The phrase "classical
Greek tragedy" occurred to me several times during the current economic and
political crisis in Greece and the European Union. It did not occur to me in
the usual sense of the term "tragedy", i.e. in the sense of a sad failure with
very bad consequences, but in the sense of classical Greek dramaturgy. The
essence of the latter meaning is that the protagonists are entangled in a
tragic situation, from which there is no escape, because it is their fate,
which has been determined by the gods. No matter how much they try to evade
their tragic fate, they fail. The very actions they undertake in that effort
lead them to the tragic end. In the process, some innocent protagonists become
victims of the guilt of others and themselves become guilty. Other innocent
people become involved as causal factors in the tragedy. The best example of
such a tragedy is the mythical story of Oedipus
the King.1
In this article I take it for granted that all my readers have been following in the media the details of the story of the current five years long crisis in Greece. So I shall limit myself to some analytical remarks on some aspects of the story, which lay bare some EU ideologies (in the sense of false consciousness) cherished by many EU citizens and some grand delusions (Lebenslügen) of the present-day Greeks. In the process it will become clear why the present tragic outcome of the whole story was inevitable, almost like destiny (fate) in classical Greek tragedy. Finally, I shall express some fundamental criticism of a few basic assumptions – comparable to articles of faith of a religion – of both the present-day economic system and the competing economic theories and ideologies that uphold it. Only then, I hope, we shall have a better understanding of the Greek crisis, and not only of the Greek crisis but of all crises of the modern world.2
In this article I take it for granted that all my readers have been following in the media the details of the story of the current five years long crisis in Greece. So I shall limit myself to some analytical remarks on some aspects of the story, which lay bare some EU ideologies (in the sense of false consciousness) cherished by many EU citizens and some grand delusions (Lebenslügen) of the present-day Greeks. In the process it will become clear why the present tragic outcome of the whole story was inevitable, almost like destiny (fate) in classical Greek tragedy. Finally, I shall express some fundamental criticism of a few basic assumptions – comparable to articles of faith of a religion – of both the present-day economic system and the competing economic theories and ideologies that uphold it. Only then, I hope, we shall have a better understanding of the Greek crisis, and not only of the Greek crisis but of all crises of the modern world.2
Ideologies, Grand Delusions (Lebenslügen) and
Misconceptions
Recently, during a popular German
TV talk show, the moderator quoted an experienced Brussels correspondent (Mr. Krause)
of the channel (ARD) who had said: "Actually, Greece is a Third World
country that is living like an advanced industrial country." To this, the
Greek participant in the talk show, Mr. Chondros, a member of the Central
Committee of SYRIZA retorted angrily, and twice: "He is talking nonsense.
Convey this opinion to him with my compliments." Later, he added that the
Channel ARD was mostly spreading propaganda.
Despite all my sympathies for the Greeks, I must say that the root cause of the current Greek crisis lies here. Greece is certainly not a Third World country. But it has never been as prosperous as, e.g., Germany. From 2002 onward, when Greece joined the Euro Zone, it got much easier terms for borrowing at the international financial market. Whereas previously it had to pay roughly 25 percent effective interest on its state bonds denominated in Drachma, after joining the Euro-Zone it had to pay only 5 percent on its bonds denominated in the highly valued and strong Euro. The difference of 20% was a net gain for the Greeks. But at the same time, the state, perhaps also Greek banks, businesses, and ordinary citizens then became strongly tempted to borrow more than what could be economically justified.
And why shouldn't they have borrowed more? In standard economics borrowing is recommended for creating wealth and increasing income and prosperity. It is argued that an entrepreneur borrows money, invests it in some business, and makes profit. The state borrows, invests in infrastructure development or promotes industries, sometimes state-owned industries, and so the nation becomes prosperous. In both cases, the debt can be serviced or even fully repaid from the increased income.
In this connection it must be said that all those who participated in the media discussions, including Greek economists, failed to say even once that Greece's current problems are not entirely of its own making. The Great Recession that began in 2007–2008, and from which also several other countries are still suffering, exacerbated the plight of the Greek economy which had already been weakened by the debt burden.
Further below, I shall once more take up the economic causes of the present-day crisis in Greece. Here however it first needs to be remembered that the generation of politicians who had applied for and pushed Greece's entry in the Euro Zone had falsified the statistics on the basis of which the country was judged to have satisfied the criteria to become a member. That was the original sin, if you will, the consequences of which the young Greeks of today are bearing.
Ever since January 2015, when the left party SYRIZA came to power, some of its spokespersons and supporters in the other European countries have been repeatedly saying that despite all the troubles Greece is giving the Euro Zone, the place of the country that taught Europe democracy is in Europe and not outside. It has also been reported that in 2001 the EU bosses knew that the statistics were false, but they thought they could not deny Plato the right to play in the first division.
In 2001, Europe did not need to learn democracy from the present-day Greeks. The real reason why Greece wanted to be admitted to the Euro Zone were the economic advantages mentioned above. It is, moreover, dishonest to intentionally obfuscate the difference between the European Union and the Euro Zone. During the present crisis, nobody advised Greece to leave the EU. Only some courageous people, including some serious economists and the German finance minister Mr. Schäuble, said that it would be good for both the Greeks and the rest of the Euro Zone if Greece opted out of the Euro club for a few years. Exasperated at the continued obfuscation in the talk shows, a participant, namely Prof. Hans-Werner Sinn, cried out (in the general sense): but the Euro is only a currency; the Euro Zone is only a currency union and not an economic or political union based on values. A currency union cannot exist if all participants feel free to ignore the rules.
This obfuscation may only have been a tactic, with which the Greeks intended to get better terms for the new credits or even debt forgiveness. And their left and green supporters in Western and Northern Europe perhaps only wanted to show that they value solidarity and sympathize with the suffering Greeks, while the conservatives, like Merkel and Schäuble, were merciless and wanted to punish the Greeks for having elected a left party to power. But neither Tsipras and SYRIZA nor their supporters could suggest any other middle-term solution of the problem than the obsolete Keynesian one: further borrowing and spending and waiting for the time when the economy would again start growing. I shall below come back to these questions of economic policy.
After the referendum of 5th July, when 61.3 percent of the Greek voters said No to further austerity, leftists all over the world waxed eloquent about democracy. But neither before nor after the referendum did anybody know what Tsipras would do if the creditors remained stubborn and refused to give Greece what it wanted unless he agreed to their harsh conditions. Would he in that case lead Greece out of the Euro-Zone? This question, widely discussed outside Greece, was never discussed in Greece, at least not in public. The referendum was therefore no good example of democratic decision making.
