What happens when...

[Yonivore]

...there are more people taking than giving.


http://d.yimg.com/a/p/rids/20100505/i/r3468599544.jpg?x=400&y=281&q=85&sig=DhQoG6.DWDkOiGi1mY4orQ--

Expropriate the Expropriators! (http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2010/05/026229.php)


In Greece, Communists are leading demonstrations and a general strike against austerity measures that are to be imposed as a condition of the European Community (in particular, Germany) bailing out that nation. Several people have been killed in the riots. This Communist banner was hung below the Parthenon:


http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/media/greek_stand_713793a.jpg

In Marxist theory, the Communist Party represented the interests of productive workers, the value of whose labor is expropriated by others. That was wrong, but at least it had a certain coherence. Greek Communists (and more generally, 21st century socialists) stand for something quite different: the "right" to be supported by the labor of others (in the Greek case, Germans); the "right" to be a sponge, forever; the "right" to be an exploiter. It would be hard to think of a less attractive political program.
I would say this is where we're headed but, hopefully, Gunter Grass was right when, in 1965, he said, "The dark night of fascism is always supposed to be descending on the United States, but somehow it keeps landing in Europe." [Also quoted at Powerline.]

[ChumpDumper]

You do know communists and fascists are two different things, right?

[Winehole23]

Raise taxes, cut state services. We'll be there in a few years. I wonder how we'll react.

[Winehole23]

In Greece they might even cut pay. One key to President McKinley's successful handling of the Depression of 1920-21 was his successful emphasis on the importance of wage flexibility. Sticky wages can retard a comeback.

[Yonivore]

Raise taxes, cut state services. We'll be there in a few years. I wonder how we'll react.
I think California will be the canary in the coal mine on this one.

[Winehole23]

I think California will be the canary in the coal mine on this one.Maybe. I'm more inclined to think we're all canaries. Almost all, anyway.

[Stringer_Bell]

So...Europe is bad and Republicans are good? w00t!

[Winehole23]

Maybe Europe is the canary and we are the miners.

[mogrovejo]

It's been delightful to assist, except for the expected savagery of the leftists that lead to the murder of those workers. It's like 1989 again except now I'm old enough to appreciate it and this time around is the implosion of the democratic tyrannies and not oligarchic ones.

It's been hilarious to see the same guys who just 6 months ago wouldn't shut up with how evident it was that more public investment was needed to overcome the "crisis" now trying to explain that the priority must be to reduce the public investment and government expenses to overcome the "crisis". Keynes used to say that "in the long run we are all dead", but it seems that the long run arrived and we're still alive - and the keynesians are now supremely disoriented.

It's going to get even better because the raise in taxes has been insignificant (2% in VAT in Greece), but it's going to get even better when the know-nothings realize that they need to bring taxes down because otherwise they won't be able to attract the high-end professionals and the entrepreneurs they need to have decent economic growth + effectively combat the black market.

As usual, the left, mugged by the reality - facts are reactionary as Revel would say - and running out of arguments resorts, comme d'habitude, to exercising violence over innocent people. Truly pathetic, these thugs.


Greek Communists (and more generally, 21st century socialists) stand for something quite different: the "right" to be supported by the labor of others (in the Greek case, Germans); the "right" to be a sponge, forever; the "right" to be an exploiter. It would be hard to think of a less attractive political program.

The 20th century ones were just the same. Of course it's not politically attractive - that's why the destiny of every socialist society is either the "counter-revolution" (like it's happening in Greece) or the dictatorship and the terrorism d'État (like it's happening in Venezuela or happened in every XX century communist country).