El Dorado in Greece: You Can’t Mine Your Way Out of Capitalism

By Sasha

The New York Times recently reports in a very well done video (surprise, surprise) that gold mining is the proposed solution for the financial crisis in Greece. The financial crisis is the result of a number of economic problems, not least of which being neoliberal reforms, which generally create conditions of extreme economic collapse, leading to and stemming from privatization, large public debt, and deregulation of markets.

As with Spain, following structural adjustments, a socialist government took power and blame for many of the problems of capitalist reform, and went on to make matters worse—not least of all, through vicious repression of immigrants and political dissidents. So how is the Greek government planning to pick itself up out of crisis? Not unlike the famous historical character who tried to pick himself up out of the swamp by pulling his hair, Greece is trying to pull itself up by its own bootstraps through a huge gold mining venture.

Although politicians confess that they will not receive enough money for the land to have a significant impact on the economic trajectory of the country, the hugely unpopular and environmentally disastrous plan is going forward. The Greek people have a long history of fighting fascism and military dictatorship, so hopefully capitalism, resource extraction, and the nation-state are all practically dead letters by now.

Anyway, check out the video. As I mentioned, it’s really well put together for a liberal-elite rag that’s generally full of corrupt and asinine conjecture.