Boys having fun: will it work this time?

The Greek bailout is a failure for another reason too. Everyone in the world seems to understand that Greece is a “special case”. But what does that mean exactly? What is so “special” about Greece?

Greece is the last “communist” country in Europe. Not in name of course but to all intent and purpose when it comes to designing policies for change. Until today the troika (EU, ECB, IMF) have wrongly assumed that Greece is a capitalist country with a bloated and inefficient public sector. This is not the correct diagnosis because it crudely underestimates the symptoms and totally ignores the cause.

The Greek economy is run, directly or indirectly, by the State. The only difference from a classic communist country is that the “State” is not run centrally – by say cadre commissars or the “Party” – but by a winning coalition of special-interest groups. These special interest groups are many and include the public sector trade unions, lawyers, engineers, doctors, pharmacists, farmers, and basically just about everyone with some leverage on the weak political system of Greece.

As long as this winning coalition retains its hold of power on the State,Greece will never be able to climb out of the hole. The members of the winning coalition do not have incentives for change. They refuse to be productive. In the name of  “social justice” they protect their privileges and entitlements at all costs, including the possible cost of their own country come to ruin.

Until today, nothing has challenged this winning coalition. The troika applied pressure on the Greek political system and demanded reforms. But Greek politicians are not powerful enough to face down the winning coalitions of Greece, and never will be. Unless helped by external forces Greece will remain forever the perennial beggar of Europe.

Nevertheless, recent history has provided us with many examples where winning coalitions broke down because the economy imploded. These states were the ex-communist countries of Eastern Europe. The European Union managed well in integrating these countries into the Union, and transforming their economies.Germany, in particular, has accumulated much experience in transforming, and absorbing East Germany into the Federal Republic. It is this kind of experience that must be brought to bear unto Greece now.

It is now 2012 and a small Mediterranean country is in peril. For the past two years Greece and its people have been subject to an unprecedented onslaught of austerity measures that have ruined the economy and have left hundreds of people destitute and living off the streets. The corrupt Greek political system is unable to cope, and the Greek public sector a pathetic rabble. But are these good enough reasons to condemn a nation of eleven million people to poverty and loss of their dignity?

As every economist worth their degree knows, austerity measures during a recession are the recipe for destroying an economy. Also, as everyone who has ever bothered to analyze the core problem of the Greek economy knows, it is the bloated public sector that puts barriers to growth and creates public debt. It would have made much more sense if instead of austerity the focus, and the pressure, were squarely on the necessary structural changes that the Greek economy needs. That, and the realization that Greece cannot possibly pay its debts.

There is no moral hazard whatsoever about the latter: he who lends takes a risk that is reflected on the interest rate he demands, and can be insured by insurance companies.Greece suffers because European governments prefer to submit another European people to poverty rather than having the insurance companies and the hedge funds bear the brunt, as they ought to. This is the idea of a market. But no, European governments do not support market principles. They support crony capitalism. They accept the privatization of profit and the socialization of risk. They do not represent the interests of their people; they represent the interests of bankers and financiers. Because these powerful persons control the European media, their propaganda machines have worked overtime to convince their electorates that Greeks are a lazy lot who deserve what they get. This is the real moral hazard, one that destroys the moral fabric of the European Union and the soul of Europe.

The deal ought to have been structural changes for writing off all of the debt and having Greece start anew. That was the deal the Allies did with Germany after WW2. It was a fair deal then for the Germans, and it would have been a fair deal now for the Greeks. And for goodness sake let us stop the comparisons here, because even the most corrupt Greek politician could never be compared with your average, genocidal, German Nazi.

Greece is now on the brink of default. With the communist Left currently rating at over 40% of the electorate there is a danger that my country will not only return to the drachma but will also become the Cuba of Europe. If gas exploration in the Aegean and the Ionian discovers something, then it will become the Venezuela of Europe.Greeceousted from the European Union will look around for allies and will see only Iran and Russia. Together with Greece,Bulgaria,Romania, FYROM,Albania and Cypruswill also collapse, or get very close to collapse, since their economies are financed to a considerable degree by the Greek Banking sector. The Balkans and the Eastern Mediterranean will become a very different place if Greece bites the dust. Which makes a reasonable person wonder: have the western Europeans gone mad? Are the Americans too busy concentrating on their navels so they cannot see what happens in Europe?

