Explosive anger is spilling out onto the streets of Europe. The meltdown of the global economy is igniting massive social unrest in a region that has long been a symbol of political stability and social cohesion.
It's not a new trend: A wave of upheaval is spreading from the poorer countries on the periphery of the global economy to the prosperous core.
Over the past few years, a series of riots spread across what is patronizingly known as the Third World. Furious mobs have raged against skyrocketing food and energy prices, stagnating wages and unemployment in India, Senegal, Yemen, Indonesia, Morocco, Cameroon, Brazil, Panama, the Philippines, Egypt, Mexico and elsewhere.
For the most part, those living in wealthier countries took little notice. But now, with the global economy crashing down around us, people in even the wealthiest nations are mad as hell and reacting violently to what they view as an inadequate response to their tumbling economies.
The Telegraph (UK) warned last month that protests over governments' handling of the crisis "are widespread and gathering pace," and "may spark a new revolution":
A depression triggered in America is being played out in Europe with increasing violence, and other forms of social unrest are spreading. In Iceland, a government has fallen. Workers have marched in Zaragoza, as Spanish unemployment heads towards 20 percent. There have been riots and bloodshed in Greece, protests in Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary and Bulgaria. The police have suppressed public discontent in Russia and will be challenged again at large gatherings this weekend.
Consider a snapshot of a single week of unrest, courtesy of the Guardian:
Greece: "There are many wellsprings of the serial protests rolling across Europe. In Athens, it was students and young people who suddenly mobilized to turn parts of the city into no-go areas. They were sick of the lack of jobs and prospects, the failings of the education system and seized with pessimism over their future.
"This week it was the farmers' turn, rolling their tractors out to block the motorways, main road and border crossings across the Balkans to try to obtain better procurement prices for their produce."
Latvia: "The old Baltic trading city had seen nothing like it since the happy days of kicking out the Russians and overthrowing communism two decades ago. More than 10,000 people converged on the 13th century cathedral to show the Latvian government what they thought of its efforts at containing the economic crisis. The peaceful protest morphed into a late-night rampage as a minority headed for the parliament, battled with riot police and trashed parts of the old city. The following day, there were similar scenes in Vilnius, the Lithuanian capital next door."
France: "Burned-out cars, masked youths, smashed shop windows and more than a million striking workers. The scenes from France are familiar, but not so familiar to President Nicolas Sarkozy, confronting the first big wave of industrial unrest of his time in the Elysée Palace.
"France, meanwhile, is moving into recession, and unemployment is going up. The latest jobless figures were to have been released yesterday, but were held back, apparently for fear of inflaming the protests."
Iceland: "Proud of its status as one of the world's most developed, most productive and most equal societies, Iceland is in the throes of what is, by its staid standards, a revolution.
"Riot police in Reykjavik, the coolest of capitals. Building bonfires in front of the world's oldest parliament. The yogurt flying at the free market men who have run the country for decades and brought it to its knees."
Britain (via the Times of London): "Wildcat strikes flared at more than 19 sites across the country in response to claims that British tradesmen were being barred from construction jobs by contractors using cheaper foreign workers."
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.Russia (via Al-Jazeera): "Thousands of protesters have rallied across Russia to criticize the government's economic policies and its response to the global financial crisis.
"Russian police forcefully broke up many of the anti-government protests on Saturday, arresting dozens of demonstrators
At least in Western Europe, cries of "burn the shit down!" are being heard in countries with some of the highest standards of living in the world -- states with adequate social safety nets; countries where all citizens have access to decent health care and heavily subsidized educations. Places where minimum wages are also living wages, and a dignified retirement is in large part guaranteed.
The far ends of the ideological spectrum appear to be gaining currency as the crisis develops, and people grow increasingly hostile toward the politics of the status quo.
The Financial Times quotes Olivier Besancenot, a young leader of "France's extreme left," promising "to reinvent and re-establish the anti-capitalist project." "We want the established powers to be blown apart," Besancenot said. Europe's far right is gaining momentum, too, using the economy and populist outrage over immigration to gain a legitimacy it hasn't enjoyed in some time.
Notably absent from the list of countries where the economic crunch is rending the social fabric is the good ole US of A, a state with the greatest level of economic inequality in the wealthy world.
