Revolts in Syria In the past, the ruling class asked, “What does it cost to maintain power?” The answer was decisive in determining political alliances and the distribution of power between various social groups, the Party, the bureaucratic apparatus, and the ruling oligarchy. More recently, the ruling oligarchy stopped building coalitions. The military junta became the new bourgeoisie. The generals substituted their khaki uniforms and military hats for black suits and ties. A few weeks after Bashar al-Assad seized power in 2000, the young president ordered the removal of a huge picture of his father from one of the main squares of Damascus and it was replaced by a Lipton Tea advertisement of the same size. Perhaps the young dictator was convinced that the invisible hand of the market would make dissent disappear without appearing authoritarian. The regime also decided to play the economic growth card, aided and abetted by former World Bank officials pushing the utopian powers of the market. The merger had a price, though, as the ruling class couldn’t create and undo alliances as it used to and the regime’s margin for political maneuvering became limited. The conflation of the ruling classes in the political and economic spheres reduced the field of political possibilities. The crumbling of the current regime should therefore be seen in the context of this long history of the convergence between neoliberalism and authoritarianism. zcomm.org/zmagazine/revolts-in-syria-by-omar-s-dahl/
Posted on: Fri, 03 Oct 2014 22:44:19 +0000
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