Alex Gourevitch — Why Torture a Victim Whose Will Is Already Broken?

Another must-read. I've quoted the essential, but the details are also shockingly important. It's written by a political scientist rather than an economist. His point is that the EZ is a mainly a political institution rather than chiefly an economic one. It involves a transfer of power from democratic governance to technocratic.

The draft of the agreement between the Greeks and the Eurogroup is out and, as everyone has noticed, it is not just an act of revenge, it is a piece of legislative torture. It contains old demands, like pension reductions and higher taxes to fund primary surpluses, as well as new demands, like reduction in the power of unions and a massive privatization of state assets using a separate fund controlled by Greece but monitored by the EU’s institutions. In fact the document asks for a massive legislative program touching on every aspect of Greek economic life – tax policy, product regulation, labor markets, state-owned assets, financial sector, shipping, budget surpluses, pensions, and so on. This legislation is demanded within the next few weeks. Such a package is the kind of thing one sees during or just after wartime, not as the product of democratically negotiated decisions. Let’s remember that the programme on which Tsipras and the Eurogroup agreed is something asked of a country that has already experienced a very severe depression, already implemented a number of constraints requested by creditors, has 25% unemployment and a banking crisis. What is the point of torturing a victim whose will is already broken? To destroy all opposition.…

Why would anyone want to belong to a union whose leadership practices economic torture?

Becaiuse neoliberalism.

I think this should not be read as a proposal for restoring growth to Greece or even as the reflection of an economic blindness in Europe but as the reflux of the EU political project, of which the euro is the purest expression: the preference for technocratic domination over popular sovereignty.…

The Euro is a political project. It is unification without sovereignty. It is the delegation of national sovereignty to groups of finance ministers and supranational bodies whose main task is to suppress the re-appearance of the very source of their power. The political institutions and practices that have grown up around the euro and the EU are based on the belief that exercises of sovereignty are dangerous, irresponsible, and unaccountable. Although these institutions are in one sense nothing more than the product of agreements between nations, their raison d’etre is to prevent any further, outright expression of that sovereign power.  

This is a document of unconditional surrender. It should be roundly rejected by the Greek people.

 The free world needs to rise up with the same indignation it shows toward  dictatorial regimes that violate basic the  basic principles of democracy. Not to do so would be hypocritical and undermine the moral authority to criticize others.

the current moment
Why Torture a Victim Whose Will Is Already Broken?
Alex Gourevitch | Assistant Professor of Political Science, Brown University