In other words, neither SYRIZA nor the Greek government had a plan B, for the majority of the Greeks simultaneously said No to further austerity and (in opinion polls) No to exit from the Euro Zone (Grexit). This question was a hot potato that no Greek politician dared to touch. Most No-voters simply imagined that the other 18 leaders of the Euro Zone would bow to the wish of the majority in a small member country. Yanis Varoufakis, the then finance minister said (in the general sense): If you have a debt of only 30 million, you are weak, but if it is 300 million, you are strong. This was at best naivety, if not a delusion.
After the overwhelming No vote to austerity, a few young Greeks said to TV journalists, they were very proud of Greece etc. But what exactly were they proud of? Some said they were proud because Greece demonstrated resistance in spite of the very bad situation. But can any people be proud at all, if they are so heavily indebted as the Greeks are, and can they call their No-vote resistance if through it they ask their Prime Minister to go with a begging bowl to the same hated rich creditors and beg for further debt forgiveness and easier repayment terms? They would have had reason to be proud if they had declared: we herewith end this debt-slavery, we exit from the Euro-Zone, and introduce our own new currency. But they didn't take this path.
It is not correct to speak sweepingly of "the Greeks" and for that matter, of any people, e.g. "the Vietnamese". Like any society, Greek society too is divided into classes and interest groups. And particular political proposals are generally supported or rejected on the basis of personal and class interest in the given situation. During the hours long big demonstrations on the days before the referendum, political observers could easily find out that it was mainly young people, workers, students, the unemployed, and people with a low income who would vote No. These were the people who thought they had no future, had nothing more to lose, or things could not become any worse for them. The prospective Yes-voters were mostly teachers, multilingual intellectuals connected with Western.Europe, entrepreneurs, elderly people, pensioners, middle and upper middle class people, people with safe jobs, all of whom wanted to protect what they had.
After winning the referendum, Tsipras went to Brussels in a fighting spirit. But on 13th July he returned with a worse deal than the one he was offered before and which he had asked his countrymen to reject in the referendum. He had to sign the worse deal, because he did not see any way out of the unsolvable dilemma he faced. In the words of Varoufakis, the Greeks “were given a choice between being executed and capitulating. And he (Tsipras) decided that capitulation was the ultimate strategy… ”. So the SYRIZA leader, who had been celebrated on 25th January after winning the election, and again on 5th July, returned to Athens on 13th July as a defeated and humiliated general. After returning home, he said totally contradictory things: he did not believe the deal he accepted would save Greece; it would certainly cause more pain and further recession. But he had to sign it and, what is worse, he must also try to implement it, for “this deal secures for Greece conditions of financial stability, gives it opportunities for recovery”; he promised that after a period of suffering, there would be light. A truly tragic figure, an anti-hero.
After this outcome, some of his radical critics called Tsipras a pseudo-leftist, accused him of betraying the people who had voted for him. This is rather unfair. To use another classical Greek imagery, he, as captain, had to steer his ship, the Greek nation, between Scylla and Charybdis.3 But unlike Odysseus, the hero of the epic Odyssee, who succeded in steering his ship out of the twin dangers with only moderate sacrifices,3 Tsipras has till now failed to achieve anything. Even the third debt relief packet, that the Euro-Zone bosses had dangled before him, may not materialize. Tsipras could not but fail. Why? I shall deal with this question further below.
Despite all my sympathies for the Greeks, I must say that the root cause of the current Greek crisis lies here. Greece is certainly not a Third World country. But it has never been as prosperous as, e.g., Germany. From 2002 onward, when Greece joined the Euro Zone, it got much easier terms for borrowing at the international financial market. Whereas previously it had to pay roughly 25 percent effective interest on its state bonds denominated in Drachma, after joining the Euro-Zone it had to pay only 5 percent on its bonds denominated in the highly valued and strong Euro. The difference of 20% was a net gain for the Greeks. But at the same time, the state, perhaps also Greek banks, businesses, and ordinary citizens then became strongly tempted to borrow more than what could be economically justified.
And why shouldn't they have borrowed more? In standard economics borrowing is recommended for creating wealth and increasing income and prosperity. It is argued that an entrepreneur borrows money, invests it in some business, and makes profit. The state borrows, invests in infrastructure development or promotes industries, sometimes state-owned industries, and so the nation becomes prosperous. In both cases, the debt can be serviced or even fully repaid from the increased income.
In this connection it must be said that all those who participated in the media discussions, including Greek economists, failed to say even once that Greece's current problems are not entirely of its own making. The Great Recession that began in 2007–2008, and from which also several other countries are still suffering, exacerbated the plight of the Greek economy which had already been weakened by the debt burden.
Further below, I shall once more take up the economic causes of the present-day crisis in Greece. Here however it first needs to be remembered that the generation of politicians who had applied for and pushed Greece's entry in the Euro Zone had falsified the statistics on the basis of which the country was judged to have satisfied the criteria to become a member. That was the original sin, if you will, the consequences of which the young Greeks of today are bearing.
Ever since January 2015, when the left party SYRIZA came to power, some of its spokespersons and supporters in the other European countries have been repeatedly saying that despite all the troubles Greece is giving the Euro Zone, the place of the country that taught Europe democracy is in Europe and not outside. It has also been reported that in 2001 the EU bosses knew that the statistics were false, but they thought they could not deny Plato the right to play in the first division.
In 2001, Europe did not need to learn democracy from the present-day Greeks. The real reason why Greece wanted to be admitted to the Euro Zone were the economic advantages mentioned above. It is, moreover, dishonest to intentionally obfuscate the difference between the European Union and the Euro Zone. During the present crisis, nobody advised Greece to leave the EU. Only some courageous people, including some serious economists and the German finance minister Mr. Schäuble, said that it would be good for both the Greeks and the rest of the Euro Zone if Greece opted out of the Euro club for a few years. Exasperated at the continued obfuscation in the talk shows, a participant, namely Prof. Hans-Werner Sinn, cried out (in the general sense): but the Euro is only a currency; the Euro Zone is only a currency union and not an economic or political union based on values. A currency union cannot exist if all participants feel free to ignore the rules.
