22. Democracy June, 2015
The Greeks gave us many things: spectacular architecture, some early science, lots of impressive mathematics, Windex, a realistic appreciation of the human form, some quaint early philosophy and democracy. I find myself thinking about the latter this morning. My thoughts are prompted by an article in the NYT’s Sunday Magazine of May 24. The article focuses on Yanis Varoufakis, Greece’s Finance Minister.
As you know, Greece is in a very deep financial hole. Five years ago they were almost a half Trillion (with a “T”) in debt. It is hard to know what their current debt is. But on a 2012–13, Gross National Product of about $250B US dollars, a half trillion debt is a lot. For sake of comparison Greece’s GDP is a littler larger than that of Oregon; a little less than that of Louisiana — and it owes half a trillion!!!
Heeding the call of self-interest, the European Union rode to the rescue with a $146B bailout, and then with another in 2012. The price: austerity — reduced pensions, wages cut, government services severely cut back. All of which led, in turn, to @25% unemployment, homelessness, etc..
It is a very sad situation with a collapsing economy (Greece’s GDP has contracted 25%.), and deep, widespread human suffering.
It is, perhaps no wonder that after five years of “austerity” (with a German accent) the citizens of Greece voted in a left-leaning government, (The direction of my own tilt.), promising relief from “austerity”, which is to say relief from the conditions to which they agreed when they accepted the loans.
The new government, led by Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, has been trying to negotiate debt relief with, to date, little success. Extreme as the situation is, this is not an unusual phenomenon: debts are incurred; loans are extended; conditions are imposed; people resent the conditions (because, of course, they are designed to change the very behavior that engendered the debt in the first place). What interests me is the politics, the society, and the social contract.
It is not surprising that someone would make promises he cannot keep: (“I will get us debt relief”), or that people would welcome and accept those false promises: (“I’ll vote for that.”) The wonder is what this sophistry says about Greek democracy.
Mr. Varoufakis proclaims, “I’m not going to humiliate myself, and I’m not going to become compromised in terms of my principles and in terms of logic.” Evidently, his logic does not extend to keeping his promises or paying his debts. After all, Greece spent its way into this hole; indulged itself with expenditures it could not afford; placated itself with uncollected taxes. The story does not start with the bailout; it starts with the hole. And Greece (perhaps with the help of some foolish bankers) is responsible for that hole. So, too, it was Greece that sought assistance from the European Union; Greece that asked for the loan; Greece that accepted the loan with promises to repay and to adhere to its conditions (which, incidentally, Greece proposed).
So, how does a serious, well-credentialed economist get himself to a place where he can expect Europe to write off $240B — and now miss its latest payment on the debt? By claiming his innocence. I was against it all along, he argues. “We were the guys in Syntagma Square protesting….” He goes on, “… what we have here is a serious case of racism that all Greeks are the same, that whether or not they protested the bailout, they are still responsible for it.” In effect, Varoufakis is arguing that these were not his debts and not his promises. With that Varoufakis has become untethered from the ancient Greek understanding of democracy.
The Oxford English Dictionary tells us that democracy is, “a system of government in which all the people of a state or polity … are involved in making decisions about its affairs, typically by voting to elect representatives to a parliament or similar assembly.” Democracy is further defined as (a) “government by the people; especially: rule of the majority (b) a government in which supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections.” The political scientist, Larry Diamond identifies four characteristics of democracy one of which is: “The active participation of the people, as citizens, in politics and civic life.”
Democracy involves not only the right to participate in national decisions, but also the ownership of those decisions. The politicians who were inside passing laws while Varoufakis was outside protesting are “us”, not “them”. The people who dug the hole are “us” not “them”. The people who made these covenants are “us” not “them”. Protesting the bailout does not excuse you from it.
Indeed, ownership (or responsibility) is one of the most powerful facets of democracy. One can claim innocence in a tyranny, but not in a democracy.
I grew up in a time when many (myself included) were protesting the Vietnam War; that did not excuse us from responsibility for the war. Indeed, I believe that the war cloyed so, precisely because we owned it; because we were part of the democracy that waged the war (in spite of our objections). Precisely because we were part of the democracy the war stuck to us like a tar baby. We could not walk away from it, claim it was someone else’s fault. It is one thing to say, “They have it wrong.” It is quite another to say, “We have it wrong.” The former is naively free of responsibility; the latter accepts it.
My brother, John, is a conservative, perhaps as conservative as I am liberal. I think, however that he would share this understanding of democracy. I hated to be implicated in President Bush’s invasion of Iraq as much as he now hates what he sees as President Obama’s failings — not just because he sees them as wrong — but because he accepts that as a member of this democracy he is responsible for them and that his protests to the contrary, like mine against President Bush, do not excuse that responsibility but make it cling all the more.
In a democracy the fact that our vote was cast in a loosing cause does not excuse us from responsibility for subsequent actions. The fact that we objected does not excuse us. The reason goes back to FDR’s, “Let us never forget that government is ourselves and not an alien power over us.“ The song-writer Steve Earle offers a similar thought: “My objection to the death penalty is based on the idea that this is a democracy, and in a democracy the government is me, and if the government kills somebody then I’m killing somebody.”
Like it or not, for better or worse, to be a member of a democracy means not only to enjoy its freedoms, but to accept responsibility for its mistakes — Greeks taught us that.
