Anarchist Weekly

The current economic crisis in Europe can be compared to a couple in a street building a three storey mansion in a street made up of one storey dwellings and then forcing the residents of the one storey dwellings to stop paying their electricity and gas bills to meet the mortgage repayments of the couple who built the three storey mansion.

Article by Joe Toscano

The scramble by members of the European Union to appoint technocrats as leaders of Greece and Italy highlights how little input electors have on government policy in the 21st century. Unfortunately they have forgotten what is good for the markets isn’t as most governments believe, good for the people they rule.

The current economic crisis in Europe can be compared to a couple in a street building a three storey mansion in a street made up of one storey dwellings and then forcing the residents of the one storey dwellings to stop paying their electricity and gas bills to meet the mortgage repayments of the couple who built the three storey mansion.

The people of Italy and Greece are seething with uncontrolled anger at seeing governments that theoretically represent their interests squandering their taxes to bolster the fortunes of banks and corporations who found themselves at the pointy end of the Global Financial Crisis because of their greed and unconscionable behaviour.

Irrespective of how many technocrats are appointed to European parliaments, irrespective of how many austerity measures are introduced by parliaments that dance to the tune of the corporate parliamentary puppet masters, irrespective of how many governments of national unity are formed to save corporate capitalism’s bacon the people in the streets will ultimately determine government policy.

The parliamentary puppet masters seem to have forgotten that ultimate political authority in a democracy rests in the hands of the people, not the state, the corporate sector, the bureaucracy or the government of the day. When working up the right channels fails, when the ballot box does not reflect the will of the people, when parliament is hijacked by unaccountable corporations and societies institutions are subverted by that small section of society that owns the means of production, distribution, exchange and communication to maximise their profits, the people are left with no other option but to use direct action to put ultimate political authority back into the hands of the people.

Original Source, Issue No.957 of the Anarchist Age Weekly Review which covers the two week period 21st November - 4th December. Latest issue here.