A short essay
Spanish polling, heating up for the winter 2015 General Elections, show Podemos ('We Can') with 12% support, now third behind the Social Democrats (PSOE) and Spain's main right wing party, the Peoples Party (PP), both of which have around 20%. As late as May, Podemos, the PSOE and the PP were even in the polls - with Podemos rising. Most commentators (but not the leader of Podemos, Pablo Iglesias) put the Podemos slump in the opinion polls down to the defeat of Syriza's anti austerity policy in Greece. Pablo Iglesias's response to Syriza's defeat is, however, clearly not convincing a large slice of the Spanish electorate. He supports Alexis Tsipras and, most particularly Tsipras's call for a new mandate from the Greek people, while simultaneously claiming that Spain's 13% of the Eurozone economy makes its possible leverage with the EU leadership to win the battle for an end to austerity much more likely to succeed than Greece's 3.5%.
The core of the Podemos dilemma remains. How to build a popular majority for an anti-austerity left in Southern Europe - while remaining part of a united, commercial and financial continental unity, expressed most directly through a shared currency.
This is a look at Podemos's main economic and social policy, rooted in a definite view of the overall historical balance of social forces in Europe - following the struggles of the 20th century.
'Clearly in the present conditions this (the Podemos policy) has nothing to do with revolution, or transition to socialism in the historic sense of those terms. But it does become feasible to aim at sovereign processes that would limit the power of finance, spur the transformation of production, ensure a wider redistribution of wealth and push for more democratic configuration of European institutions.' (PI, NLR, May/June 2015)
It is necessary to return later to the new concept of 'sovereignty' as used by the left in Spain and Greece. But first Pablo Igelsias's use of 'sovereignty' (see above) would be termed by him as a typical and valuable 'transversal' initiative. The word 'transversal' is borrowed from the Argentinian philosopher Laclau (another self described 'post marxist' personality who also received his post graduate degree from Essex University!) Transversal is an extension of Gramsci's thoughts (who never went anywhere near Essex) on 'hegemony'. Gramsci argued that especially in the conditions of the developed West after WW1, it was a crucial goal for socialists to 'make the political weather', to establish, through thought and action, the prevailing 'common sense' in society in order to win the nation culturally and institutionally, as the key to the eventual conquering of state power. But Laclau and Pablo Iglesias go much further. By transversal they imply the requirement to base public politics on the ambiguities and 'openings' offered by mainstream parties of the status quo, the elites, the general public as expressed through popular media etc. It is not effective to fight on questions that simply isolate the would be radicals.
So, for example, Pablo Iglesias promotes his own personal leadership role in the media as a way of inserting himself and Podemos into the current fetish for the study and acclamation of public personalities - while using Latin American analogies on the role of popular power and individual leaders to give the process a left flavour. In fact the Podemos leadership has made a major effort not to be identified as a radical left party. It deliberately avoids taking issue on questions like the monarchy. This is transversal politics.
Pablo Iglesias's analysis of the origins of Podemos, as it captured the 'Indignatos' from their mass occupations of the Spanish public squares, is that the movement was, essentially, a middle class and lower middle class phenomena. He argues that not only was this rising separate from the traditional left actions and the remains of the Spanish working class trade union movement, but the marginalisation of these 'traditional' forces was a precondition for the space that opened up for the new rebellion. As might be expected in some respects Pablo Iglesias's analysis of the sources of Podemos's rapid growth is shared by most Spanish political commentators.
There are many arguments that might be had with the Podemos leaders' political theories - so long as it is recognised that such a discussion takes place in the context of the Podemos initiative which has become one of the most successful and creative political organisations in the history of post WW2 progressive organisations in Europe. Of course it will be tested to the limit, given the fear it has provoked in the Spanish establishment and among the EU princes. Every ounce of Podemos's flexibility and political intelligence will be required if it is to move to its stated aim of surpassing the PSOE and then to its next 'moment' in dealing with power across Spain.
Comments on aspects of the 'transversal.'
There is a serious gap in Pablo Iglesias's understanding of the relationship between the people of the squares, the Indignatos', and the experience, practise and campaigns of the more traditional centres of the Spanish working class. The issue is not to decide between them. Transversal thinking is not just a possible tool to deal with Spain's establishment. Rather, a transcendent analysis recognises the potential of a politics of recomposition and of a new centre emerging in that recomposition of Spain's subordinate classes, which overcomes division between the parts of the majority. A new 'common sense' a new hegemony is to be won first there - in order then to win the whole of society. It could be argued that Podemos's first tasks are not so much to 'overcome' the PSOE, but rather to consolidate the rebellion among all those who struggle and who have struggled, in order to overcome PSOE.
