[Peace-discuss] 4 Lessons From Iceland & Greece For Movements Fighting Austerity

[David Johnson]

4 Lessons From Iceland & Greece For Movements Fighting Austerity

Description: Photo by Louisa Gouliamaki in AFP


By George Lakey,
<http://wagingnonviolence.org/feature/4-lessons-iceland-greece-movements-fig
hting-austerity/> www.wagingnonviolence.org
July 10th, 2015

 

Photo by Louisa Gouliamaki in AFP

After dining on cod on July 7, European leaders representing the economic
elites went back to work figuring out how to run over the Greek majority in
Europe's first democracy. The serving of cod, presumably from Iceland, is
ironic considering that it was the Icelanders who six years ago defied
European investors - and by doing so saved their economy and bolstered their
well-being. Movements for justice around the world have much to learn from
keeping in mind both of these national dramas.

When Iceland's 1 percent brought the economy to its historic crisis in 2008,
Icelanders could not get any money from their ATMs. It was the worst
economic collapse in Europe since World War II.

When Greece's 1 percent brought the economy to its downward economic spiral
in 2010, Europe's 1 percent stepped in and Greece's centrist government
accepted the imposition of austerity measures. The result of the ensuing
five years of austerity? Greece now threatens to beat Iceland's record as
Europe's worst economic collapse.

When Iceland fell apart it initially followed the rules, turning to the
International Monetary Fund for help. However, the people brought down the
ruling government and installed a leftist government that defied the IMF's
prescription. Iceland quickly rebounded, avoiding high unemployment and
preventing people's loss of their mortgaged homes. Iceland's democracy
<http://wagingnonviolence.org/feature/icelanders-force-accountability-for-ba
nks-why-cant-we/> refused to bow to the IMF's austerity requirement, and
bailed out the people instead of the banks.

In contrast to the results in the United States and Europe of post-2008
austerity, where the wealth gap has widened, Iceland's solution produced a
shrinking of its wealth gap. Iceland increased its social safety net,
increased taxes on the rich and reduced taxes on low-income people. In the
U.N.'s 2012 World Happiness Report, Iceland came in number 1 in the world.

During a research trip to Iceland in 2014 I interviewed education professor
Hanna Ragnarsdottir and asked her about the impact of the collapse on
Icelandic education. "We had to tighten our belts, or course," she
responded, looking solemn and pausing in thought for a moment. Then, to my
surprise, she told me that they avoided laying off teachers or other staff.
They did leave vacant some positions and put off new projects, but "now
things are looking up again," she said.

While there are many economic differences between Iceland and Greece, I'm
struck by the overwhelming determination in both countries to take charge of
their own economies. Their popular movements understand that austerity is
actually a weapon in the class war. In Iceland, the majority was able to
reclaim self-determination and create a left solution to their economic
crisis - and it worked. Nobel prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz said,
"What Iceland did was right. It would have been wrong to burden future
generations with the mistakes of the financial system."

At the moment, the Greek majority is fighting for the same freedom, but the
famously undemocratic European Union has no intention of allowing anything
except its 1 percent solution.

What does this mean for social movements in the United States and elsewhere?

Make transparent the costs of the austerity weapon.

Health economist David Stuckler's statistical studies have shown that
austerity triggers psychological depression and predictably increases the
incidence of heart attacks and suicides.

Fortunately, when the IMF urged cuts in health care Stuckler and his
colleagues were called in by the Icelandic leftist government for a
consultation. The government learned that going along with the IMF would
mean increased disease, injury and death for Icelanders.

Using international statistics, Stuckler demonstrates that the United States
and other countries have been suffering unnecessary disease, injury and
death by allowing the economic elite to run the economy. Social movements
could empower nurses, doctors and social workers to tell the truth about the
terrible price to our health.

Don't wait: Create crises to expose the role of the economic elite.

In both Iceland and Greece the majority allowed the minority to create their
crisis through wrecking their economies. The U.S. majority up until now
seems willing for the 1 percent to wreck our economy through its climate
policies.

As
<http://wagingnonviolence.org/feature/surviving-ups-downs-social-movements/>
strategist Bill Moyer pointed out in his 2002 book "Doing Democracy," the
role of social movements is to create a mini-crisis that alerts the majority
to what has been going on behind its back. That's what the campaigns of the
civil rights movement did in Birmingham, Selma and elsewhere. Some activists
do understand the need for a "crisis" and try to induce one by creating
one-off mass actions where the power-holders gather, but mass bashes at
summits and political conventions have diminishing value.

The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and Martin Luther King Jr.
showed that a crisis created by a nonviolent campaign is the more effective
wake-up call to the majority. Strategic 1 percenters sometimes realize this
and attempt to head off crises that expose them by giving way, making
compromises and accepting our demands. The movement gains whichever response
the economic elite makes: either concrete gains that give a despairing
people hope that action matters, or stonewalling that provokes a deepening
crisis that puts a brighter spotlight on the greed and incompetence of the
economic elite.

It's easy at a distance to say that Icelanders and Greeks could have saved
themselves a whole lot of trouble by mounting focused mass nonviolent direct
action campaigns to stop the abuses of the elites in their countries, for
example, the avoidance of taxpaying in Greece. If the series of nonviolent
campaigns grew -
<http://wagingnonviolence.org/feature/how-swedes-and-norwegians-broke-the-po
wer-of-the-1-percent/> as they did in Norway and Sweden in the 1920s and
1930s - the economic elite would have found their position eroding and a
power shift might have occurred. A tiny glimpse: Norwegians can go online
and read the tax return of anyone in the country. Those are the kinds of
tools made available once the majority has established a real democracy.

Build alternative institutions that build confidence, the skills of
cooperation, and teamwork.

Middle class Americans are generally brought up to be competitive with each
other. At the same time, they are socialized to accept the overall norm of
fitting in, including joining the larger agenda of the owning class. That's
one reason why middle class white anti-racist activists compete with each
other ("Who's more politically correct than whom?") while
<http://wagingnonviolence.org/feature/white-allies-can-learn-allies-gay-righ
ts-struggle/> refraining from campaigns that could actually dislodge racist
institutional patterns.

Dealing with one's own compulsion to be competitive is tough, but a useful
arena for change is community, and we can create community in our living
choices, activist organizations and co-ops.

Assist the majority to realize that the economic elite plays by different
rules.

The willingness of national elites in Iceland and Greece to support
international muscle to hold on to wealth at the price of the suffering and
death of their compatriots can be hard for majorities to wrap their minds
around. Nationalism still has its appeal, and it is especially challenging
for people raised middle class to be duly cynical about their masters
-ESPECIALLY in the United States, as well as in other countries.

Solidarity is the best alternative to nationalism.

 

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