Expropriate the Expropriators!

In Greece, Communists are leading demonstrations and a general strike against austerity measures that are to be imposed as a condition of the European Community (in particular, Germany) bailing out that nation. Several people have been killed in the riots. This Communist banner was hung below the Parthenon:

In Marxist theory, the Communist Party represented the interests of productive workers, the value of whose labor is expropriated by others. That was wrong, but at least it had a certain coherence. Greek Communists (and more generally, 21st century socialists) stand for something quite different: the “right” to be supported by the labor of others (in the Greek case, Germans); the “right” to be a sponge, forever; the “right” to be an exploiter. It would be hard to think of a less attractive political program.