Europeans and Americans awake! Your future depends on what happens to Greece!

Cantons are at liberty to pursue their own political choices. They are independent. They do not get finance from any central government. They have their own budgets and tax systems. Some cantons, where the influence of the Left is strong, decide to follow socialist models of governance. There is at least one canton where the Communist Party has formed a government. Other cantons liberalize and go for free markets.

As cantons are free to choose their way of economic and social development Greeks begin to experiment, for the first time since the Hellenistic era. Innovation flourishes and attracts bright minds from around the world, who come to work or set up their businesses in Greece.

And then I woke up; and saw the sad and fateful faces of Papademos, Papanderou, Samaras, Karatzaferis, Tsipras and Papariga; the destroyers of Greece; as well as the faces of the thousands of young and highly educated Greeks making their grand exodus from the country that is incapable – and unworthy – of keeping them.

Socialists, or statists in general, would argue that they are “public goods”; that the state must be their arbitrator. Liberals and libertarians would argue for the opposite; they are “commodities” which ought to be exchanged in free markets. Who is right? Can there be a common basis upon which one may judge the two opposing views?

Before I suggest such a basis let me reveal to the reader that, as a principle, I do not believe in public goods. The reason for that is that I consider absurd the notion that some third party (the State) could, or should, think of what is good for me better than I do. So my opposition to the idea of public goods is a fundamental one. It stems  not only from my instinctive mistrust of the State but from a host of rational arguments, like the one I mentioned above. Furthermore, experience has shown that socialized education and healthcare systems have failed in almost every country that has been tried. “Almost”.

The other day, as I was having a conversation about the (failed) education system in Greece with a number of friends, one of them pointed out that there exist in the world states which have socialized their education with excellent results. He mentioned Finland.

It is true that Finland reformed its public education system in the early 90s and today has what is considered by most the best educational system in the world. Doesn’t this “prove” that education can be – or is – a public good, and achieving high quality for best price is only a matter of “better” management from a State?

Firstly, I am not knowledgeable of the cost per capita for public education in Finland in order to provide a full economic analysis. Perhaps it is too costly, perhaps not. I would like to respond to the point raised by my friend (and by many other I am sure) by focusing on something beyond economics. Besides Finland there are a few other countries too, Scandinavian mostly, which seem to have achieved high standards in socializing education and health. How do they do it?

I would like to suggest that what makes the difference between success and failure in the socializing of education or healthcare is the trustworthiness of the social contract in a given State.

Counties that benefit from strong social contracts have a good chance of managing education and healthcare centrally. Countries where social contracts are not that strong, or failing, ought to take the view that education and healthcare are better served if considered commodities. Greece is an example of a country with a very brittle social contract. Mistrust for the State is fully justifiable: the Greek State does not serve citizens or society, it is an apparatus used by political parties to buy votes in exchange of life-long guaranteed positions in the public sector. Considering education and healthcare in Greece as public goods serves only to make the system cronies richer and more powerful, at the expense of tax payers and mostly the poor, the main beneficiaries of public services.

So it is not ideology that ought to determine one’s views. A more insightful analysis on the relation between citizens and the State, as well as the quality of democratic institutions, is also relevant.

For the sake of simplicity I will focus on the visual arts and music, ignoring for the time being literature (NB. the latter assumes the existence of language, i.e. of people; although my arguments to follow, if true, include literature as well and narratives in general).

A very similar question could be also addressed to a mathematician: could there be maths without a mathematician? I will explain later why I make this juxtaposition. Suffice to say here that maths and music strongly correlate; as well as maths (e.g. fractals, cellular automata, etc.) and the visual arts.

Behind the question of “objective art” lies a more fundamental one: is “art” or “mathematics” invented or discovered? This question I would like now to explore.

Although most people would probably say that “maths” is probably invented, there must be almost none who doubts that art is an exclusive human endeavor. And yet, nature is full of art; i.e. aesthetically stimulating patterns. You can see this everywhere, listen to it in the wind, smell it in the blossoming of flowers or the scent of the sea, taste it in the fruit, touch it in every natural shape and form. Shouldn’t we therefore say that “nature” is also an “artist” of sorts? Or is “beauty only in the eye of the beholder”? – i.e. that natural evolution has shaped our brains in such a way that we “see beauty” in nature?

