intensity that would be called to get some real *change*, *real* jobs and not Amazon hand downs)

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