Neue Debatte - Special Edition - Long Essay on Left Strategy #002 - 04/2017 | Page 43
7 Repairing capitalism in Europe?
for consent through enhanced cooperation rather than imposi-
tion of austerity. It is in this sense that this proposal is, indeed,
modest” 21
My heart bleeds! What you are campaigning for cannot even be
called left and emancipatory. It comes close to an ordinary, social
democratic, system stabilizing reform program we had to witness
more than once in the past decades. The European political class
should have been grateful for such a professional proposal yet they
did not seize the chance. What can an academic adviser do to impose
policies? Nothing! You need decision-making power and authority in
high offices. In 2015 you held a high office, negotiating on EU level as
Greek Finance Minister. And yet you experienced political impotence
as a representative of a tributary, bankrupt state. Following this logic
you had to reach out to gain real positions of power inside the EU
administration of Brussels to influence EU politics according to the
Modest Proposal. But there still existed the unsolved problem how to
get there.
7.3 Yanis Varoufakis: Let’s go for capitalist democracy
This is when DIEM25 comes into play although at the first glance the
“Democracy In Europe Movement” was not designed to promote the
“Moderate Proposal”, which for its part does not strive for democra-
tising Europe. DIEM25 aims at democratizing Europe without having
a vision for this political issue. So we have nothing but a handful of
vague, abstract slogans:
One simple, radical idea: Democratise Europe!
For rule by Europe’s peoples!
For government by the demos!
A surge of democracy!
I have searched the documents and speeches. No concretisations, no
problematisation of the main requirement of rule, government and
democratisation: Political power! In the long run of stately based civi-
lisation economic, political and military power have always deter-
mined the state and its social performance. The power aspect has
been left out in the DIEM-Manifesto. Slogans become hollow if they
21
Yanis Varoufakis / Stuart Holland / James K. Galbraith, A Modest Proposal for Resolving the Eurozone Crisis”, Version
4.0, July 2013, last passage (from internet)
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