But even that latter, “biological” explanation is not totally satisfying because it leaves out the central issue of my question; could there be some “other art” beyond human construction, that we are not aware of? If there is, then art is indeed “discovered”, in a similar way that maths appears to be “discovered” whenever mathematicians stumble upon as-yet-unimagined maths that happen to accurately describe natural phenomena. In this case it should only be a matter of time before an artist “stumbles upon” a new aesthetic. Who knows?

Perhaps my question is, ultimately, unanswerable. Maybe it is beyond our cognitive ability to distinguish what is “out there”, as oppose to what is “inside us”. Our consciousness may appear to be separate from the world that surrounds us but, as it is scientifically verified, our consciousness is in fact part of a vast continuum: natural phenomena, such as sound or light vibrations, modulate our organs of perception that drive our minds.  The objective seems to be always interlinked with the subjective.

However, if we accept the above to be true, it follows that art is both objective and subjective, which is a paradox.

To resolve the paradox let us assume that objective art can exist. We can imagine such art as yet undiscovered. It lies not only beyond our field of artistic exploration but beyond the capability of our minds as well. It is an “unthinkable” art.

But, wait a minute. This working assumption bears a suspiciously close resemblance to the goal of mathematics about a century ago, when mathematicians searched for general rules from which all mathematical theorems could be proved. Such “general formalisms” were shown by Kurt Gödel in his incompleteness theorem not to exist. There would always be mathematical truths beyond logical proof. Maths is imperfect. Art must be too.

If we aimed to find formal rules for, say music, we ought to follow the trodden paths of mathematicians of the early 20^th century. Iannis Xenakis tried it. His vision was of formal mathematical rules (e.g. by means of stochastic processes) guiding a computer-aided music machine). Such a non-human musician would, for all intents and purposes, be an “objective artist”. The music produced would be an “objective music”; not invented but discovered. (NB “invention” suggests the agency of mind; our mechanical composer need not be intelligent, a simple number cruncher would do).

Xenakis’ experiment was one that, to the best of my knowledge, has been left unfinished. Of course, given that maths and music are in fact one and the same, one can feel the non-incompleteness theorem of Gödel breathing heavily down on such experiments.  And yet, even if there are ultimate limits to formal rules for art, one needs to explore the limits or the boundaries. Listening to Xenakis’ music I often have the feeling that I am listening echoes from the edge of a space-time singularity encompassing our consciousness. It is as if we have sent a space probe to the end of the universe and we listen its last communication, of something unexpected. Perhaps nothing lies beyond the edge. Or, maybe, beyond the edge lies the realm of the gods.

In my article I attempted to explore the cultural reasons that could have caused such an abuse of the welfare state in Greece. The main question that I’m trying to answer is this: is there something in the culture of Greeks that makes them adopt, without really questioning, the idea of a welfare state? This question is crucial to understanding why the Greek Left has been driving the political agenda of the country since the 1980s, and whether there can be any hope whatsoever that Greece may liberalize its markets, reduce its deficits, tap in the creativity of its business people and innovators, and move on and away from its perennial misery.

To provide a conclusive answer the my question one must first try to understand Greek culture. Here the problem, not unlike a case of national schizophrenia, is that “Greek culture” has two personalities. One is the “official” personality taught at Greek schools, projected in touristic billboards and widely accepted internationally: that modern Greeks are, somehow, descendents of ancient Greeks. My article in The Washington Post focused on that, in an attempt to bust the myth.

The “other” personality of Greek culture – the real one, in my opinion – is more complex; one must pick up the story not in the times of classical Greece but in the late Middle Ages, in late Byzantium. For interested readers I shall return in a future post with more detail on that.

So, in summary,Greece is a country inhabited by a people whose values are very different from the mainly protestant values and ethics that have shaped, and defined, western institutions of democratic government. When Greece became an independent state in 1830 those institutions were readily introduced in the assumption that Greece was just another European country. It was not. The result of this cultural misunderstanding (the one I am focusing in my Washington Post article), is that Greeks have been systematically undermining their governments since then.

