Actually, that’s too broad of a brush, but I do despise people of any nationality who think that they are entitled to mooch off the labor and capital of others. I also fear for my country because of such people. Benjamin Franklin is rumored to have said that, “When the people find they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.” I don’t know if that is a real quote, but it accurately captures the problem with modern democracy (which is why our Founders gave us a constitutional republic, where our rights to life, liberty, and (especially) property were not subject to the tyranny of the majority). Writing for the City Journal, Theodore Dalrymple makes the essential point that what is happening in Greece is democratic corruption. In other words, the Greek people no longer have the social capital needed for a functioning democracy:
When the crowd tried to storm the Greek parliament, shouting, “Thieves! Thieves!,” its anger was misdirected. It was a classic case of what Freudians call projection: the attribution to others of one’s own faults. It is true that the Greek politicians are much to blame for the current situation, and no doubt many of them are thieves; but their real crime was not stealing, but offering a substantial proportion of the Greek population a standard of living that was economically unjustified, maintained for a time by borrowing, and in the long run unsustainable, in return for votes. The crime of that substantial proportion of the Greek population was to accept the bribe that the politicians offered; they were only too prepared to live well at someone else’s expense. The thieves were not principally the politicians, but the demonstrators. Such popular dishonesty is by no means confined to Greece. In varying degrees, most countries in the West have displayed it, Britain above all. It is perhaps an inherent problem wherever the universal franchise is unaccompanied by widespread virtues such as honesty, self-control, providence, prudence, and self-respect. Greece is therefore a cradle not only of democracy, but of democratic corruption. The Greek demonstrators did not understand, or did not want to understand, that if there were justice in the world, many people, including themselves, would be worse rather than better off, and that a reduction in their salaries and perquisites was not only economically necessary but just. They had never really earned their wages in the first place; politicians borrowed the money and then dispensed largesse, like monarchs throwing coins to the multitudes.
Meanwhile, Mona Charen is rightfully amused at the absurdity of the press writing about “anti-government” riots when the rioters are overpaid government workers and the target of their wrrath is a socialist government. She also makes an excellent point that the bureaucracy is so pervasive in Greeece that government unions just elect the people who promise to give them absurdly unaffordable pay and benefits:
That “anti-government mob,” it must be understood, consisted of civil servants, tens of thousands of whom took to the streets to protest austerity measures. …One in three Greeks works for the government. Government employees enjoy higher wages, more munificent benefits, and earlier retirements than private-sector employees. Civil servants can retire after 35 years of service at 80 percent of their highest salary and enjoy lavish health plans, vacations, and other perks. Because they are so numerous, and because Greece is highly centralized, public-sector unions hardly have to negotiate. They simply vote in their preferred bosses. Some civil servants receive bonuses for using computers, others for arriving at work on time. Forestry workers get a bonus for outdoor work. All civil servants receive 14 yearly checks for twelve months’ work. And it’s almost impossible to fire them — even for the grossest incompetence.
Would it be too obvious to state this is precisely what is happening in California and other states in the USA? Public employee unions buy our elections. In California they spend approx. $250 million per year on state and local elections, far, far more than any other special interest. Their money pours in automatically, though dues that flow straight from the taxpayer to the government to the union coffers. And everything, from the rhetoric they spew to the sad reality they have created, could be lifted straight from your descriptions of Greece, and applied to California.
I am becoming more and more convinced (and apprehensive) of the fact that, the next battle of ideas will be between a dying West, which has stalled in its quest for further individual freedom, and the nascent authoritarian capitalism of the East.
However, let me dare make a prediction. It may not necessarily be all that bad. Assuming that movement of goods, capital and people remains free, a set of competing authoritarian capitalist states may not prove all that bad, after all.
Just think of corporate America in today’s still relatively free market. Every company is essentially like a small dictatorship (ultimately, though you may disagree with your bosses, you have to follow the company line). Yet, the key element is: they are COMPETING little dictatorships. They have to vie for a finite pool of free moving talent. The end result is that American companies treat their workers well. Actually (in my case where I have worked for companies both in Europe and the US) I find that working for an American company is much more pleasant overall than working for a company in Europe, where, presumably, workers have won many rights through “hard fought struggles and concessions”. It is characteristic of many typical leftist Europeans to dump their job and move to America as soon as an American company offers them a job (and a visa).
The microeconomics leading to this predicament, are rather simple:
When a certain baseline standard of living is guaranteed no matter what the value of your individual production is, while, at the same time, any extraordinary work that you do will be harvested to provide that baseline to everyone else, most people either:
a) stop working once they have reached modest wealth
b) settle for mediocrity and focus more on deriving pleasure from non economic activities (eg. They exercise more, do more yoga, learn how to knit, spend more time at the beach, aromatherapy, read books, play guitar, spend more time improving their looks etc.) activities that, ironically, in contrast to searching patents for new drugs, designing i pods and other entrepreneurial activities, offer little benefit to the general public.
c) Use their skills to collaborate with corrupt politicians and become corrupt themselves, in order to rent seek from the little productivity left in the country.
With production incentives muted and production depressed, the revered guaranteed baseline standard of living itself, inevitably becomes economically unsustainable and starts degrading. This is the situation in Europe today, especially in Greece where the vicious cycle seems to have reached its later end stages (but may come to life again as the permanent North-South intra-European transfer of wealth starts taking shape – at least until the German productivity gets all used up, or declines under the same vicious cycle).
The European masses now understand the dangers of bailouts but will politicians listen?
The German are turning away from Chancellor Merkel’s ruling party, The Irish people attempt to storm their parliament, and the British ousted the Labor Party (Gordon Brown) for the conservatives who want to cut government spending! I think some europeans are looking at the Greeks and are finally saying enough with failed policies, enough with the lack of competitiveness and enough with the fiscal irresponsibility!
Read more at: http://wp.me/pPdcm-3H
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