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Why is the Greek government so popular with left-wingers?

Cowen, T. (2015) “Why is the Greek government so popular with left-wingers?“, Marginal Revolution Blog, 10 Μαρτίου.

 

Even though the Greek electorate has elected left-wing leaders, the “the Greek government” hasn’t actually changed all that much.  It is still dysfunctional, corrupt, and very protective of special interests in nationally harmful ways.  Yet I find that if I criticize the Greek government on Twitter I receive many angry, self-righteous comebacks, often but not always from Greeks and usually with a left-wing slant.

One reason the Greek government is so popular with “the Left” has to do, I think, with theories of social change.  I often read or hear it suggested that, if only the truth is spoken in forthright, galvanizing terms, beneficial social change will follow.  This was a common meme in Krugman’s columns for instance over the years.  The claim was that Obama needed to be more like FDR and mobilize a coalition around a commonly articulated series of truths.  I don’t think it was ever promised this would succeed right away, due to Republican intransigience, but it has been portrayed as a good long-run investment in political change through the education of the citizenry.

The new Greek government of course has done this and more.  They have rather flamboyantly staked out extreme positions, insulted their opponents, and warned of the doom that will follow if renegotiations were to run along the lines of EU law rather than the New Old Keynesian economics.  They told their citizenry how much they were standing up for them, and how much this was a moral clash of progressive good vs. austerity evil, with the values of democracy and national sovereignty (supposedly) on the side of good.

The thing is, it’s turned out to be a total catastrophe.  As I had suggested early on, there is, in the ruling Greek coalition, no Plan B.  Germany and especially Spain just held tight on the negotiations and the Greek government more or less had to fold, not even wanting to vote on the negotiated plan.  That plan then failed to receive European approval, nor has Greece drummed up much general support from the other peripheral countries, and now no one knows what to do next.  The ECB, IMF, and others still have Greece “by the balls,” to cite one colloquial expression.  They’re still trying to spin that “the institutions” are not the Troika, but they don’t talk much about liberating the economy as a means of increasing exports.  It seems Emergency Liquidity Assistance may be up for review.  Oops.

 

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