Greece: they must not pass | 453 comments (453 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

Re: An Orbán for Greece (4.00 / 3)

Well, Pasok will re-group after the leadership question is solved. Pasok basis is the private and public sector employees. So it's mainly lower middle class, which not only still exists but it expands as parts of the upper middle class are re-homogenising with lower middle class. But that is a long talk and it's not confined to Greece.

For Dimar let me have a different opinion. It's a typical poll bubble created by the media and fed with the dissapointment of voters. We' ve seen that before in Greece, France, Germany etc. Maybe an one-off nice election performance and that's it. Moreover, Dimar is currently heavily funded by a media and shipping tycoon, a fellow Kretan of yours, as a means to support Samaras by weakening Pasok. We' ve seen that before with a previous leader of the same fraction of the Left.

I wish things would be as you describe them, but they aren't.

Anyway, election day is coming (and with it Darkness).

"Eurozone leaders have turned a €50bn Greek solvency problem into a €1,000bn existential crisis for the European Union." David Miliband

by Kostis Papadimitriou on Tue Feb 14th, 2012 at 12:35:21 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: An Orbán for Greece (none / 1)

Private and Public sector employees, are now mostly precarious workers, and poor by yesterday's standards. I think we should forget the previous social structure of Greece, that is unless there is some sort of a fight back. PASOK has nothing to offer to its former clients. It's political remnants are heading to all conceivable political directions.

DIMAR is a bubble. I agree. But if there are elections soon, it will be a bubble that will have secured political clout. This will preserve it and transform it - maybe. I'm not sure. In Argentina the local PASOK created its own left offshoots and helped society. I think that the current PASOK is even more deeply corrupt than the Peronists, if one could imagine that. Should some of the not-so-obviously-corrupt cadres start their own party, perhaps they might preserve the party. Perhaps.

The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom - William Blake

by talos (mihalis at gmail dot com) on Tue Feb 14th, 2012 at 05:28:26 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: An Orbán for Greece (4.00 / 3)

I think what you and Kostis are disagreeing about is the extent to which the patronage network which PASOK represents is still operative, or even dormant, rather than having been destroyed beyond repair.

Part of the point is that alternative political parties need to be part of a patronage network or they will be a bubble. After one or two election cycles they will fizzle out and whatever's left of the old PASOK network will pick up where PASOK left off in 2009.

tens of millions of people stand to see their lives ruined because the bureaucrats at the ECB don't understand introductory economics -- Dean Baker

by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Tue Feb 14th, 2012 at 06:09:19 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Greece: they must not pass | 453 comments (453 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

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