Summary: The Greek-eurozone tale is a common one, much like that of America’s inner cities. As usual, the Right begins its tightening with the weak and poorly behaved. People are told that they deserve their harsh fate. But it doesn’t end with them, as austerity is a medicine always requiring another dose. {1st of 2 posts today.}
Previous posts reported economists’ explaining the roots of the Greek crisis, so unlike the simple morality play in the newspapers. Yesterday’s post said that events in Europe result from similar political forces at work in America, both pushing the west to the Right. This provides evidence of that, in a small way, by Tyler Cowen, a conservative Professor of Economics at George Mason U: “Greece and Syriza lost the public relations battle“. It’s quite revealing, which we see at the opening.
One of the most striking aspects of the Greek situation is just how much the Greek government has lost the public relations battle. They have lost it among the social democracies, and they have lost it most of all with the other small countries in Europe.
Conservatives respect public opinion (vox populi, vox dei), except when it’s just the views of the mob. But public opinion is malleable, and condemnation of the Left has been a knee-jerk reaction of the news media for centuries — as we’ve seen in America from the first great public relations campaign against William Jennings Bryan in 1896 (the most expensive Presidential campaign ever) to the demonization of Martin Luther King (“commie agitator”). The campaign against Greece ranks among the best of them, driven by a mix of fact and fiction.
The progressives do have some good points and I absolutely favor significant debt relief for Greece. That said, the Greek government has handled the last few months so badly it really is incumbent on them to show they will do better. I don’t see many signs in that direction, quite the contrary, and any reasonable democratic government will ask for Greek institutional progress before putting up much more in the way of money.
An essential element of modern conservatism concerns how we treat the poor and broken, whether the nation of Greece or an individual Afro-American. The Right demands that they be tested (multiplying their stress), that aid should depend on the results, that the worthy of the underclass must suffer (as if in purgatory) — and that the unworthy suffer even more (as if in hell). It’s the opposite of a helping hand.
The entire handling of Greferendum should alert the progressives that they have been egging on the wrong horse; the heroic Hugo Dixon nails it: “Tsipras’s wild promises have worsened the Greek crisis“.
Cowen describes a journalist writing an op-ed as “heroic”, not the poor suffering now in Greece. Also, this is quite a daft judgement considering the long series of mistakes made by both sides in Europe since the crash. There are no clean hands among Europe’s leaders.
I take the progressive “clustering out on a limb” here as a sign that, for better or worse, progressivism as an ideology has reached and indeed gone beyond its high water mark. The progressives are siding with a corrupt, clientist state, which won’t cut its defense spending down to Nato norms, against some admittedly imperfect social democracies, thereby sustaining the meme of powerful aggressor vs. victim.
Greece is corrupt, but it’s not imposing mindless austerity — endless years of suffering — on a smaller and weaker neighbor, based on theories proven false before this attempt (and doubly so after the experience since 2010). Which is worse?
Also note that the bulk of the lending to Greece went to pay off loans by eurozone banks, shifting the debt from private to public hands (as Steve Randy Waldman passionately explained). The price Greece paid for rolling over its loans (rather than defaulting on its bank loans) was depressionary austerity, making them weaker with every passing year.
Conclusion
Fifty-two years ago President Kennedy said during a different kind of crisis “Ich bin ein Berliner” (I am a Berliner). Today the Right looks at the weak with far less empathy than Kennedy of Johnson did. Whether they live in America’s inner cities or Europe’s periphery, the Right’s prescription is austerity plus uplifting rhetoric. It seldom works, at least for those on the receiving end.
Europe has chosen its path, and none can see where it leads. America might be on the same path, just following a few steps behind. We can watch Europe and learn from them, and see if we should conduct our affairs in the same way.
For More Information
To understand the how Europe fell into this hole I recommend “Greece, The Euro and Gunboat Diplomacy” by Karl Whelan (Prof Economics, University College, Dublin). “The original decision to provide a bailout is the source of the current crisis. Time for Europe to share the blame and financial consequences.”
For a deeper look see “Greek crisis: How Greece became Europe’s fault line” by economist George Magnus. Magnus recommends Modern Greece: What Everyone Needs to Know
If you liked this post, like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. See all posts about Greece, the European Monetary Union, and especially these about the perilous state of the European Union…
- Forecast: Can the European Monetary Union survive the next recession? Probably not. — July 2008.
- The Fate of Europe has become visible. Only how and when the break comes remains uncertain. — June 2012.
- The hidden goal of Europe’s leaders. See it and then their actions make sense. — July 2012.
Skipping ahead to the present…