Similarly Pablo Iglesias's theory of leadership is contradictory. (Of course, he would insist.) Except the contradiction has moved to create friction and fissures in the camp of the rebellion! The very open base of Podemos, with its supporters' primaries for the selection of candidates etc., was designed to show the informal and open nature of Podemos. But Podemos has begun to develop a casual, informal leadership who lead because they know each other from the beginning. As Podemos grows, embracing more than the Indignatos their decision making legitimacy is now coming under pressure among the ranks. Podemos is already no longer the newest kid on the bloc. That, and a reduced media presence, as the right have now set up its own 'new' anti-corruption party, means that Podemos have lost some of their media sparkle.
And Europe?
The absolutely central question for Spain's anti-austerity movements' success, is and will increasingly be, its relationship with the Eurozone, a subject, it appears, that cannot be fully transversalised! Podemos (and Syriza) start well in their complex and significant use of the political concept of sovereignty, playing on a deep popular consciousness (and an even deeper history) to great strength. Pablo Iglesias initially borrowed the term from left-populist movements in Latin America. The anti-colonial aspect of the social struggle in LA is a direct consequence of the unfinished revolutions for independence in the 19th and early 20th century; unfinished because the new world super power, the USA, after supporting the removal of the Spanish, dominated and still largely dominates, its own 'backyard. Syriza in Greece found this a fertile analogy in respect to their ruling class, acting just as an LA oligarchy, through tight family control of the economy and politics and social life. The weight of land ownership in the economy added to the parallels. There were also some similarities in the establishment set up in traditional Spain.
But in Spain and in Greece the struggle against US was and is submerged in favour of two new meanings ascribed to sovereignty. The first is the drawing out of the analogy between the LA and the Spanish, Greek and some of the Italian dominant classes in the fact of their networking and corruption, particularly in politics. The self-seeking, nepotistic Spanish political class are particularly despised across Spain. They have become the ultimate dysfunctional family, although both Italy's Mafia and Greece's Shipowners would give them a run for their money! Second is the widespread feeling of the unaccountable, remote and unalterable, neo-liberal character of EU institutions; which feels similar to the occupation of a foreign power. This is not at all the same as a desire to remove the nation from a European economic and political entity. It has some parallels in the feelings of underdeveloped parts of developed and thriving nations. And the response to this experience is the call for more sovereignty.
This is, however, a special type of sovereignty. The call for sovereignty in Spain, in Greece and now in parts of Italy, is not used to call for national separation from other European nations (although in Spain and Italy it does raise some historically regionalised battles) rather it is used to underline the general powerlessness of the ordinary people. They are protesting their lack of access to the potential of the union in Europe, in terms of their rights, of their political representation and of their economic security. It is more an argument that in the EU arrangement, the European people should have sovereignty over the caste of bureaucrats and politicians and bankers that now run the show. Although there is much ambiguity in this melange of thoughts and beliefs among the population as whole, much exploited no doubt by transversal leftists, the call for sovereignty is not yet at all a return to the defense of national interests above all others. (Something of this process might also be seen in the campaign around Scottish independence in the UK.) Of course nothing is permanent. Already some European far right parties are pushing successfully in a chauvinist direction - most alarmingly in France.
Last June, in a dramatic moment in European history, Alexis Tsipras was speared by the horns of what seemed an irresolvable dilemma; the Greek people had just voted overwhelmingly 'no' to the demands of the Troika. At that exact moment he decided to accept the Troika's demands. He knew that 'no' meant leaving the Euro. Unfortunately he calculated that the fight to leave the Euro would be worse than capitulation.
Podemos argues like Syriza used to, that they too can build a popular anti-austerity movement across the EU, composed of nations and movements and experts, which will defeat the current EU leadership of Germany and the Troika. That seems much less possible now that Syriza has failed and a new economic crisis threatens. In any case the Podemos policy, a bigger version of the Syriza policy, seems to many of its previous supporters in Spain to have already failed. Podemos will need to rethink how to present its policy on Europe.
What is certain is it is utterly useless to simply denounce the Syriza retreat as 'a betrayal' (while no doubt claiming that some other group, party, leader would never have done such a thing.) And a similar barb aimed at Podemos's policy would be equally useless. This blog has argued from the beginning of the Syriza government that they would not be able to implement their anti-austerity platform and stay in the Euro. And that means that Alexis Tsipras did make the wrong choice. But the point is 'why?' What are the fundamentals here? And what would be a feasible, potentially popular policy on Europe?
