tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post2571324608260863841..comments2024-03-06T06:34:42.881-05:00Comments on EconoSpeak: Full Employment and the Myth of the General StrikeUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post-38289272163874551442016-12-12T14:08:56.549-05:002016-12-12T14:08:56.549-05:00Good point, Calgacus. All we know is what happened...Good point, Calgacus. All we know is what happened. What <i>might</i> have happened instead is a matter for speculation. Your scenario sounds reasonable but we'll never know.Sandwichmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post-73117571922931381562016-12-10T22:22:59.476-05:002016-12-10T22:22:59.476-05:00The truth, though, is that even if Bernie Sanders ...<i>The truth, though, is that even if Bernie Sanders had been the Democratic Party nominee and even if he won a landslide victory along with majorities in both houses of congress -- Sanders, like Syriza in Greece, would have been forced to yield before the threat of a general strike of capital.</i><br /><br />I disagree. Such defeatism was the cause of Syriza's failure. Syriza's negotiation strategy succeeded, achieving the best plausible outcome, a negotiated Grexit offer. As Varoufakis later revealed, Schauble said that if he were in Varoufakis's shoes, he would not have accepted the (other) offers he was giving him. But unlike Varoufakis, Schauble and the people of Greece in the referendum, Tsipras succumbed to fearful, muddled thinking. As the left so often does, he snatched defeat out of the jaws of victory.<br /><br />"Capital strike" was an imaginary hobgoblin in the case of Greece and would have been far more so in the US had Sanders & Co won. The power of the capitalists is a joke compared to that of a united US government, but nearly the only ones who still understand this are the capitalists (like Trump) themselves.<br /><br />One cannot say often enough:<br /><br />"The most potent weapon in the hands of an oppressor is the mind of the oppressed."Calgacushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06031818010224747000noreply@blogger.com