Because of this, Greece has never been truly independent but always relied on foreign capital and protection. As long as money flowed in Greece from abroad Greece was kept afloat. Whenever the money supply was  interrupted Greece defaulted.

So what happened to the money? I guess everyone in the world knows the answer to this question nowadays. It was used by the political class to bloat the public sector, a quid pro quo exchange between voters and politicians.

Greece will remain forever in this trap, unless it finds a cure for its cultural schizophrenia. Greeks must reject the imagined culture imposed upon them by European romantics and several of their own intellectuals, and embrace their real cultural identity. When they do so they must then redesign their political institutions in order to reflect their true social and cultural values.

The link to my article in The Washington Post is: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/modern-greeces-real-problem-ancient-greece/2011/11/01/gIQACSq9mM_story.html

Nevertheless, ideological orthodoxy must not blind us to the exceptions that history throws upon us. And Greece, today, is precisely such an exception. A disunity of wants runs deeply within Greek society. Voiced in the streets and reflected on polls are two apparently opposing and mutually exclusive things: (a) to remain in the eurozone and (b) not to submit to the terms of their bail-out. This disunity is tearing Greek society apart. There is no magic formula to resolve this. But a referendum could have make citizens reflect upon their positions on the matter. More importantly, it would have made Greek citizens realize that decision-making is all about choosing what to sacrifice. This, in itself, would have been important for a people to gain a much-needed degree of political maturity.

The Greek referendum is not going to happen. The political elites have won the day. The Greek people will only be allowed to elect a new government in a few days. Much of this development owes to the potential disaster that such a referendum (on Greece staying or leaving the eurozone, as it was going to be framed) would cause on markets, as well as the Greek economy – whatever little is left of it. Nevertheless I find the angry reaction to the Greek referendum from the Franco-German axis and the bureaucrats of the EU and the IMF far more telling. Their vision of Europe is unmistakably one of bureaucratic elites running government and the people following. It is also a vision where some countries command and others obey. It is the wrong vision. It inspires little fidelity to a common European dream. It creates deep divisions within the Union, of the eurozone and the rest, and now within the eurozone as well. How long is this going to hold before the European project unravels?

And to be clear on something that is often flying around in the German press, or the German voters’ minds. German insistence to punish Greece for its so-called profligacy is hypocritical. Greece did not steal money from anyone, it received it from lenders in a market who at the time were happy to lend her, obviously because they were making profit out of the transaction. They obviously calculated the risk of lending to Greece wrongly. They should pay for that. That’s how free markets ought to work. End of story.

Besides, there were supposed to be mechanisms and agreements to control debt in the eurozone, monitored by the European Commission and the European Central Bank. What happened with that part of the story? How comes it is only Greece and Greeks that have been deemed responsible for “bending the rules” – and therefore justly liable to years of austerity and poverty?

Without condoning what the Greek governments did with the money they borrowed on the back of the euro, I argue that blaming the Greeks for spending it is idiotic, and immoral. It is like accusing the drug addict for his addiction, punishing him, and letting his pusher scot free with an extra bonus. So, Ms Merkel, there is no “moral hazard” in bailing  Greece  out without having to reduce Greek society to ruble.

Greeks were reigned in today and told to step back in line. They will. But how much of this is a solution to the real problems on the ground, in the streets and the economy? How much of Greek adherence to terms and conditions will save the future of Europe and of the Eurozone?  The real issue is not Greece, or the stillborn Greek referendum, but whether the agreement of October 27^th is right or wrong. I would argue it is completely wrong, for it does nothing to safeguard a sustainable economic future for Europe. Analysts more adept and knowledgable than me agree too. Worse than that, the idiotic persistence of Ms Merkel and Mr Sarkozy to blackmail Greeks into accepting it is despicable, immoral and undemocratic – and must stop.

In trying to imagine the sequence of events that led to his death I’ve made three basic assumptions, based on my research. The first is that his homosexuality not only remained a target for state persecution but it became more of an issue. As Cold War tensions heightened the era of paranoia descended both upon the US and Britain. It seems that he was certainly followed by the intelligence services, and perhaps harassed as well.

