Social democrats wrongly thought the reforms they won were won for good. In Greece, the lesson has been learned by Syriza
By Leo Panitch
The Guardian, Sunday 12 January 2014
For most of the 20th century, the word "reform" was commonly
associated with securing state protections against the chaotic effects
of capitalist market competition. Today, it is most commonly used to
refer to the undoing of those protections.
This is not merely a
matter of the appropriation of the term by those in the EU and
international lending agencies who are using it as code for demands that
Greece, for instance, make further cuts in public sector jobs and
services. It is also the way the word has become increasingly used by
the parties of the centre left. Thus, the newly elected leader of Italy's Democratic party
(the successor to what was western Europe's largest communist party),
Matteo Renzi, has called for the government to be even more determined
in implementing its economic reform package. The package involves
reducing public expenditure and changing regulations to make labour
markets more flexible and attract foreign investment.
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