Recently Alexis
Tsipras, the Prime Minister of Greece, has declared the end of the bailout of
the country, proclaiming a “day of liberation.”
Greece has completed a three-year emergency loan program worth €61.9
billion to tackle its debt crisis. It
was part of the biggest bailout in history, totaling approximately €289 billion,
which will take the country decades to repay. Cuts in public spending, especially for social
welfare programs, will continue.
 |
| Alexis Tsipras |
Repayment will be
made all the more difficult by the fact that the country will continue
borrowing, although at “market rates,” and the fact that the economy (such as
it is) is 25% smaller than it was before the debt crisis began. According to the International Monetary Fund
(IMF), only four countries have shrunk economically more than Greece in the
past decade: Yemen, Libya, Venezuela, and Equatorial Guinea.
It is correct in
a sense to say that Greece is now “liberated” . . . but from what, exactly, is
not entirely clear. Debt is still nearly
200% of GDP and the underlying problems that caused the need for the bailout in
the first place have not been resolved.
Still, people are
angry. Not only has social welfare been
cut, jobs have disappeared. People see
no way to make a living. They don’t see
the crisis coming to an end; as far as most people are concerned, it’s all on
paper. People had grown accustomed to
government benefits of the modern Welfare State and didn’t ask too many
questions about where the money was coming from until everything came crashing
down.
 |
| Is Greece suffering from a debt crisis, or a production crisis? |
The chief problem is the fact that
consumption for the average Greek far exceeded production for the average
Greek, and the slack has to be made up somewhere. As might be expected, that “somewhere” has
been government debt, just as it has for almost every country on earth.
In a collective
sense, this doesn’t make any difference. Keynesian economics is built solidly on the
assumption that there is no difference between the individual human person and
the collective.
As far as actual
human beings are concerned, however, it makes a great deal of difference. If Person A produces twice what he consumes,
and Person B doesn’t produce anything, collectively there is enough to go
around. In the real world where actual
people live, Person A can have all he wants and set aside something for
tomorrow. After all, Person A produced
it, so Person A owns it and can do with it what he likes.
 |
| The money has to come from somewhere. |
As for Person B,
he can go take a hike . . . unless Person A feels charitable or the government
steps in and takes Person A’s presumed surplus and gives it to Person B. Of course, if the government does that, then Person
A might decide not to produce that surplus for Person B’s benefit instead of
his own, unless the government figures out a way to take from Person A to give
to Person B without Person A catching on, at least too quickly.
Unfortunately,
the Person As in the Greek economy caught on, and stopped producing, leaving
the Person Bs hanging out to dry.
Of course, the
real solution is to make Person B as well as Person A productive so that each
produces for himself. Given the power of
the ordinary person to be productive, it’s astonishing how productive they can
be.
For example, in
France following the Franco-Prussian War the country produced its head off and
paid off an indemnity specifically intended to destroy France economically
forever in less than three years. Of
course, ownership of the means of production in France was broadly owned so
that ordinary people could be productive.
If Greece
instituted something along the lines of a Capital Homestead Act
and put forth a comprehensive national effort to retire the debt — an all-out
“war on debt” — it is entirely possible that the economy would be on a sound
footing within three to seven years, and the debt be repaid without austerity
in less than a century (with a great deal of pain, give it a generation, say less
than a quarter of a century).
It's at least
something to think about.
#30#
