Where they think the gravy will come from to go on a path other than austerity is beyond me

Podemos, Spain's version of Syriza, held a huge rally rally in Madrid, calling for a casting-off of the troika-imposed measures that the last few responsible voices in Europe have insisted upon in return for letting these Mediterranean basket cases die on the vine.

At least 100,000 people marched through Madrid on Saturday in a show of strength by a fledgling radical leftist party, which hopes to emulate the success of Greece's Syriza party in the Spanish general election later this year.

Podemos supporters from across Spain converged around the Cibeles fountain Saturday before packing the avenue leading to Puerta del Sol square in what was the party's largest rally to date.

Police said at least 100,000 people participated in the march while Podemos put the figure at 300,000.

Podemos ("We Can") aims to shatter the country's predominantly two-party system and the "March for Change" gathered crowds in the same place where sit-in protests against political and financial corruption laid the party's foundations in 2011.

The party's rise is greatly due to the charisma of its pony-tailed leader, Pablo Iglesias, a 36-year-old political science professor.

Hailing from the Madrid working class neighborhood of Vallecas, Iglesias prefers jeans and rolled up shirt sleeves to a suit and tie and champions slogans such as Spain is "run by the butlers of the rich" and that the economy must serve the people.

 Podemos sees itself as an alternative to the two parties that dominate the Spanish political landscape. And what kind of different way does it envisions?

Podemos has often expressed its support for some of the policies of left-wing governments in Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador, which makes many Spanish mainstream politicians bristle.

In Europe, it openly supports Syriza, which won national elections in Greece on Jan. 25 and which has pledged to challenge the austerity measures imposed on the country by the European Union and International Monetary Fund.

While there are major political and economic differences between Spain and Greece, both countries have suffered severe economic crises, massive unemployment and austerity measures while simultaneously having to put up with myriad political corruption scandals.

Ah, yes!  Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador!  Those bastions of prosperity and self-reliance!

And in 1991, Francis Fukuyama thought we'd reached the End of History.  The Cold War's over!  That means that everybody gets the obvious efficacy of the free market and the obvious failure of socialism!

Didn't work out that way, did it?  Socialism may be a phenomenally bad idea, but the illusion with which it tempts the susceptible is so juicy - the idea that no matter how poor you get, there is always some supposed uber-class from which to demand "economic justice" - that it doesn't die the easy death of earlier historical follies.  At least none of the lessons to be learned from it have been hard enough yet to kill it off.