We started our Introduction by including discussion of the recent disaster in Haiti and its aftermath. But the book's completion also coincided with another crisis: the dramatic sharpening of the financial crisis in Greece and the response it generated from both the governing and working classes (and, of course, the Greek example finds echoes in recent events in Ireland, Spain, Iceland, France and, more recently, the UK). The crisis exposed the long-term failure of the policies being pursued by the ruling classes, which resorted to ‘calling in’ the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to promote rehabilitation and reinstate order. The government turned to the IMF by resorting to the ‘rhetoric of fear’. The Greek finance minister invited and legitimised the actions of the IMF in the country, declaring that there is a ‘basic choice between collapse or salvation’ (BBC, 2010). But, in the face of the proposed onslaught on public services, the Greek trade unions and popular grassroots networks organised for political change. In the case of Greece, the state responses and grassroots demands occurred simultaneously. The tension created by these responses highlights the class nature of ‘disaster management’. This is a dynamic that often occurs in periods of crisis.

The Greek political and financial elites responded to the crisis by unconditionally adopting the IMF's proposals to deepen the neoliberal regime in Greece. This included the implementation of the most draconian austerity package in recent Greek history: threats to dismiss public sector employees, direct cuts in salaries, restructuring of the national insurance system, increased taxation, reduction of the minimum wage and spending cuts on front-line services. These measures did not include or affect the banking, trade and marine-business capital which had accumulated unprecedented profits in the immediate period before the crisis.

The government resorted to the psychological intimidation of the public (pointing to a ‘forthcoming disaster’), the generation of feelings of collective guilt (‘we are all responsible for the situation’), curtailment of basic democratic principles (the agreement with the IMF was not ratified by the parliament but was signed by the appointed, and not elected, finance minister), weakening of civil liberties (police brutality, random arrests, operation of vigilantes) and promotion of individualism in an attempt to divide and rule (see Eleftherotypia online edition, 2010)

The austerity package forced the Greek popular classes, already experiencing high poverty rates, to fight for survival.