The following is a very rare video of an old documentary on Turing. I have based much of the plot on what is being said here, by people who knew him.

Secondly, Turing had picked up an interest in Jungian psychoanalysis. Without access to detail, and on the basis of my understanding of his life and interests, I am led to the conclusion that Turing saw psychoanalysis as a method to observe his mind from outside his mind.

Thirdly, and strongly associated with the second, is his life’s quest to understand the limits of reason. His seminal paper on computable numbers has showed that logic is limited. A computing machine can go on forever trying to solve an improvable problem, without ever halting. Yet, Turing with his other paper, the one explaining the “imitation game” (later called “Turing Test”) explicitly took the view that logical machines could be programmed to behave like humans; and when they do so humans must accept them as equally intelligent.

Although Turing never bought into the “hard problem of consciousness” he seemed to have had doubts how to reconcile those two ideas of his: logical machines with limits which could be as intelligent as humans. If these two ideas were both true, then how comes he, a human, was able to see that a logical machine would not halt? What made him, a human, decide to switch off the machine? Evidently it was something called “free will”. But could free will be programmed? He has suggested throwing random wheels in an logical machine (an idea called an “oracle machine”), in order to introduce randomness in the logical process. Would that suffice as “free will”? Is “free will” something like a Russian roulette?

In the play I take the view that his suicide was, in many odd ways, an exploration of the limits of free will. Maybe he did not exactly intend to commit suicide, but wanted to test the mechanism of free will: which part of the mechanism was mental, a result of logic, preparing the poison, injecting it in the apple, and so on – and how much was random, affected by external factors. State persecution may have acted then as a catalyst: society preferred lies from truth, imitation from honesty. Societal perception of his homosexuality as an abomination and a threat to national security unraveled the very imitation game that Turing proposed in order to distinguish humans from machines. In the play these ideas climax in the last scene with Christopher’s ghost. Turing explains what he is about to do, and asks for Christopher’s opinion.

Συνέπεια της μαζικής εθνικής αποχαύνωσης ήταν να εξαφανιστεί το πολιτικό κέντρο και οι ιδέες του φιλελευθερισμού, αφού όλοι σχεδόν οι Έλληνες πίστεψαν ότι θα γίνονταν πλούσιοι για πάντα χωρίς να κοπιάσουν. Εκείνοι που συνέχιζαν να δουλεύουν σκληρά και έντιμα έγιναν τα «κορόϊδα» της νέας ελληνικής οικονομίας των «καλών» γνωριμιών και των πολιτικών διασυνδέσεων. Αυτός, ο ιλουστρασιόν τύπου, σοσιαλισμός μας απογυμνώθηκε όταν οι δανειστές μας αντιλήφθηκαν ότι λέγαμε ψέματα για την οικονομία μας.

Το μόνο ελαφρυντικό που έχουμε για την εθνική μας πλάνη είναι οι ιστορικές περιστάσεις. Ο υπεραισιόδοξος ιδεαλισμός των ευρωπαίων φεντεραλιστών οδήγησε στην λάθος απόφαση να συμπεριληφθεί η Ελλάδα στη ζώνη του ευρώ. Αυτό ήταν ένα τραγικό λάθος τόσο για την Ευρωζώνη όσο και για την Ελλάδα. Η οποιαδήποτε ελπίδα για οικονομική ανάπτυξη και πρόοδο που διαφάνηκε περί τα μέσα της δεκαετίας του 1990 έσβησε όταν οι κυβερνώντες έβαλαν στο χέρι εύκολα και φθηνά ευρωδάνεια από τις διεθνείς αγορές. Διογκώνοντας έναν μη-παραγωγικό δημόσιο τομέα οι κυβερνήσεις του ΠΑΣΟΚ και της ΝΔ κατέστρεψαν τις ιδιωτικές επιχειρήσεις και εξαφάνισαν κάθε προσπάθεια καινοτομίας στην Ελλάδα.