Outside of a few scattered and quickly contained protests, the citizens of the U.S. -- a country born of revolution, but with an elite that's been terrified of that legacy since immediately after its founding -- have been calm, despite opinion polls showing that Americans are more dissatisfied with the direction in which the country has been headed since they began measuring such things.
It's a baffling disconnect, considering that real wages for all but the top 10 percent of the economic pile haven't increased in 35 years.
It's more bizarre still when you consider that while European governments have handled their own bailouts relatively transparently, the U.S. government has doled out close to $10 trillion in bailouts, loan guarantees and fiscal stimulus -- if there were a million-dollar bill, that would be a stack of 10 million of them -- with a stunning lack of oversight or accountability.
Even the congressional commission charged with overseeing key parts of the banking bailout can't get answers to basic questions like "who's getting what?"
Americans are rightfully angry about that state of affairs, but with a few small exceptions, quietly so. Why? It depends on whom you ask.
In a 2006 interview with Harper's, Barack Obama shared a subtle, but rather fundamental observation about America's political culture: "Since the founding," he said, "the American political tradition has been reformist, not revolutionary." If there is to be positive change, Obama has argued, it must be gradual; "brick by brick," as he put it in one of his final campaign speeches.
Mark Ames, author of Going Postal: Rage, Murder, and Rebellion -- From Reagan's Workplaces to Clinton's Columbine and Beyond, argues that Americans have been beaten down to a degree that they're now a pacified population, largely willing to accept any economic outrage its elites impose on them.
In a 2005 interview with AlterNet, Ames said the "slave mentality" is stronger in the U.S. than elsewhere, "in part because no other country on earth has so successfully crushed every internal rebellion."
Slaves in the Caribbean for example rebelled a lot more because their oppressors weren't as good at oppressing as Americans were. America has put down every rebellion, brutally, from the Whiskey Rebellion to the Confederate rebellion to the proletarian rebellions, Black Panthers, white militias ... you name it. This creates a powerful slave mentality, a sense that it's pointless to rebel.
Anyone who has witnessed the brutal police riots that have become so common since the infamous "Battle in Seattle" protests against the World Trade Organization in 1999 can tell you there's some merit to the argument.
It's also the case that European societies tend to be more homogenous than the mishmash of tribes we call the United States. Whereas Americans are divided by religion, region, ethnicity, urban-rural tensions and all the other trappings of the "culture wars," the primary split in most European countries is class.
Thomas Frank argued eloquently in What's the Matter With Kansas that those wedge social issues that the American right nurtures with such care obscure the fundamental differences between the rich and poor, the powerful and the disenfranchised.
Indeed, any hint of discussion of economic inequality in the U.S. is shot down with cries of "class warfare" -- exactly what is playing out in the streets of much of the world today.
As the crisis deepens, as virtually every analyst predicts it will, that may well change. As The Nation's Bill Greider told Democracy Now's Amy Goodman, "you can't do this to people year after year -- that is, upturn their lives, take away what they thought they had earned, and so forth and so on, without provoking rather intense political reactions. ... We're just, just beginning to see a few bubbles like that around this country. I don't say we're going to have riots, but I think ... people, out of their own distress and anger, will organize their own politics, and they will make themselves seen and heard around this country."
Stay tuned.
Extremely interesting reading, thanks a lot.
I usually read left-wing newspapers (they have the best foreign politics coverage) and I haven't read a word about these riots.
In fact it would appear as if the whole world is patiently sitting at home waiting for the "Great Ones" to solve problems with a magical wand.
I remember reading that what will cause our European system to collapse will be either the inability to afford it anymore or people coming to expect too much out of governments and not getting what they want.
The European banking system is in its death throes: 16 trillion Euros are needed to fix it over the next two years but our governments simply do not have the resources. They cannot risk inflation without infuriating the German taxpayers (who have patiently forked all EU bills until now), they cannot resort to debt without changing the so called Maastricht parameters and they cannot raise taxes because that would mean end game for our stagnating economy.
Yet everybody is asking for MORE: farmers, fishermen, car and home appliances manufacturers, building companies, students and teachers... everybody expects the government to come to the rescue.
You Americans at least have some self reliance: you can muddle through pretty much everything.
But we Europeans have none left.
Desperate, great post! As I understand it, the Euro banks are levered up way more than the US ones...things are about to get interesting I think...
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Socialisim (communisim Lite) has never worked, and will never work. The allmighty Dollar is king, and The Golden Rule ALWAYS applies*
-Rocky-
*Those with the gold get to make the rules...............