This obfuscation may only have been a tactic, with which the Greeks intended to get better terms for the new credits or even debt forgiveness. And their left and green supporters in Western and Northern Europe perhaps only wanted to show that they value solidarity and sympathize with the suffering Greeks, while the conservatives, like Merkel and Schäuble, were merciless and wanted to punish the Greeks for having elected a left party to power. But neither Tsipras and SYRIZA nor their supporters could suggest any other middle-term solution of the problem than the obsolete Keynesian one: further borrowing and spending and waiting for the time when the economy would again start growing. I shall below come back to these questions of economic policy.
After the referendum of 5th July, when 61.3 percent of the Greek voters said No to further austerity, leftists all over the world waxed eloquent about democracy. But neither before nor after the referendum did anybody know what Tsipras would do if the creditors remained stubborn and refused to give Greece what it wanted unless he agreed to their harsh conditions. Would he in that case lead Greece out of the Euro-Zone? This question, widely discussed outside Greece, was never discussed in Greece, at least not in public. The referendum was therefore no good example of democratic decision making.
In other words, neither SYRIZA nor the Greek government had a plan B, for the majority of the Greeks simultaneously said No to further austerity and (in opinion polls) No to exit from the Euro Zone (Grexit). This question was a hot potato that no Greek politician dared to touch. Most No-voters simply imagined that the other 18 leaders of the Euro Zone would bow to the wish of the majority in a small member country. Yanis Varoufakis, the then finance minister said (in the general sense): If you have a debt of only 30 million, you are weak, but if it is 300 million, you are strong. This was at best naivety, if not a delusion.
After the overwhelming No vote to austerity, a few young Greeks said to TV journalists, they were very proud of Greece etc. But what exactly were they proud of? Some said they were proud because Greece demonstrated resistance in spite of the very bad situation. But can any people be proud at all, if they are so heavily indebted as the Greeks are, and can they call their No-vote resistance if through it they ask their Prime Minister to go with a begging bowl to the same hated rich creditors and beg for further debt forgiveness and easier repayment terms? They would have had reason to be proud if they had declared: we herewith end this debt-slavery, we exit from the Euro-Zone, and introduce our own new currency. But they didn't take this path.
It is not correct to speak sweepingly of "the Greeks" and for that matter, of any people, e.g. "the Vietnamese". Like any society, Greek society too is divided into classes and interest groups. And particular political proposals are generally supported or rejected on the basis of personal and class interest in the given situation. During the hours long big demonstrations on the days before the referendum, political observers could easily find out that it was mainly young people, workers, students, the unemployed, and people with a low income who would vote No. These were the people who thought they had no future, had nothing more to lose, or things could not become any worse for them. The prospective Yes-voters were mostly teachers, multilingual intellectuals connected with Western.Europe, entrepreneurs, elderly people, pensioners, middle and upper middle class people, people with safe jobs, all of whom wanted to protect what they had.
After winning the referendum, Tsipras went to Brussels in a fighting spirit. But on 13th July he returned with a worse deal than the one he was offered before and which he had asked his countrymen to reject in the referendum. He had to sign the worse deal, because he did not see any way out of the unsolvable dilemma he faced. In the words of Varoufakis, the Greeks “were given a choice between being executed and capitulating. And he (Tsipras) decided that capitulation was the ultimate strategy… ”. So the SYRIZA leader, who had been celebrated on 25th January after winning the election, and again on 5th July, returned to Athens on 13th July as a defeated and humiliated general. After returning home, he said totally contradictory things: he did not believe the deal he accepted would save Greece; it would certainly cause more pain and further recession. But he had to sign it and, what is worse, he must also try to implement it, for “this deal secures for Greece conditions of financial stability, gives it opportunities for recovery”; he promised that after a period of suffering, there would be light. A truly tragic figure, an anti-hero.
After this outcome, some of his radical critics called Tsipras a pseudo-leftist, accused him of betraying the people who had voted for him. This is rather unfair. To use another classical Greek imagery, he, as captain, had to steer his ship, the Greek nation, between Scylla and Charybdis.3 But unlike Odysseus, the hero of the epic Odyssee, who succeded in steering his ship out of the twin dangers with only moderate sacrifices,3 Tsipras has till now failed to achieve anything. Even the third debt relief packet, that the Euro-Zone bosses had dangled before him, may not materialize. Tsipras could not but fail. Why? I shall deal with this question further below.
The Pseudo European Idea and Its Pseudo Values
Before that, I must refer
to another delusion. During the whole debate – both in Greece and the rest of the
EU – there was a lot of talk about values and the European idea. Tsipras once said – that was, I think, a
few days before his humiliating capitulation in Brussels –:"Europe is
about democracy and solidarity". It was a mockery of the reality. For throughout
the crisis period, many insults were hurled by both Greeks and Germans at each other
(e.g. the Greeks want to steal money out of our pocket, lazy, corrupt Greeks.
In Greece, many placards depicted Merkel and Schäuble as Nazis. The Greek
government demanded reparation from the German state for the destructions and
crimes of the German Nazis in the Second World War. etc. etc.)
And note the angry tone and language of some Greek ministers. Already before the capitulation, Varoufakis had likened the negotiation positions and style of the creditors to "terrorism". After the capitulation, energy minister Lafazanis said in a statement that the country’s creditors had “acted like cold-blooded blackmailers and economic assassins". Mr. Kammenos, the defence minister, angrily said: "They blackmailed the prime minister, … . This agreement is not close to our values." He also characterized the deal as "a coup by Germany” and its allies. And in Germany, the opposition leaders, supporters of the SYRIZA government, accused Merkel and Schäuble of destroying the "great European idea".
But the "great European Idea" and its "values" – democracy, solidarity, human rights etc. are just ideology, instances of make-believe, a veil to cover up the reality. In real life, when something becomes a success, or becomes attractive for whatever reason, many opportunists want to belong to that entity, be it a political party, a nation, a football club, or an identity. They either expect to get some material benefit by joining that entity or they want to bask in the glory or good reputation thereof. Thus, in recent German history, I could personally observe how, in the 1980s, hundreds of unsuccessful leftists and members of established parties streamed into the Green Party as soon as the latter scored some electoral success. There, many of them made a political career, became MP or even minister. But there were also people who simply wanted to enjoy the satisfaction of belonging to the avant-garde of environmentalists without themselves being one.