Καθώς γράφω αυτές τις γραμμές η χώρα βρίσκεται ένα βήμα πριν την χρεοκοπία και την έξοδό της από το ευρώ. Κι όμως, τα δύο μεγάλα κόμματα που κυβέρνησαν την Ελλάδα και είναι υπεύθυνα για τον εθνικό μας διασυρμό, εξακολουθούν αυτήν την ύστατη ώρα να κάνουν τα πάντα ώστε να μην αλλάξει τίποτα. Ο λόγος είναι προφανής όσο και κυνικός: αλλαγή σημαίνει μείωση του κράτους με φυσικό επακόλουθο την απώλεια της πολιτικής τους ισχύος. Έχοντας πλήρη αντίληψη του πολιτικού κινδύνου που διατρέχουν το ΠΑΣΟΚ και η ΝΔ υπολογίζουν με επαρχιώτικη κουτοπονηριά ότι οι Ευρωπαίοι εταίροι θα συνεχίζουν να ταΐζουν τον Ελληνικό Λεβιάθαν αφού, αν δεν το πράξουν, θα κινδυνεύσουν το ευρώ και οι οικονομίες τους. Την κουτοπονηριά αυτή την στηρίζουν στην φρούδα ελπίδα ότι οι πολιτικές ελίτ της Γαλλίας και της Γερμανίας θα αποφύγουν να πλήξουν τους φίλους τους τούς τραπεζίτες που έκαναν την ανοησία να αγοράσουν Ελληνικά ομόλογα. Όμως στην Ευρώπη δεν υπάρχουν μόνο κυβερνήσεις και τράπεζες, υπάρχουν και λαοί. Και οι λαοί της Ευρώπης δεν είναι διατεθειμένοι να επιτρέψουν στις κυβερνήσεις τους να σώζουν εσαεί μια χώρα η οποία δεν εννοεί να αλλάξει τρόπους. Η Γερμανική κυβέρνηση συνεργασίας σπαράσσεται αυτή τη στιγμή από αντικρουόμενες απόψεις οι οποίες περιλαμβάνουν την αναγκαστική έξοδο της Ελλάδας από το ευρώ.

Ένα είναι βέβαιο: ότι παρά την χωριάτικη κουτοπονηριά των δύο μεγάλων ελληνικών κομμάτων το πολιτικό σύστημα του σοσιαλιστικού πατερναλισμού που εφαρμόστηκε στην Ελλάδα αποκλείεται να επιβιώσει της οικονομικής κρίσης. Απλές αριθμητικές πράξεις αρκούν για να βγάλει ακόμα και ένας αδαής αυτό το συμπέρασμα. Το ζητούμενο είναι τι θα επακολουθήσει.

Δύο είναι οι παράγοντες που θα αποφασίσουν το μέλλον. Ο πρώτος είναι με ποιόν τρόπο θα επιλυθεί η Ελληνική κρίση. Αν η Ελλάδα παραμείνει στην ευρωζώνη είναι πολύ πιθανόν τα δύο μεγάλα κόμματα να επιβιώσουν. Φυσικά θα έχουν αναγκαστεί από τις εξωτερικές πιέσεις που θα δεχτούν να αφαιρέσουν αρκετό λίπος από το δημόσιο τομέα, χάνοντας αρκετή από την εμπιστοσύνη των εξαρτημένων ψηφοφόρων τους. Αλλά δεν πρέπει κανείς να υποτιμά τη δύναμη της αδράνειας και της συνήθειας. Μπορεί τα μεγάλα αστικά κέντρα της Ελλάδας να είναι εχθρικώς διακείμενα στον δικομματισμό αλλά η κατάσταση είναι πολύ διαφορετική στην ελληνική επαρχία. Εκεί υπάρχει, παρά την κρίση, ένα ισχυρότατο ρεύμα υποστήριξης στα δύο μεγάλα κόμματα. Επειδή σε ένα κοινοβουλευτικό σύστημα ένα κόμμα δεν χρειάζεται την απόλυτη πλειοψηφία για να κυβερνήσει, η παραμονή της Ελλάδας στο ευρώ θα ευνοήσει την διαιώνιση του πατερναλισμού και της επαρχιώτικης οπισθοδρόμησης που εκφράζουν το ΠΑΣΟΚ και η ΝΔ.

