From resistance to hegemony: The struggle against austerity and the need for a new historical bloc (original) (raw)

Austerity has been the main battle cry from the part of the forces of capital. New cuts in public spending, new cuts in pensions, new cuts in social expenditure, mass layoffs of public sector workers, all in the name of dealing with increased budget deficits and increased debt-burden. This was intensified after the eruption of the global capitalist crisis in 2007-8. All over the world, political and economic elites along with media pundits have been singling out public spending as the main obstacle to economic recovery. Deficit reductions have become the point of condensation of political conflicts and party rivalries. The call for budget cuts and deficit reductions has been accompanied by new calls for abolishing whatever has been left of labour rights. In all advanced capitalist societies, we can hear the same battle cry against the supposed 'rigidities' of the labour market and the 'privileges' enjoyed by public sector employees and certain segments of the workforce. Liberalizing markets and removing obstacles to entrepreneurial activity have been at the centre of political debates and policy discussions. The attempt to save the banking system has led to is an obvious difference in the extent of and scope of the attack in the US and European Union and in particular the countries of the Eurozone. In contrast to the incompletion of any attempt towards a 'welfare State' in the 20 th century in the US, along with the extent and depth of the attack against workers after the late 1970s, things were different in the European Union. In Europe, despite the effects of forced market liberalization, privatizations and labour market reforms, there were still some social gains and rights in place, which European capitalists regard as an obstacle to profitability. The country that seems to have suffered less during the period of the crisis, in terms of recession, Germany, is also the country that was the first to impose aggressive measures of austerity, real wage reductions and increased flexibility, in the first half of the 2000s, under social-democratic governments. 2 Moreover, we cannot think about contemporary austerity policies without reference to the particular conjuncture of the global capitalist crisis that erupted in the 2007-8.