Or take for example the young woman from Azerbaijan, whom I met sometime in the early 1990s at a youth conference in Germany. In her speech, she grumbled that her Azerbaijani money could not be exchanged anywhere in Western Europe. "How can we build up a united Europe", she said, "if we do not even accept each other's currency?" I was surprised. During a recess, I asked her: "You think Azerbaijan belongs to Europe? I thought it is a Muslim majority country in central Asia!" She replied: "Europe extends from the Atlantic to the Ural and the Caspian Sea." I had a similar doubt when, in the mid 1980s, Gorbachev started talking about "Our Common House Europe". At an international conference of the Green Party of Germany, of which I was a rather conspicuously brown and non-German member, I asked a senior delegate from the Soviet Union, Mr. Kolontai, a Russian, whether he could imagine that also the Kazaks, the Uzbeks, the Turkmens etc. – in those days citizens of the Soviet Union – would also live in that "our common house Europe". Mr. Kolontai hesitated a little before answering: Yes.
So far as Gorbachev's motive behind the idea was concerned, it was certainly not opportunistic. But today we see how hollow this idea in reality is. Not even all citizens of all the member countries of the EU are treated equally everywhere in the EU, e.g. the Romas and Sintis. When e.g. unemployed Romanians and Bulgarians travel to Germany, German officials suspect them of trying to exploit their more generous social welfare system. To take another example, when recently the EU Commission tried to fairly distribute the burden of accommodating the tens of thousands of refugees among all EU member countries, some flatly refused to accept any. They insisted on the original agreement that the burden of accommodating refugees will have to be borne by those EU member countries where the refugees first arrive. Mr. Rentsi, the prime minister of Italy, that is bearing the heaviest burden of this kind, was so angry after the failure of the deliberations that he openly said in the direction of the refusing countries: "If this is your EU solidarity, then you can keep it." The second heaviest refugee burden is being borne, of all EU countries, by the most crisis-ridden Greece. Here too no solidarity. But, in spite of the no-bail-out clause in the Euro Zone treaty, member countries showed a lot of solidarity, at least in the beginning, with Greece, Portugal, Spain and Ireland when the issue was saving the Euro. After all, it was also their currency that was in danger, whereas the poor foreign refugees were only burdens. So much for solidarity and values. Crisis times are testing times. Against the background of and due to the economic crisis, this good image of the EU, which was false from the very beginning, is now rapidly unraveling. It is doubtful that in future the EU and the Euro Zone would remain as they are today. For some time now, ideas are circulating which want to see the EU divided into two groups: the Protestant-Calvinistic North EU and the Catholic South EU, EU of "two speeds", the economically strong countries and the economically weak ones.
To come back to the Greek crisis, Time and again, critics of the SYRIZA government pointed out that it is impossible for anybody to demand that poorer EU countries like e.g. Slovakia and Estonia – where the average wage, average pension and average social welfare benefits are lower than those in Greece – should also give surety for the huge credits already given to Greece and new credits that Greece was demanding. To this, the above-mentioned Mr. Chondros once replied: (in the general sense) the ideal of the EU is not to bring about equality among member countries by pushing down the standard of living of the different peoples to the level of Slovakia, Estonia etc., but by raising the standard of living of the poorer member countries to the level of Greece and then further to higher levels.
It seems to me that Mr. Chondros and all the leftists of the EU do not know what the EU in fact is and what it is not. It is not a union of socialist republics, it is only a union of unequal countries, where neo-liberal capitalism, free market economy, and competition prevail. In fact, the rules of the EU and the Euro Zone do not even allow bailing out a member country that is in danger of going bankrupt. The reason why the Euro Zone leaders tried to save Greece was not sympathy, solidarity etc., but the certainty that Grexit would entail loss of trust at the international financial market in the solidity of the Euro. In reality, they wanted to save the Euro, not Greece.
And secondly, they did not want to let Greece get out for geopolitical reasons. Most EU members are also NATO members. And Greece lies in a strategically important area, very close to the Balkan states, the Ukraine, Turkey and the Bosporus Straight through which Russian war ships pass on their way to and from the Mediterranean Sea. This argument was openly articulated by Mr. Röttgen, the foreign policy spokesperson of the German ruling party CDU. It is no secret that geopolitical considerations had been the force behind the creation of the EU and the currency union. (a) Without the EU, every European country would be too small – in comparison to the USA, USSR, and later China – to have sufficient weight in world politics; (b) and it is well known that the then French President Mitterrand pushed the idea of the common currency Euro, because the French were afraid of Germany again becoming the hegemonic power in Europe.
And note the angry tone and language of some Greek ministers. Already before the capitulation, Varoufakis had likened the negotiation positions and style of the creditors to "terrorism". After the capitulation, energy minister Lafazanis said in a statement that the country’s creditors had “acted like cold-blooded blackmailers and economic assassins". Mr. Kammenos, the defence minister, angrily said: "They blackmailed the prime minister, … . This agreement is not close to our values." He also characterized the deal as "a coup by Germany” and its allies. And in Germany, the opposition leaders, supporters of the SYRIZA government, accused Merkel and Schäuble of destroying the "great European idea".
But the "great European Idea" and its "values" – democracy, solidarity, human rights etc. are just ideology, instances of make-believe, a veil to cover up the reality. In real life, when something becomes a success, or becomes attractive for whatever reason, many opportunists want to belong to that entity, be it a political party, a nation, a football club, or an identity. They either expect to get some material benefit by joining that entity or they want to bask in the glory or good reputation thereof. Thus, in recent German history, I could personally observe how, in the 1980s, hundreds of unsuccessful leftists and members of established parties streamed into the Green Party as soon as the latter scored some electoral success. There, many of them made a political career, became MP or even minister. But there were also people who simply wanted to enjoy the satisfaction of belonging to the avant-garde of environmentalists without themselves being one.
Or take for example the young woman from Azerbaijan, whom I met sometime in the early 1990s at a youth conference in Germany. In her speech, she grumbled that her Azerbaijani money could not be exchanged anywhere in Western Europe. "How can we build up a united Europe", she said, "if we do not even accept each other's currency?" I was surprised. During a recess, I asked her: "You think Azerbaijan belongs to Europe? I thought it is a Muslim majority country in central Asia!" She replied: "Europe extends from the Atlantic to the Ural and the Caspian Sea." I had a similar doubt when, in the mid 1980s, Gorbachev started talking about "Our Common House Europe". At an international conference of the Green Party of Germany, of which I was a rather conspicuously brown and non-German member, I asked a senior delegate from the Soviet Union, Mr. Kolontai, a Russian, whether he could imagine that also the Kazaks, the Uzbeks, the Turkmens etc. – in those days citizens of the Soviet Union – would also live in that "our common house Europe". Mr. Kolontai hesitated a little before answering: Yes.
