Marxism Fringe 2012

‘The left in Europe: workers’ governments or extreme opposition?’

Despite its narrow defeat in the June elections in Greece, the leftwing Syriza organisation is jubilant. It has every reason to be so - it has tripled its vote in a matter of a few years, and is now the main opposition party, with a substantial share of parliamentary seats. They brim with confidence: “This is only a temporary state of affairs,” says Syriza’s Panagiotis Lafazanis. “These barbaric measures cannot continue. Very soon everything will change.”

Indeed it could. This organisation’s remarkable electoral ascendancy is to be welcomed- it is a sign that the Greek masses are not supine, are looking for ways to fight back. But what if Syriza had won and - the arcane political arrangements of the Greek constitution allowing - had been able to form a government? Should it have?

Mike Macnair opens a discussion on the call from much of the left for ‘workers’ governments’, the dead end of national-Keynesian solutions to the crisis and the prospect of strategic workers’ unity across Europe