1 Making the World Working Class Tenth Annual Conference of Historical Materialism SOAS, London November 7-10, 2013 Panel title: “Revisiting the Making of the English Working Class” Paper Title: “The remaking of the Greek working class” Kostas Kanellopoulos 1 Researcher, University of Crete, Research Fund konkanel8@gmail.com --- DRAFT PAPER ---- Abstract An equivalent of E.P. Thompson’s theorization for the Greek case is by and large missing. However, the current capitalist crisis, the severe depression that hit the country, and the various measures that were imposed by the Greek governments to amend it, have accelerated a process that leads us to argue that we are in front of a more or less remaking of the Greek working class. On the one hand the austerity measures and the structural adjustment programs mark a new phase of capitalist accumulation that dismantles the post-dictatorship pact: whole productive sectors are shut down or downgraded, the labour market is further deregulated, working relations are severely transformed and the labour rights are restricted. On the other hand a new wave of everyday struggles and political agitation is rising: new networks of solidarity are created, various experiments of social economy are been tested and a vast campaign of massive protests and strikes has caused major political transformations. Trying to evaluate how this movement contributes to the new formation of the Greek working class we will focus here on its claims, its turning points, its achievements and its limitations. Introduction Curiously enough, none of EP’s Thompson work was ever translated or published in Greek with a partial exception of a small excerpt from chapter III of the “Poverty of 1 This is a rough draft of my talk at HM 2013 without significant language or text editing please cite gently.