So far as Gorbachev's motive behind the idea was concerned, it was certainly not opportunistic. But today we see how hollow this idea in reality is. Not even all citizens of all the member countries of the EU are treated equally everywhere in the EU, e.g. the Romas and Sintis. When e.g. unemployed Romanians and Bulgarians travel to Germany, German officials suspect them of trying to exploit their more generous social welfare system. To take another example, when recently the EU Commission tried to fairly distribute the burden of accommodating the tens of thousands of refugees among all EU member countries, some flatly refused to accept any. They insisted on the original agreement that the burden of accommodating refugees will have to be borne by those EU member countries where the refugees first arrive. Mr. Rentsi, the prime minister of Italy, that is bearing the heaviest burden of this kind, was so angry after the failure of the deliberations that he openly said in the direction of the refusing countries: "If this is your EU solidarity, then you can keep it." The second heaviest refugee burden is being borne, of all EU countries, by the most crisis-ridden Greece. Here too no solidarity. But, in spite of the no-bail-out clause in the Euro Zone treaty, member countries showed a lot of solidarity, at least in the beginning, with Greece, Portugal, Spain and Ireland when the issue was saving the Euro. After all, it was also their currency that was in danger, whereas the poor foreign refugees were only burdens. So much for solidarity and values. Crisis times are testing times. Against the background of and due to the economic crisis, this good image of the EU, which was false from the very beginning, is now rapidly unraveling. It is doubtful that in future the EU and the Euro Zone would remain as they are today. For some time now, ideas are circulating which want to see the EU divided into two groups: the Protestant-Calvinistic North EU and the Catholic South EU, EU of "two speeds", the economically strong countries and the economically weak ones.
To come back to the Greek crisis, Time and again, critics of the SYRIZA government pointed out that it is impossible for anybody to demand that poorer EU countries like e.g. Slovakia and Estonia – where the average wage, average pension and average social welfare benefits are lower than those in Greece – should also give surety for the huge credits already given to Greece and new credits that Greece was demanding. To this, the above-mentioned Mr. Chondros once replied: (in the general sense) the ideal of the EU is not to bring about equality among member countries by pushing down the standard of living of the different peoples to the level of Slovakia, Estonia etc., but by raising the standard of living of the poorer member countries to the level of Greece and then further to higher levels.
It seems to me that Mr. Chondros and all the leftists of the EU do not know what the EU in fact is and what it is not. It is not a union of socialist republics, it is only a union of unequal countries, where neo-liberal capitalism, free market economy, and competition prevail. In fact, the rules of the EU and the Euro Zone do not even allow bailing out a member country that is in danger of going bankrupt. The reason why the Euro Zone leaders tried to save Greece was not sympathy, solidarity etc., but the certainty that Grexit would entail loss of trust at the international financial market in the solidity of the Euro. In reality, they wanted to save the Euro, not Greece.
And secondly, they did not want to let Greece get out for geopolitical reasons. Most EU members are also NATO members. And Greece lies in a strategically important area, very close to the Balkan states, the Ukraine, Turkey and the Bosporus Straight through which Russian war ships pass on their way to and from the Mediterranean Sea. This argument was openly articulated by Mr. Röttgen, the foreign policy spokesperson of the German ruling party CDU. It is no secret that geopolitical considerations had been the force behind the creation of the EU and the currency union. (a) Without the EU, every European country would be too small – in comparison to the USA, USSR, and later China – to have sufficient weight in world politics; (b) and it is well known that the then French President Mitterrand pushed the idea of the common currency Euro, because the French were afraid of Germany again becoming the hegemonic power in Europe.
Wrong-headed economic policy
A capitulation is not per
se reprehensible. And no capitulator is ipso facto a traitor. When the German
generals capitulated on 8th May 1945, it was, in the given
situation, the best thing to do to serve the German people. Justifying his
capitulation, Tsipras said in his speech in the Parliament: he himself did not
believe this deal would solve the problems of Greece. If anybody knew a better
solution, he should come and tell him what he should do. But his question was a
bit unclear: What should he do to solve which problem or to satisfactorily
perform which task? Was it (a) to immediately prevent the impending disaster, i.e.
avert state bankruptcy and Grexit, and somehow getting the banks reopened and functioning
again? Or was it (b) to overcome the economic crisis in the middle and long
term?
I do not know whether any Greek MP came forward that night to present a better solution. But, in fact, already before Tsipras signed the humiliating deal, some serious economists outside the political class of Greece had made two convincing proposals for addressing these tasks: (1) The govt. could have immediately introduced a New Drachma as a parallel currency. Euro would have remained in circulation for foreign trade. And the Greek government would have had the sovereign right to issue the New Drachma. This solution would not have had the immediate negative effects of a formal Grexit. In fact, there is a precedent for this policy, viz. Argentina in the crisis of 2001. (2) The govt. could have formally declared Greece's bankruptcy and the country's exit from the Euro-Zone, what many German economists, and Schäuble, advised them to do. The other members of the Euro Zone would have helped them in making a smooth transition to the New Drachma. And the creditors would have been compelled to agree to grant Greece substantial debt forgiveness.
In both cases the New Drachma would have been a weak currency suffering more or less rapid devaluation. It would have led to inflation by making imported goods dearer for those who would receive their income only in the new Drachma. But the weak New Drachma would also have had the advantage of attracting investors and buyers from outside and promoting exports and thus also export industries. In the short term, of course, there would be no advantage only more pain. Particularly the standard of living would continue to fall, while the advantages would have taken some time to come.
But Tsipras, also SYRIZA, had already rejected both options. Obviously, the majority of the Greeks thought they could not bear the pain any longer, did not want to make any experiment, and opted for the continuation of their debt-servitude – not a sign of a proud people. Only a few said, as far as I could gather, they would prefer to be independent again with a new national currency and were prepared to pay the price for that. What I found so bad in this story was that all the leftists collected in the SYRIZA – including ex-communist Tsipras – had not told the Greek public the truth about their situation. They had sold illusions just to win the general election. Even after winning the election, they did not at all prepare the voters for independence. So they had to capitulate. I have shown in a previous article in this blog4 that even the Vietnamese communists had to capitulate to the capitalists and imperialists soon after defeating the latter on the battlefield. And Tsipras and SYRIZA did not have even a fraction of the real power in Greece that the Vietnamese communists had in Vietnam after 1975.
