We previously published a guest post by Panagiotis Sotiris on Linda Katehi and the neoliberal reform of Greek Higher Education. Here we just link to his analysis of the current Greek situation: "From Despair to Resistance." Excerpts:
Greece is becoming the test site for an extreme case of neoliberal social engineering. The terms of the new bail-out package from the European Union, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund, the so-called Troika, equal a carpet bombing of whatever is left of collective social rights and represent an extreme attempt to bring wage levels and workplace situation back to the 1960s....
According to the dominant narrative the problem with Greece is a chronic lack of export competitiveness which demands a new approach based on cheap labor and doing away with any environmental restrictions, urban planning regulations and archeological protections that could discourage potential investors. It aims at turning Greece into a big Special Economic Zone for investors. What is not mentioned in this narrative is that not only the social cost is going to be tremendous but also that low labour cost competitiveness necessarily would lead to a hopeless 'race to the bottom', since there are always going to be countries, even in the close vicinity such as Bulgaria, with lower wages. Moreover, it is a well known fact that competitiveness does not rely only on labour cost but also on productivity and this has to do with infrastructure, knowledge, collective experience and ability, exactly what is being dramatically eroded by the current economic and social situation in Greece.
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