Αν ωστόσο η Ελλάδα εξαναγκαστεί να βγει από το ευρώ τότε τα πράγματα θα είναι μάλλον διαφορετικά. Η αποχώρηση από το ευρώ, τουλάχιστον στην αρχή, θα σημάνει την υποβάθμιση του βιοτικού επιπέδου και των εισοδημάτων μέχρι και 50% αυτού που είναι σήμερα. Η λαϊκή οργή θα είναι τεράστια. Η οικονομία της Ελλάδας θα τείνει προς εκείνη της Βουλγαρίας. Ειδικά οι πρώτες μέρες της επαναφοράς της δραχμής, με τις αποταμιεύσεις να εξανεμίζονται και τις τράπεζες να αρνούνται να δώσουν τα χρήματα στους καταθέτες τους, θα δημιουργήσουν μια εκρηκτική κατάσταση με απρόβλεπτες συνέπειες.

Ο δεύτερος παράγοντας που αποφασίσει το μέλλον της χώρας μας είναι κατά πόσον θα επανεμφανιστεί ένα ισχυρό φιλελεύθερο κέντρο στο πολιτικό μας βίο. Τα κόμματα που βρίσκονται σήμερα στο Ελληνικό Κοινοβούλιο εκπροσωπούν κάτι λιγότερο από τον μισό ελληνικό πληθυσμό. Ο άλλος μισός, ο σκληρά εργαζόμενος και αδυσώπητα φορολογούμενος, δεν έχει σήμερα πολιτική εκπροσώπηση. Αυτό συμβαίνει διότι δεν υπάρχει ένα ισχυρό κεντρώο φιλελεύθερο κόμμα που θα συσπείρωνε τους μη-κρατικιστές πολίτες, όλους εκείνους τους πολλούς που πιστεύουν στο ελάχιστο κράτος και στην ισχύ της ιδιωτικής πρωτοβουλίας.

Ο συνδυασμός αυτών των δύο παραγόντων θα αποφασίσει αν το μέλλον της χώρας μας θα είναι μια χρόνια βιοτική υποβάθμιση, μια συνέχιση των παλιών κακών ηθών με την φρούδα ελπίδα μιας επανόδου στις «παλιές, καλές μέρες», ή ένα νέο ξεκίνημα. Συχνά υπερτονίζουμε στην Ελλάδα τις ιστορικές μας καταστροφές ξεχνώντας τα πολλά και σπουδαία έχουν γίνει από τότε που η χώρα μας αναγνωρίστηκε ως ανεξάρτητη[1]. Ένας λαός ο οποίος επί αιώνες ζούσε ως υπόδουλος μιας μουσουλμανικής απολυταρχίας κατάφερε μέσα σε λιγότερο από δύο αιώνες να βρίσκεται στις κορυφαίες θέσεις των πλουσίων κρατών της Γης[2]. Είμαστε από τους υγιέστερους και καλύτερα σπουδασμένους ανθρώπους στον κόσμο. Το ανθρώπινο κεφάλαιο της χώρας είναι τεράστιο και τραγικά αναξιοποίητο. Η εφαρμογή ενός ελάχιστου κράτους στην Ελλάδα θα απελευθέρωνε τις δημιουργικές της δυνάμεις και θα μας καθιστούσε εθνικά ανεξάρτητους και περισσότερο δημοκρατικούς. Δεν υπάρχει τέλειο πολιτικό σύστημα, δεν υπάρχει ουτοπία, δεν υπάρχει αιώνια ευδαιμονία. Η ευμάρεια δεν χαρίζεται αλλά κερδίζεται. Η εθνική ανεξαρτησία και η δημοκρατία δεν είναι εύκολα πράγματα, αλλά απαιτούν προσπάθεια και πολιτική εγρήγορση. Ευκολότερο είναι να παραδοθείς στην πατερναλιστική τυραννία των ημετέρων ανταλλάσσοντας την υποταγή σου και ξεπουλώντας την αξιοπρέπειά σου για ολίγα ψιχία που θα σου μοιράσουν οι νέοι ταγοί σου. Είναι όμως τρόπος αυτός για να ζει ένας ελεύθερος άνθρωπος;