I do not know whether any Greek MP came forward that night to present a better solution. But, in fact, already before Tsipras signed the humiliating deal, some serious economists outside the political class of Greece had made two convincing proposals for addressing these tasks: (1) The govt. could have immediately introduced a New Drachma as a parallel currency. Euro would have remained in circulation for foreign trade. And the Greek government would have had the sovereign right to issue the New Drachma. This solution would not have had the immediate negative effects of a formal Grexit. In fact, there is a precedent for this policy, viz. Argentina in the crisis of 2001. (2) The govt. could have formally declared Greece's bankruptcy and the country's exit from the Euro-Zone, what many German economists, and Schäuble, advised them to do. The other members of the Euro Zone would have helped them in making a smooth transition to the New Drachma. And the creditors would have been compelled to agree to grant Greece substantial debt forgiveness.
In both cases the New Drachma would have been a weak currency suffering more or less rapid devaluation. It would have led to inflation by making imported goods dearer for those who would receive their income only in the new Drachma. But the weak New Drachma would also have had the advantage of attracting investors and buyers from outside and promoting exports and thus also export industries. In the short term, of course, there would be no advantage only more pain. Particularly the standard of living would continue to fall, while the advantages would have taken some time to come.
But Tsipras, also SYRIZA, had already rejected both options. Obviously, the majority of the Greeks thought they could not bear the pain any longer, did not want to make any experiment, and opted for the continuation of their debt-servitude – not a sign of a proud people. Only a few said, as far as I could gather, they would prefer to be independent again with a new national currency and were prepared to pay the price for that. What I found so bad in this story was that all the leftists collected in the SYRIZA – including ex-communist Tsipras – had not told the Greek public the truth about their situation. They had sold illusions just to win the general election. Even after winning the election, they did not at all prepare the voters for independence. So they had to capitulate. I have shown in a previous article in this blog4 that even the Vietnamese communists had to capitulate to the capitalists and imperialists soon after defeating the latter on the battlefield. And Tsipras and SYRIZA did not have even a fraction of the real power in Greece that the Vietnamese communists had in Vietnam after 1975.
Bankrupt economic theories
However, it may also be
that they were misled by false economic theories. Till now, I have not come
across any prominent standard economist from any school of thought who has not
given the Greeks the (false) hope that the Greek economy can again grow and the
Greek people again prosper. They all have projected for Greece the same
perspective: export-led growth. They have only debated about the best path to
growth. The economic advisers of the SYRIZA government must have been Neo-Keynesians
(like Krugman, Stieglitz, Sachs, Flassbeck and Co.). They roughly said that it
was only the austerity policies of Merkel, Schäuble and the sundry supply-side
economists (Sinn, Fuest, Schuknecht, for instance), that were responsible for
their misery as well as that of the whole Euro Zone, that not only Greece, but
also the whole EU could return to the growth path, if they would (were allowed
to) spend more on investments and/or stop cutting the incomes and social welfare
benefits/services of/for the common people. None of them, however, answered the
question how and from where Greece would get the funds for new investments if
nobody was prepared to give them more new credits, even if the creditors would
write off all its debts.
And the neo-liberal supply-siders, who nowadays dominate economic policy everywhere, also in Brussels and Berlin, went on repeating their Mantra, which are well known: Greece must implement radical reforms: i.e. cut costs of production by reducing wages and deregulating the labor market, i.e. reducing the rights of workers and their trades unions; Greece must reduce pensions and rights of pensioners, must privatize state enterprises etc. They also advised Greece to increase the tax rate – not for the personal income tax or the corporation tax, but only for the value added tax, that everybody has to indirectly pay and by which the poor are more affected than the rich. Only this way, they asserted, could Greece again become attractive for investors and competitive in the world market, and only this way could its economy come back to the growth path.
There are several common points between the views of the devaluationists (let us call them so), i.e. those who were advocating a Grexit, and those of the supply-siders. But the former also argued politically: If the SYRIZA government, for political reasons, cannot themselves impose more austerity on the people, then they should accept the demands for and proposals of their exit out of the Euro Zone. For in this case they can blame the Germans and the world market for the fall in the exchange rate of their new currency. They opined that for countries in a situation like that of today's Greece, devaluation is the only path left to achieve growth. I too would advise the Greeks to take this path, not because I think it would enable the Greek economy to come back to the growth path, but because it would enable the Greek people to free themselves from the shame of debt-servitude of the past five years and regain their independence and dignity.
Whatever path the Greeks may choose to take, their economy would not experience any growth in the near future. When Germany was experiencing a long stagnation at the beginning of the present century, supply-siders were saying that unit costs of German products were too high because wages and social welfare benefits in Germany were too high. Lafontaine, a former leader of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) replied to that view (in the general sense) that in the matter of wages, Germany cannot compete with China in the race to the bottom. So, Germans must concentrate their efforts on high-tech and sophisticated industrial products like machines, cars etc.
Greece too, with its average wage of about 15 Euro per hour cannot compete with other EU and non-EU countries in the same region, where the average wage ranges between 4 and 5 Euro per hour. And it cannot compete with, e.g., Germany, not even with France and the UK, in the matter of high-tech and sophisticated products or international finance. Low-tech goods are being produced in China etc. Ordinary products like shoes garments etc. have long ago been out-sourced into really Third World countries like Vietnam, Bangladesh, Cambodia etc. And even if a Greek government in the near future succeeds in making the economy competitive by implementing the recommendations of the supply-siders in Brussels and Berlin, where will it find the markets that are not already being supplied by its competitors? It can at most with great effort win a share of the world market in cheap products. That will, to be sure, create some low wage jobs for the Greeks and profit for foreign investors. But Greece will not become a prosperous country again.
There are three fundamental flaws in all the economic theories that were represented in the media discussions: (1) their age-old basic assumption that unlimited economic growth is possible, as if they have never heard of limits to growth –; (2) their ignoring the fact that at the present level of world GDP, any further economic growth can only come at the price of severe, partly irreversible, environmental destruction that might outweigh all benefit that might accrue from the growth; and (3) their basic assumption that capitalist free market economy and competition are together the best way to make the peoples of all countries more and more prosperous.