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Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat."
Extremely interesting reading, thanks a lot.
I usually read left-wing newspapers (they have the best foreign politics coverage) and I haven't read a word about these riots.
In fact it would appear as if the whole world is patiently sitting at home waiting for the "Great Ones" to solve problems with a magical wand.
I remember reading that what will cause our European system to collapse will be either the inability to afford it anymore or people coming to expect too much out of governments and not getting what they want.
The European banking system is in its death throes: 16 trillion Euros are needed to fix it over the next two years but our governments simply do not have the resources. They cannot risk inflation without infuriating the German taxpayers (who have patiently forked all EU bills until now), they cannot resort to debt without changing the so called Maastricht parameters and they cannot raise taxes because that would mean end game for our stagnating economy.
Yet everybody is asking for MORE: farmers, fishermen, car and home appliances manufacturers, building companies, students and teachers... everybody expects the government to come to the rescue.
You Americans at least have some self reliance: you can muddle through pretty much everything.
But we Europeans have none left.
in the worlds work shop more than 65,000 Chinese factories have gone bankrupt this year, and orders continue to dry up...
golden rule lol, the one that will rule will be asia and not the USA (and not because they are not creating many of the same errors that the US is but because they have a true manuf base and have been purchasing up a rights to much of the worlds resources), the Us government is the greatest debtor nation of all time and it's only getting deeper at an alarming rate. There is little option then for the USA to go belly up in all the debt that that has been taken on, jsut learn some austrian economics and forget the keynsianism that has never worked other then to create artificial bubbles spurred by debtor consumerism...
Keynsianism would be a so-so situation if the govt and the market were a centrally planned one but within a free market system only austrian economics can really work the best. hence the shit hitting the fan in much of the world where people think govts can fix things...
honestly, forget all your preconseptions and see what other theories are out there... look up Marc Faber, peter schiff, jim rogers, Ludwig von Mises Institute - Homepage etc etc and if you want a dose to humor to wash it all down check out max keiser lol...
Europe experienced a tumultous economic growth up until the '70s, then it quickly ground to an halt and I have lived in a stagnating economy most of my life. The reasons are the same for all countries: an impossibly regulated workforce, omnipotent unions, tax rates spiralling out of control, a fastidious and evergrowing bureaucracy, useless laws piling up but being enforced to the letter etc.
I know I may sound obvious but all of this stemmed from what the Italian press called at the time "the historical compromise", ie allowing Socialist and less radical Communist parties into governments to keep them quiet and stop the KGB-funded wave of terrorist attacks (and the CIA-funded response of course) which was covering most of Europe in blood. Yes, we had terrorists around here and they weren't wearing turbans and wielding scimitars: most often than not they weren't even working class persons but came from well to do backgrounds. The owner of one of Italy's largest printing houses was killed by a bomb he was planting to blow up an electric line. Yes, he was filthy rich... so today's movie stars aren't the first rich celebrities to support Socialism.
Ever since the '70s individual and economic liberties have been trampled underfoot in the name of "equality", something the French Jacobines would be proud of.
Also individual self-reliance has sunken to unfathomable bottoms: like I have already said people has come to expect a lot from governments. Every problem, no matter how small and insignificant, must be solved by either a mayor, a police officer or a president. We sound like small spoilt rotten brats who have come to expect mommy or nanny to dress us in the morning, blow on our hot soup to cool it down or blow our collective nose even if we are 60.
Another large problem looming at large is the fact that nobody seems to stray an inch away from the ruling Social-Democrat ideology and Keynes' ridicolous economics. People has been so brainwashed starting as school (luckily as Mark Twain said I have never allowed schooling to interfere with my education) that when you talk to them about things like a gold standard, limited government, individual liberties and holding politicians personally accountable for their failures you only recieve wild stares in return.
We may have great economists and politicians that can lead us out of this mess, like Professor De Soto and President Klaus, but they are getting older and they are failing to gain a significant following especially among young people. At least Ron Paul attracted a crowd of enthusiastic young followers: even if one in a hundred will ever read something from Von Mises or Rothbard it will be much more than we can boast.
But as I always say Austrian economics has just one flaw: there are no free lunches for anybody. How do you sell that to people accustomed to free breakfast, lunch, afternoon tea and dinner?