Στην δημοκρατική Αθήνα της αρχαιότητας ο πολίτης όφειλε να είναι «καλός» και «αγαθός», δηλαδή υγιής στο σώμα και την ψυχή, και ικανός να άγει ο ίδιος τα βάρη του και να μην τα φορτώνει στους άλλους. Ιδού η πεμπτουσία του δημοκρατικού πολίτη: η πνευματική νηφαλιότητα, η πολιτιστική καλλιέργεια, η σωματική ακμή, το εργασιακό φιλότιμο. Αυτοί που αγαπούν την ελευθερία θα πρέπει να εμπνέονται από τις δημοκρατικές αξίες της αρχαίας Αθήνας και της δημοκρατικής Ρώμης, και να στέκονται καχύποπτα απέναντι σε κάθε μορφή εξουσίας. Όσοι θέλουμε να κερδίσουμε πίσω τη χώρα μας, όσοι ονειρευόμαστε μια ελληνική οικονομία της γνώσης, όσοι επιθυμούμε την ατομική ελευθερία και την ελάχιστη δυνατή φορολόγηση, χρειάζεται να συσπειρωθούμε σε ένα φιλελεύθερο κέντρο που θα διεκδικήσει την κοινοβουλευτική εξουσία και θα υλοποιήσει τις αναγκαίες πολιτικές και πολιτειακές μεταρρυθμίσεις.

In April of that year the Commission trainees made a symbolic visit to Berlin, as was the custom. We walked by the Wall and visited the museums. Eastern German sentinels from their watch towers took our pictures, and some hurled abuse at us, a means of intimidation. Until someone at a cafe told us that the soldiers’ cameras did not have film because it was too expensive. The Eastern German economy was not doing particularly well, something we ascertained when we visited shops with empty shelves in East Berlin. There were obvious cracks at the seams, but the communists that ruled on the other side of that ugly brick wall seemed powerful and ruthless enough to hold everything and everyone together.

On “our” side of the wall the idea of United Europe, forged after World War II, was very much alive; it was about the dream of a peaceful and united continent, of Europeans striving for prosperity, democracy and social justice. I was 25 years old then and this ideal inspired me enormously. I felt a European born in Greece, like an American born in California. I became a member of the European Federalists. I bought two car stickers with the 12-star European flag and the words “Europe, my country”, and placed one of them at the back of my rusty Honda Civic and drove around Brussels proudly.  The other sticker I kept it for posterity, planning to get a decent car one day and put it on its decent bumper.

Years passed and so much happened since 1989. Several turbulent love affairs, various jobs, changed professions, travelled the world, wrote books. The Honda Civic was replaced by many other cars, a couple of them decent enough to merit the sticker I had bought as a young man in Brussels. Of course, I had forgotten about the sticker as time went by. Until recently, when I rediscovered it at the bottom of one of those boxes that you carry around every time you move places, till you forget the reason why.

I would like to send that car sticker to the leaders of the Eurozone who gather today to decide the fate of Europe, in case it reminds them something.

The euro turned out to be the spanner thrown in the works of European integration. It came too early in history and instead of uniting the Peoples of the continent, it separated them in a “core” and a “periphery”. Suddenly, the Germans and the Dutch began to consider their “values” higher that the values of the Greeks or the Italians, and to regard proof for this the fact that they are rich while the others are poor. This protestant belief of linking material wealth to moral superiority, so deeply engrained in the northern peoples’ minds and societies, has returned from the grave to clash directly with the south’s angst to live, to hold the day, to think of tomorrow in not-so-deeply concerned ways.

There is a deep chasm that cuts Europe in half, only this time is not East versus West but North versus South. Regardless of the decision taken by Eurozone leaders today this chasm will grow wider and wider. Greeks cannot be like the Germans and Italians cannot be like the Dutch. I have been one of the sternest critics of my country and of my people. We can change our systems and institutions and we must, but we cannot – and should not – change who we are.

Back in 1989 diversity in Europe was supposed to be our strength. Today is has become our weakness. The euro and the Eurozone have no future under such circumstances. If we are to remain united we must remember the reasons that made us decide on our common fate. And then we must rebuild the trust that seems to be lacking so much nowadays. Perhaps then there is still hope for a “United Europe”.