But since there indeed are limits to growth in the finite world, it is not possible that all peoples of the world can continuously prosper. I think in the middle of the previous decade (around 2007) a new era in the economic history of mankind has begun. It can be called the era of limits to growth and secular stagnation (sluggish growth, falling growth rates). In parts of the world one can even observe economic contraction. Some countries of the EU are examples of this thesis: Greece is only the clearest one. Signs of this change are not clearly discernible yet, because always, there are some economies that are growing and will grow for some time, and there are always some people who are prospering. But they are growing/prospering at the expense of others and at the price of continuous ecological destruction. It has now become a zero-sum game. This is quite evident, even among and within the rich countries. Just a few years ago, Ms. Lagard, then the French finance minister, held against Germany that its economy was growing at the expense of those of France and other EU countries. She said that Germany was purposely keeping the wages low compared to the productivity of its economy. And in countries like the USA, the income of a small stratum at the top (the 1%) is increasing rapidly while the middle class is shrinking.
Even some neo-Keynesians have realized this. One of them, Heiner Flassbeck, rejected the view that Greece can come out of the morass by improving its competitiveness through introducing and devaluing a new currency. He argued that this way Greece can for a short time become competitive, but only at the expense of the other nations that will not have devalued their currency; and these would subsequently also devalue their currency in order to recover their competitiveness. Competitive devaluation is a beggar-thy neighbor policy, which was largely responsible for deepening the Great Depression of the 1930s.
In sum, as Res Strehle wrote two decades ago,
And the neo-liberal supply-siders, who nowadays dominate economic policy everywhere, also in Brussels and Berlin, went on repeating their Mantra, which are well known: Greece must implement radical reforms: i.e. cut costs of production by reducing wages and deregulating the labor market, i.e. reducing the rights of workers and their trades unions; Greece must reduce pensions and rights of pensioners, must privatize state enterprises etc. They also advised Greece to increase the tax rate – not for the personal income tax or the corporation tax, but only for the value added tax, that everybody has to indirectly pay and by which the poor are more affected than the rich. Only this way, they asserted, could Greece again become attractive for investors and competitive in the world market, and only this way could its economy come back to the growth path.
There are several common points between the views of the devaluationists (let us call them so), i.e. those who were advocating a Grexit, and those of the supply-siders. But the former also argued politically: If the SYRIZA government, for political reasons, cannot themselves impose more austerity on the people, then they should accept the demands for and proposals of their exit out of the Euro Zone. For in this case they can blame the Germans and the world market for the fall in the exchange rate of their new currency. They opined that for countries in a situation like that of today's Greece, devaluation is the only path left to achieve growth. I too would advise the Greeks to take this path, not because I think it would enable the Greek economy to come back to the growth path, but because it would enable the Greek people to free themselves from the shame of debt-servitude of the past five years and regain their independence and dignity.
Whatever path the Greeks may choose to take, their economy would not experience any growth in the near future. When Germany was experiencing a long stagnation at the beginning of the present century, supply-siders were saying that unit costs of German products were too high because wages and social welfare benefits in Germany were too high. Lafontaine, a former leader of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) replied to that view (in the general sense) that in the matter of wages, Germany cannot compete with China in the race to the bottom. So, Germans must concentrate their efforts on high-tech and sophisticated industrial products like machines, cars etc.
Greece too, with its average wage of about 15 Euro per hour cannot compete with other EU and non-EU countries in the same region, where the average wage ranges between 4 and 5 Euro per hour. And it cannot compete with, e.g., Germany, not even with France and the UK, in the matter of high-tech and sophisticated products or international finance. Low-tech goods are being produced in China etc. Ordinary products like shoes garments etc. have long ago been out-sourced into really Third World countries like Vietnam, Bangladesh, Cambodia etc. And even if a Greek government in the near future succeeds in making the economy competitive by implementing the recommendations of the supply-siders in Brussels and Berlin, where will it find the markets that are not already being supplied by its competitors? It can at most with great effort win a share of the world market in cheap products. That will, to be sure, create some low wage jobs for the Greeks and profit for foreign investors. But Greece will not become a prosperous country again.
There are three fundamental flaws in all the economic theories that were represented in the media discussions: (1) their age-old basic assumption that unlimited economic growth is possible, as if they have never heard of limits to growth –; (2) their ignoring the fact that at the present level of world GDP, any further economic growth can only come at the price of severe, partly irreversible, environmental destruction that might outweigh all benefit that might accrue from the growth; and (3) their basic assumption that capitalist free market economy and competition are together the best way to make the peoples of all countries more and more prosperous.
But since there indeed are limits to growth in the finite world, it is not possible that all peoples of the world can continuously prosper. I think in the middle of the previous decade (around 2007) a new era in the economic history of mankind has begun. It can be called the era of limits to growth and secular stagnation (sluggish growth, falling growth rates). In parts of the world one can even observe economic contraction. Some countries of the EU are examples of this thesis: Greece is only the clearest one. Signs of this change are not clearly discernible yet, because always, there are some economies that are growing and will grow for some time, and there are always some people who are prospering. But they are growing/prospering at the expense of others and at the price of continuous ecological destruction. It has now become a zero-sum game. This is quite evident, even among and within the rich countries. Just a few years ago, Ms. Lagard, then the French finance minister, held against Germany that its economy was growing at the expense of those of France and other EU countries. She said that Germany was purposely keeping the wages low compared to the productivity of its economy. And in countries like the USA, the income of a small stratum at the top (the 1%) is increasing rapidly while the middle class is shrinking.
Even some neo-Keynesians have realized this. One of them, Heiner Flassbeck, rejected the view that Greece can come out of the morass by improving its competitiveness through introducing and devaluing a new currency. He argued that this way Greece can for a short time become competitive, but only at the expense of the other nations that will not have devalued their currency; and these would subsequently also devalue their currency in order to recover their competitiveness. Competitive devaluation is a beggar-thy neighbor policy, which was largely responsible for deepening the Great Depression of the 1930s.
In sum, as Res Strehle wrote two decades ago,
“In the
future, supply-side economic policies and demand-oriented Keynesianism will
alternate in the major economic centers like fashion trends. They may even be
synthesized, because, alone, both have only a limited ability to avert
capitalist crises: supply-side economic policies increase the degree of
exploitation and thus attract investors; demand-oriented Keynesianism prevents
a drop in mass purchasing power, but scares off investors. Keynesianism will
only then finally come out of fashion when the interest payments on growing
public debts cannot be financed any longer.” 5
This exactly is the
situation in Greece for the last few years.
