A worm's eye view

After another day in the sun with the agoraddicts, it was a pleasure to be able to read John Lanchester's outstanding article on the Greek default in the London Review of Books (yes, the Greek default, which he is probably right to take as a fait accompli). Lanchester, a Brit, offers an extensive overview of the crisis, its causes, and its probable consequences. Although a novelist should probably know the word 'passivity' (which any classicist will prefer to his awkward 'done-unto-ness'), his piece is certainly one of the most illuminating contributions I've read so far, and for having brought it to my attention I should thank my friend Leo - a translation into Roman in more senses than one.

Lanchester offers us what he calls 'a worm's eye view' of the crisis. Granted, he says, the Greeks (as well as citizens of other countries that borrowed heavily, like you and I) profited from government borrowing, but it didn't feel that way at the time. In any case, though Greece now has too many cushy public-sector employees, can you really blame Giannis for taking up that promising position five years ago? He was just trying to earn a living, and the government job was the most attractive option available to him. He can't be blamed for the government's decision to create that position, nor was he to know that it was ultimately unsustainable given the state of the public finances and Greece's likely rate of growth. And if anybody did know that the number of new public-sector jobs was unsustainable, they were ignored, like Cassandra prophesying the fall of Troy.

Lanchester mixes up a number of insightful observations here, but because he tries to develop them all the picture that emerges is blurry. His first point is a perceptive comment on a tragic feature of human psychology: our setbacks hurt us more than our victories make us happy. The follow-up again appeals to an understanding of the human mind, premised on the assumption that people will do what is in their short-term interest (if I get offered a good job, I will take it). Lanchester then exploits the sense that, in our modern quasi-democratic constitutions, there is a gulf in power and communication between the rulers and the ruled: I didn't borrow money, the government did, and anyway, how was I to know it would all end it tears? Finally, we have one of the fundamental problems with democracy: policies are chosen on the basis of what please people, not with a view to what is best for them.

I sympathize when Lanchester gestures despairingly to the abyss dividing government and governed in our modern states, just as I did when George, the protestor I talked to in Syntagma Square, made a similar lament. At the same time, it seems clear to me that there is enough responsiveness even in our imperfect democratic mechanisms for the people to take proper responsibility for their own fate. Given time, memory, and good historians (this is crucial) a people should be able to learn from its mistakes. Those who remember the destructiveness of over-spending by past governments should be cautious about accepting the assurances of parties who promise ambitious projects in the future. Occasionally this works, for a while; Canadians, for example, consistently punished fiscal indiscipline in the wake of the deficit run up by Trudeau's governments in the 70s.

But more often it doesn't work, often because people like to vote for politicians urging them to let the good times roll. This is one problem with democracy even the ancient Athenians didn't have figured out (let alone the modern ones). The politician Demosthenes was constantly complaining that his fellow citizens only wanted to hear what was pleasant (that King Philip of Macedon was no threat), not what was true (that King Philip of Macedon was about to take over Greece). Plato was more scornful, comparing democratic politicians to make-up artists who could make a sickly customer a picture of health (philosopher-kings, he thought, would be more like expert nutritionists, patient builders of genuine well-being).

Cutting back is difficult, as a lot of people are remembering these days: it's painful to give up that holiday, those clothes, that daily takeaway coffee. But when you consider the alternative, it turns out that the perilous path of discipline is the only route we can choose if we value our autonomy as adult human beings. Of course it would be much easier to save if someone made our spending decisions for us, just as it was easier not to make mistakes when our parents were overseeing our every move. In the same way, it might well be easier for countries not to overspend if their spending decisions were taken away. Technocrats in Frankfurt, say, could impose the discipline that politicians in Lisbon and here in Athens seem unable to go through with themselves. If you find that an acceptable scenario, you may as well stop reading this blog; though it does place in stark terms the real stakes of arguing that our democracy is partly to blame for our sorry choices. If we complain too much about or freedom to choose, someone might well just take it away from us.