Time To Say Enough Is Enough
By TU Senan –July 16, 2015
TU Senan
‘Reform’ could be the world’s most abused word. Its meaning was defined as “make changes in order to improve”. Now it has come to mean “to rip off, normally by stealth and sleight of hand”. The Greeks are forced to pay with their quality of life and even their lives for the so-called reform pushed by the Troikans. The right-wing Tory government in Britain hopes its reforms will undo generations of workers’ rights and improvements.
These processes reveal what Marxist political economists have long argued. That the state is an instrument of the class which has hegemony in a society – today that means it is the tool of capitalist class. In the name of ‘reforms’ the capitalist class pushes the state to punish the workers in order to save their bacon in this period of severe global economic crisis.
In the face of such a savage offensive the lack of opposition is staggering. The vast majority of the ruling parties – the so-called winnable parties – are capitalist parties who accept more or less all such ‘reforms’. They may differ slightly from this or that policy. Some once described themselves as social-democrats. But almost all of them share the same capitalist logic with no fundamental differences.
Modern democracy, we are told, provides a limited choice so we oscillate between supporting these parties. We are forced to choose between the Devil and Beelzebub, one promising to chop off one hand, the other promising to cut off ‘just’ one leg. It can be further “complicated” as they may also give us the choice of weapon – we can choose a knife or machete for the job, for example. What we are not allowed to debate, or discuss, let alone allowed to choose, is the alternative of rejecting and escaping this vicious cycle, limbs intact.