end, we will reform the tax system so as to tax
high incomes and wealth, and to eliminate tax
evasion and the tax avoidance of the economic
oligarchy, as well as transfer pricing. We will reor-
ganize public spending so as to address the
humanitarian crisis that Greece experiences. We
will place under public and social control all banks
that are recapitalized with borrowed public funds
and reinstate their raison d’ être of providing the
economy with liquidity. Bank borrowers should be
protected and relieved, to a significant, realistic
and sustainable degree, from the burden of past
debts that they cannot repay now. The second pil-
lar is to overcome the humanitarian crisis by ear-
marking public funding to that emergency goal.
The third pillar is to restructure the productive
base of the economy. The goal would be to mould
a model of development associated with produc-
tive innovation, as well as decently paid and sta-
ble employment, away from past practices that
sunk Greece into the crisis.
For example, Greece can become a basic
European pole of agro-nutritional research and
production. It could also become a peripheral
energy center of renewable resources and new
environmental technology. We can refocus
tourism on alternative forms geared to high quali-
ty and low environmental impact.
Greece has the human capital and the growth
potential to gain a new position in the European
division of labour. Instead of fulfilling the passive
role of a low-wage, labour-intense peripheral
economy assigned to it by the neoliberal
Memoranda, it could effectively utilize its
resources –and, in particular, an idle labour force
of educated, skilled and talented young people,
who are forced either to emigrate or to stay unem-
ployed at home, living off the meager pensions of
their parents– in order to serve high-quality niche
markets in agriculture and services.
Greece has the resources and capabilities to
break the vicious circle of recession, jobless and
anemic GDP growth, and low-wage development.
It also has the political means to attain it. This is
the upcoming SYRIZA government.
Trade with Greece
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