Against the Troika: Crisis and Austerity in the Eurozone - Softcover

Heiner Flassbeck; Costas Lapavitsas

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1784783137 ISBN 13: 9781784783136

Publisher: Verso Books, 2015

Synopsis

On the 25th January 2015 the Greek people voted in an election of historic importance - not just for Greece but potentially all of Europe. The radical party Syriza was elected and austerity and the neoliberal agenda is being challenged. Suddenly it seems as if there is an alternative. But what? The Eurozone is in a deep and prolonged crisis. It is now clear that monetary union is a historic failure, beyond repair and certainly not in the interests of Europe's working people. Building on the economic analysis of two of Europe's leading thinkers, Heiner Flassbeck and Costas Lapavitsas (just elected to parliament as a member of Syriza), Against the Troika is the first book to propose a strategic left-wing plan for how peripheral countries could exit the euro. With a change in government in Greece and looming political transformations in countries such as Spain, this major intervention lays out a radical, anti-capitalist program at a critical juncture for Europe. The final three chapters offer a detailed postmortem of the Greek catastrophe, explain what can be learned from it and provide a possible alternative. Against the Troika is a practical blueprint for real change in a continent wracked by crisis and austerity.

About this title

Review:

“For those who...still believe Europe can be reformed to deliver social justice, growth and high-welfare societies, the authors do the valuable service of spelling out what that would take: the defeat not only of the mainstream conservative parties but also of their right-wing, nationalist challengers, and the total transformation of European social democracy in the direction of heterodox, fiscally expansionist economic policy, and the triumph of the as yet untested new left parties.” – Paul Mason (from the Preface)

“Demonstrate[s] with clarity that the mercantilist and deflationary policies pursued by Germany since the beginning of EMU must carry the blame for the great rupture that is currently threatening Europe.” – Oskar Lafontaine, Former president of the Social Democratic Party and the Die Linke Party in Germany

“Costas Lapavitsas is part of the cadre of academics-turned-politicians forging Syriza’s economic thinking.” – Wall Street Journal, 24 January 2015

“Highly readable...A fresh and imaginative look at the crisis, it contributes greatly to the relevant debate, and is especially useful in detailing the theoretical foundations of economic programmes advocated by the radical Left parties that have begun to gain strength across Europe, and in particular Syriza.” – Times Higher Education

“Written before Syriza came to power, but with that likelihood in mind, this little book takes up the question of what a left government can do in the face of powerful elites who have savaged the country’s infrastructure in the failed pursuit of budget surpluses. Crucially it charts a path for those who want a clearer view of the way out of the euro.” – Socialist Review

About the Author:

Costas Lapavitsas has been elected as an MP for Greece's radical left-wing Syriza party. He is a Professor of Economics at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. He is a member of Research on Money and Finance (RMF). He was the lead author of the RMF reports published by Verso as Crisis in the Eurozone. His previous publications include Social Foundations of Markets, Money and Credit and Political Economy of Money and Finance and Profiting Without Producing: How Finance Exploits Us All. Heiner Flassbeck was chief macroeconomist in the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW) in Berlin between 1988 and 1998, and State Secretary (Vice Minister) from October 1998 to April 1999 at the Federal Ministry of Finance, Bonn, responsible for international affairs, the EU and IMF. He worked at UNCTAD since 2000; from 2003 to December 2012 he was Director of the Division on Globalisation and Development Strategies. He was the principal author of the team preparing UNCTAD's Trade and Development Report. Since January 2013 he is Director of Flassbeck-Economics, a consultancy for global macroeconomic questions (www.flassbeck-economics.de).

About this edition

• Publisher: Verso Books
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 1784783137
• ISBN 13: 9781784783136
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 144