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Anti-austerity rallies in solidarity with the new Greek government, including one in New York City

Greece needs a viable exit option, both because it may actually want to go this route and also because it needs greater bargaining power with the troika.

Yanis Varoufakis is currently the Greek Minister of Finance. In this essay, posted to his website one year ago, he explains why he believes that radicals must work to stabilize the Eurozone on a more equitable basis so as to mimimize human suffering and to provide the time and space to develop a humanist alternative to Corporate Europe. He also describes the influence of Karl Marx on his views and asserts the necessity to embrace -- critically -- Marx's insights.

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Syriza will not easily sweep the policies of austerity aside, but there is a palpable feeling on the continent that a tide is turning. The victory of Greece's left-wing Syriza Party was, on one hand, a beacon for indebted countries like Spain, Portugal, Italy, and Ireland. It is also a gauntlet for Germany, the Netherlands, Finland, and the "troika" - the European Central Bank, the European Commission, and the International Monetary Fund.

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The European bankers who imposed austerity on Greece chose to believe in the confidence fairy — that is, that the job-destroying effects of spending cuts would be more than made up for by a surge in private-sector optimism. While pretending to be hardheaded and realistic, they were peddling an economic fantasy. And the Greek people have been paying the price for those elite delusions.

The assumption in German Chancellor Angela Merkel's entourage before Sunday's Greek election was that Tsipras, the charismatic leader of the far-left Syriza party, would eke out a narrow victory and shift quickly from confrontation to compromise mode. Instead, after cruising to victory and clinching a fast-track coalition deal with the right-wing Independent Greeks party, he has signalled in his first days in office that he has no intention of backing down.

SYRIZA has won the election in Greece, securing 149 seats out of 300. This article was written before the election, but speaks to many of the criticisms aimed at this left anti-austerity party both from the bureaucrats of the European Union as well as from left groups. In addition the article speaks to the difficult choices the party must face in order to find a new path towards recovery for the people of Greece.