Conclusion, and Prospects for the European Left
All that means, however
much Greece may try and whichever economic policy it might pursue, there is
little chance that its economy would recover up to the prosperity level of 2007.
That means, there is no escape from austerity; austerity, more or less, is
unavoidable. But it is not a bad thing, it is even necessary, in both economic
and political interest of the Greek people as well as in the interest of the
natural environment of Greece and the world. However, the pains and burdens thereof
can be shared equally or unequally. Guarantying that these are shared equally
or at least "fairly" is not possible without regulating the economy
and a great degree of planning. That
exactly is the task of a left government today. Pablo Iglesias, the leader
of the new Spanish left party Podemos, of
course expressed his disappointment at the deal that Tsipras had to accept on
13th July. But he also heaved a sigh of relief on noting that
Merkel, Schäuble, and the Troika hawks failed in their objective, namely the overthrow of the [leftist] Greek
government.
It is wonderful that in January 2015 the Greeks voted a left party into power. It was not just a protest vote, not just done in desperation. It seems a large section of the Greek people has realized that capitalism is the problem. That is why, in the years and months before this election, in many demonstrations, one could see placards and banners carrying anti-capitalist slogans. That was the case not only in Greece, but also in the other crisis-ridden countries of Europe. But in truth, capitalism is only one half of the problem. The other half is that there are limits to growth. It does not look as if the European Left (including SYRIZA and Podemos) has realized this. They are still talking of solving the problems of their people through economic growth.
But it is possible that they will come into contact with those who are propagating ideas like de-growth, post-growth economy, sustainable society, solidarity-based economy, eco-socialism etc. If that happens, and if they could be convinced of the correctness of these ideas, they may take steps toward realizing them. After all, they now have some political power.
The first step could be to end the madness that Greeks import 60 percent of what they eat, e.g. Dutch tomato. They could emulate the Dutch and use bicycles rather than cars and buses for local transportation etc. etc.6 Both tomatoes and bicycles could be produced in Greece, thus also creating more employment in the country. These changes would require government action. That would certainly give rise to conflict with the EU watchdogs of a neo-liberal free market economy. That could be the beginning of Greece's latest independence struggle and transition to an eco-socialist society. If all these things happen, then the present crisis may after all have the effect of a catharsis7. The story may then have an happy end.
It is wonderful that in January 2015 the Greeks voted a left party into power. It was not just a protest vote, not just done in desperation. It seems a large section of the Greek people has realized that capitalism is the problem. That is why, in the years and months before this election, in many demonstrations, one could see placards and banners carrying anti-capitalist slogans. That was the case not only in Greece, but also in the other crisis-ridden countries of Europe. But in truth, capitalism is only one half of the problem. The other half is that there are limits to growth. It does not look as if the European Left (including SYRIZA and Podemos) has realized this. They are still talking of solving the problems of their people through economic growth.
But it is possible that they will come into contact with those who are propagating ideas like de-growth, post-growth economy, sustainable society, solidarity-based economy, eco-socialism etc. If that happens, and if they could be convinced of the correctness of these ideas, they may take steps toward realizing them. After all, they now have some political power.
The first step could be to end the madness that Greeks import 60 percent of what they eat, e.g. Dutch tomato. They could emulate the Dutch and use bicycles rather than cars and buses for local transportation etc. etc.6 Both tomatoes and bicycles could be produced in Greece, thus also creating more employment in the country. These changes would require government action. That would certainly give rise to conflict with the EU watchdogs of a neo-liberal free market economy. That could be the beginning of Greece's latest independence struggle and transition to an eco-socialist society. If all these things happen, then the present crisis may after all have the effect of a catharsis7. The story may then have an happy end.
-----------OOO------------
Notes
1. In this story, King
Laius, father of Oedipus, had committed the original sin of trying to sexually
seduce a boy, son of another king, who was his friend. The oracle of Delphi
prophesied that as punishment for this sin Laius would be killed by his own son
who would then marry his widow (mother of his son). In the end, this also
happened without any of the protagonists (other than Laius) having knowingly
done anything wrong. What is more, through this incestuous relationship with
his mother, Oedipus also fathered two children, who were also his siblings.
2. I have expressed this
criticism in detail in my book The Crises
of Capitalism (Berkeley, 2012, Counterpoint), and in the brochure Understanding the Present-day World Economic
Crisis – An Eco-socialist Approach.
http://eco-socialist.blogspot.de/search?q=Understanding
http://eco-socialist.blogspot.de/search?q=Understanding
3. Scylla and Charybdis were mythical sea monsters noted by Homer; Greek mythology sited them on
opposite sides of the Strait of Messina between Sicily and the Italian mainland. Scylla was rationalized as a rock shoal
(described as a six-headed sea monster) on the Italian side of the strait and Charybdis was a whirlpool off the coast of Sicily. They
were regarded as a sea hazard located close enough to each other that they
posed an inescapable threat to passing sailors; avoiding Charybdis meant
passing too close to Scylla and vice versa. According to Homer, Odysseus was forced to choose which
monster to confront while passing through the strait; he opted to pass by
Scylla and lose only a few sailors, rather than risk the loss of his entire
ship in the whirlpool.
4. Victorious in War But Defeated in Peace -- How Development-Socialism
Ended in Capitalism
http://www.eco-socialist.blogspot.de/2015/05/victorious-in-war-but-defeated-in-peace.html
http://www.eco-socialist.blogspot.de/2015/05/victorious-in-war-but-defeated-in-peace.html
5.
Strehle, Res (1994) Wenn die Netze
reißen: Marktwirtschaft auf freier Wildbahn. Zurich:Rotpunkt.
6. Cuba adopted a policy
like this when, after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, they could
no longer get cheap (because subsidized) oil from their former allies.
7. Catharsis (from the Greek κάθαρσις katharsis meaning "purification" or "cleansing") is the
purification and purgation of emotions—especially pity and fear—through art or
any extreme change in emotion that results in renewal and restoration. It is a
metaphor originally used by Aristotle in the Poetics, comparing the effects of tragedy on the mind of spectator to the
effect of a cathartic on the body. (from Wikipedia, English)