Europe experienced a tumultous economic growth up until the '70s, then it quickly ground to an halt and I have lived in a stagnating economy most of my life.
I've been thinking a lot about this post. Maybe it's time to take the best of Democracy, communism, capitalism, socialism, the Magna Carta, religions, science, environmentalism and history and make a society that has something for everyone and all life.
10 Planks of the Communist Manifesto
1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.
2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
3. Abolition of all right of inheritance.
4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
5. Centralisation of credit in the hands of the State, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.
6. Centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State.
7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State; the bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.
8. Equal liability of all to labour. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of the distinction between town and country, by a more equal distribution of the population over the country.
10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children's factory labour in its present form.
Ten Commandments
ONE: 'You shall have no other gods before Me.'
TWO: 'You shall not make for yourself a carved image--any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.'
THREE: 'You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain.'
FOUR: 'Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.'
FIVE: 'Honor your father and your mother.'
SIX: 'You shall not murder.'
SEVEN: 'You shall not commit adultery.'
EIGHT: 'You shall not steal.'
NINE: 'You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.'
TEN: 'You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor's.'
Magna Carta
NO Freeman shall be taken or imprisoned, or be disseised of his Freehold, or Liberties, or free Customs, or be outlawed, or exiled, or any other wise destroyed; nor will We not pass upon him, nor condemn him, but by lawful judgment of his Peers, or by the Law of the Land. We will sell to no man, we will not deny or defer to any man either Justice or Right.
Obviously, I do not believe in all of the ten commandments or much of the communist manifesto however, dismissing them in their entirety is foolish. I believe that moving forward requires intelligence and honesty. It requires understanding of what we did that worked and what we did that failed. It's not just good enough to say something failed or worked...We have to know how and why it failed as well as we know our successes.
Socialisim (communisim Lite) has never worked, and will never work. The allmighty Dollar is king, and The Golden Rule ALWAYS applies*
-Rocky-
*Those with the gold get to make the rules...............
So in other words, this country hasn't worked in your lifetime . You do realise that a progressive tax code is socialist, don't you? You do realise that The New Deal was largely socialist, don't you? There are other examples. This hasn't been a capitalist country since the depression. It's something, but it's not strictly capitalist and it's not strictly socialist. Personally, I don't think one system can exist without the other, over the long term. It's like the yin and the yang...or the pussy and the cock. Without one, or the other, society will not last, not in any meaningfull way anyway.
__________________ "...let us not ignore the truth among ourselves, that we are the aggressors and they defend themselves. The country is theirs, because they inhabit it, whereas we want to come here and settle down."
David Ben-Gurion (the father of Israel) "When fascism comes to America it will be draped in a flag and holding a cross." Sinclair Lewis I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands. One nation, indivisible, with liberty, and justice for all.
"The meltdown of the global economy is igniting massive social unrest in a region that has long been a symbol of political stability and social cohesion."
I found the second sentence of this article to be hilarious. Last I checked European countries started two world wars in the last 100 years. Up until 20 years ago you needed specific permission to move from even one "free" country to the next. People were shot by their governments for fleeing the eastern bloc countries. 15 years ago eastern Europe was in economic chaos and ruled in large part by a black market controlled by the mob. 10 years ago many in western Europe invented this happy horsesh*t currency called the Euro that will likely be the downfall of even rich and fiscally prudent Germany. 2 years ago French muslims torched thousands of cars in violent protests. Social cohesion...BWHAHHAHH.
If one of the Euro PIGS (Portugal, Italy, Greece, Spain) defaults on its soverign debt, the ability of the others to then raise cash through bond sales will be nearly impossible, leading to other defaults. Ireland is another possibilty, as well as virtually all of the fomer Soviet bloc. Germany appears ready to help bail them out, but may go broke doing so.
The best quote I have read regarding this crisis, comparing the US to the rest of the world is this: We're screwed, they're gang raped.
Something to be said about leaving us big fat dumb lazy Americans alone. Give us our MTV, our remotes, our toys and we'll feed the world in more ways than one.
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Gog, I cannot save Socialism and all of its bastard sons: Fascism, Communism, Maoism, Nazism, Enviromentalism... Europe has struggled against this sick ideology since 1789 (Marx merely developed ideas already promoted by the French Jacobines) and look what it has given us. Wars, famines, tyranny etc.