The big majority of Greeks and of Spanish people support 'an Ever Closer Union' in Europe - to use the phrase that British Prime Minister Cameron wants to ditch. In principle that view is right. Just to take the current catastrophe in Syria and North Africa and the exodus of refugees fleeing war and want, how could this even begin to be managed in a humanitarian way without some sort of European unity? It is politically perverse to oppose a powerful and systematic, institutional-based co-operation across the continent for the purpose of dealing with the current humanitarian crisis, the wreckage of 2008, climate change, or for getting a grip on big capital. None of these necessities can be achieved solely at the level of the European nation state anymore - if they ever could. In 1921 Trotsky supported a European Union, a federation to deal with the results of WW1 in Europe and to prevent domination by the US. He argued only revolutionaries would be able to build the impetus for such a change, but thirty years on, after the devastation of WW2, it was big capital that initiated their own type of European unity. And it is capital that has now not only outgrown the nation state but even genuine continental wide cooperation; and from their global vantage point, big capital has inevitably negated its own pro Europe policy to turn into the 'enemy within'. Indeed, the modern European cooperation that it has created is overwhelmingly in defence of its own global interests! That is exactly what it means when politicians like Blair and Cameron insist that Europe and the EU 'embrace' globalisation. Big capital want the EU to be another India, Africa or China, particularly when it comes to the 'flexibility' of labour and the the freedom of capital. An ever closer union of the people of Europe would be an anathema to the global corporations, and to their European instrument, the Troika, and to the leadership of every European state and every European mainstream party, with the partial exception of Greece.
What is the essence of the matter?
So we start from the indispensable need for (at least) a European level of multinational cooperation to deal with major problems facing European societies and their people. And that fact is already part of a deep understanding among the majority of the people in most European countries. They are not deluded in their belief. They do not have a false understanding of the world they live in. The problem is the type of European collaboration that they are saddled with.
It is inevitable that the dominant social, political and economic force in the world will be driving the European institutions do exist. Unremarkably therefore those institutions overwhelmingly consist of economic and (subordinate) political mechanisms which have been created ultimately to defend big capital. Therefore the call for sovereignty of the people in Europe can be a thoroughly progressive call and should be promoted by those interested in challenging the domination of Europe's current rulers. Further, decisions about whether to restore aspects of national sovereignty, for example whether to join or to leave the Euro, are defensible or not depending on whether they promote or not the advance of a European sovereignty of the people of Europe as a whole over Europe's current leadership. (In that context Greece's withdrawal from the Euro would have opened the door to wider and deeper challenges in the whole of Europe to Europe's current crop of imperial princelings.) That approach in turn widens out to a policy, which at either national or international, level promotes movements that already fight for the peoples' sovereignty in Europe - by organising in favour of key international actions (like opening borders to refugees, or supporting free health care against US 'free' trade deals.)
All this is obvious and clear. And it can include the fact that sometimes the route to furthering the sovereignty of the people of Europe is by breaking up, or at least away, from the current EU institutions that act as a barrier to such a sovereignty, at least as a short term perspective. But this is not a set of rigid rules. Each specific social and political context has to be examined to work out what route progressive thought and action should take. A strategic frame supports the concrete analysis of the concrete situation. Such a frame cannot be used as a set of stop/go traffic lights.
A very popular initiative in Spain is the call that Podemos has made for a public audit of the debt - where it is from - who borrowed it - and who is repaying it. This could be widened into an examination of the role of the IMF, the ECB and the Council of Ministers, the EU's current leadership, in promoting loans, then distributing wealth and then forcing the repayment of the debt in the EU. Let the Spanish people see if a new leadership of Europe is required.
Postscript:
In the UK, Cameron's 'in/out' referendum on the EU, to be held by 2017, is designed to recompose the Tory party, the main party reflecting ruling class interest in the UK, against the impact of the internal 'eurosceptics and of UKIP, with its one MP and 4 million rightward leaning votes. This is a critical requirement as the traditional British party system is currently suffering a major crisis, which up to now has included the Tories.
A major component of the UK party crisis involves sections of the voter's attitudes towards immigration. (Cameron has just announced the laughable but so called 'generous' total of 4000 Syrian refugees a year who are now allowed to come into Britain up to the next election.) The referendum looks likely to centre on the question of attitudes to the European 'free movement' of labour. In the British context this is an absolute diversion. The two immediately critical issues for the future of Britain and its nations are to roll back austerity, which means a toe to toe fight with the City of London (not Brussels in the first instance) and to reform Britain's dying political system, with its completely unrepresentative House of Commons and its bloated, parasitic, 800 plus 'Lords' - a 'second chamber' of pure, political putrefaction and an insult to the modern world.
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