This is a position which has been put forward by social democrats for a century and which has now been adopted by the new social democrats of SYRIZA. SYRIZA has itself absorbed entire sections of the discredited PASOK party into its ranks. It has fallen into the trap of identifying “bad” capitalism as the source of the crisis and extols the “good” capitalism of Barack Obama. SYRIZA ignores the real nature of capitalism and the capitalist crisis. This is a view which SYRIZA shares with the bourgeois parties in their attempt to explain the crisis and preserve capitalist exploitation.

The present Irish government has, without protest, accepted the overarching political and economic framework forced on Ireland by the EU/ECB/IMF troika. The struggle against anti-people measures across Europe is of vital importance for all workers, including Irish workers.

Rather than identifying the EU as an inter-state capitalist union SYRIZA, despite all the evidence to the contrary, sees the EU as a potential “force for stability and peace”.

The EU has at is heart the interests of capital. The driving force of modern history is the struggle between classes and the conflict of their interests. Fundamentally, the present crisis is not simply a banking crisis, or a credit crisis, or a financial crisis. It is a fundamental crisis of capitalism. The present strategy of European governments, as dictated by the EU/ECB/IMF troika and the decisions of the G20, is to protect the rich; defend the banks; penalise workers for the failure of capitalism; and use international military superiority, in collaboration with the US and NATO, through intervention and war in pursuit of the interest of the monopolies.

It is clear both from historical experience of the social democrats in power and their words and actions that they are unprepared to take any step which threatens to change the economic system under which we live. No social democratic party is prepared to take a single step to abolish the dominant position of capital. Promises to improve, regulate and better manage capitalism fail to understand the systemic nature of the crisis.

Only socialism provides the mechanism for the rational social organisation of society for the benefit of the people. It is socialism alone which remains the real alternative to capitalism. Socialism means peace, equality, a revolution in social relations, international solidarity, a new international order and the total transformation of the world.

A socialist society is built on workers’ power and the construction of a socialist society necessarily involves a revolutionary transformation in which there is a transition of state power from the bourgeoisie to the workers and which abolishes the private ownership of the means of production. The new social-democratic and opportunist forces do not fundamentally threaten the capitalist system but rather provide it sustenance and support.

This is why the Workers Party opposes the illusions offered by the politics of SYRIZA.  Social democracy and opportunism, which we have witnessed before, are not in the interests of working people but present instead an illusion, which although packaged differently, can only mean the continuing exploitation of the working class.