I am also very sceptic about democracy. Benjamin Franklyn rightly warned Americans about the dangers of democracy. Like many of your founding fathers he was well read in Latin and Greek classics and knew what happened to the democratic Athens and what happened to the Roman empire once it allowed itself to be ruled by mobs.
George "ashington got it right when he described the whole situation in a single phrase: “A government is like fire, a handy servant, but a dangerous master.”
And I think we let the fireplace unguraded far too long.
* BOSNIA -- Workers of Bosnia's only alumina producer Birac protested last week in Banja Luka, demanding salary payments and government support to offset falling metal prices.
* BRITAIN -- British workers have held a series of protests at power plants, demonstrating against the employment of foreign contractors to work on critical energy sites.
-- The protests follow a week-long dispute at the Total-owned Lindsey oil refinery in Lincolnshire, which resulted in Total <TOTF.PA> agreeing to hire more British workers on the project. Workers voted to end the unofficial strike on Feb. 5.
* BULGARIA -- Police officers, banned by law from striking, have held three "silent" protests since December to demand a 50 percent pay hike and better working conditions. Bulgaria, the poorest EU nation, has been hit by protests demanding the government take measures to shore up the economy.
-- Farmers blocked the only Danube bridge link with Romania and rallied across Bulgaria this month demanding the government set a minimum protective price for milk and stop imports of cheap substitutes. Last month, Bulgarians rallied to demand economic reforms, calling on the government to act or step down.
* FRANCE -- President Nicolas Sarkozy will meet unions on Wednesday and make a televised address to the nation to try to avert protests over his handling of the crisis. France's eight union federations called for a day of action on March 19.
-- Up to 2.5 million protesters took to the streets of France last month in a day of strikes and rallies to denounce the economic crisis but the strike failed to paralyse the country and support from private sector workers was limited.
-- A union representative was killed and several policemen wounded by protesters on the French Caribbean island in growing violence over the cost of living. Guadeloupe, a region of France and part of the EU, has been brought to a standstill over the past month by a general strike over high prices for food.
* GERMANY -- Thousands of public sector workers staged brief strikes on Feb. 3. Public transport ground to a halt in 10 cities, schools and hospitals saw walk-outs in north Germany. * GREECE -- Greek farmers set up roadblocks in January, protesting against low prices. Most were taken down after the government pledged 500 million euros ($652 million) in aid.
-- High youth unemployment was a main driver for rioting in Greece in December, initially sparked by the police shooting of a youth in an Athens neighbourhood. The protests forced a government reshuffle.
* ICELAND -- Prime Minister Geir Haarde resigned in January after protests. The first leader in the world to fall as a direct result of the credit crunch, he was replaced by Johanna Sigurdardottir, who heads a new centre-left coalition.
* LATVIA -- Latvia's agriculture minister quit on Feb. 3 amid protests by farmers over falling incomes. A 10,000-strong protest last month descended into a riot. Government steps to cut wages, as part of an austerity plan to win international aid, have angered people.
* LITHUANIA -- Police fired teargas last month to disperse demonstrators who pelted parliament with stones in protest at cuts in social spending. Police said 80 people were detained and 20 injured. Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius said the violence would not stop an austerity plan.
* MONTENEGRO -- In Podgorica, aluminium workers demanded to be paid their salaries and an immediate restart of suspended production at the Kombinat Aluminijuma Podgorica (KAP), a Russian-owned plant.
* RUSSIA -- Thousands of opposition supporters rallied in Moscow and the port of Vladivostok on Jan 31. in protests over hardships caused by the financial crisis. The next day hundreds of Moscow demonstrators called for Russia's leaders to resign. (Writing by David Cutler, London Editorial Reference Unit)
Something to be said about leaving us big fat dumb lazy Americans alone. Give us our MTV, our remotes, our toys and we'll feed the world in more ways than one.
we're gonna find out.
The US has a history of violent unrest. The Revolution itself, Shay's, Whiskey, Confederacy, Haymarket... all before the 1930's where there was massive unrest, political uncertainty, violence between haves/havenots labor/management. Does anyone remember veterans marching on Washington after WW1... the Bonus Army? It wasn't a precedent... in 1738 unpaid veterans of the Cont Army chased Congress out of town. The civil rights unrest of the 60's, the political unrest around Vietnam, Kent State? McKinley was shot by an anarchist. Just a few examples.
interesting question
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