We Are Greece After All [Op-ed]

Are we like Greece?

Perhaps for the first time in American history this question is not being asked about our democracy, our civil institutions, or our place in history. Instead, we’re wondering if this country is, like the inheritors of Socrates and Melina Mercouri, a deadbeat polity teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. Greece’s sovereign debt now runs 168% of its GDP; America is far behind at 98%, but somehow that doesn't sound too reassuring. 

Our common problem, some say, is a bloated public sector that taxes and spends too much. Without radical change, like rolling back commitments to social welfare we (supposedly) can no longer afford, America will be forced either into painful austerity measures, or mortgaging our children’s futures. Either way, our fate is supposed to be an ugly one—with riots in the streets, plunging public credit, and a generation of disgusted young people heading for the exits. In other words, like Greece today.

Does this nightmare scenario have any chance of coming true? Interestingly, our American public debt of 98% of GDP is far less than that of some healthy economies, such as Finland (at 215%) and Switzerland (a whopping 379%). Not being an economist, I'll leave that debate to others. But as a novelist who’s spent some time exploring Greek history, crossing and re-crossing the modern nation in the process, I can say that we do resemble Greece in one respect that is even more striking: like the Greeks, we are becoming a people with a pathological dread of national government.

Over there, reaction against broad authority has deep roots. With its convoluted coastlines and torturous interior, geography long made it difficult for Greeks to develop broad governing institutions. Virtually all of the ancient city-states were far smaller than ancient Athens, which was tiny by modern standards anyway. Even when they faced outside threats, as when the Persian Empire invaded early in the 5^th century BCE, the Greeks united only with difficulty, and always mistrusted the authority invested in national defenders like Themistocles, Lysander, and Alexander the Great. The kingdoms and leagues that developed in Hellenistic times were institutionally weak—easy prey for the Romans who mopped them all up by the time of Augustus. Theological divisions in the later Byzantine Empire made most of its territories not only liable, but willing to be conquered by invading Arabs in the 7^th century CE. The Greek-speaking Christians of Alexandria and Antioch, after all, knew almost nothing about Islam, except that it sounded like some strange variant on their own faith. But they did know they hated those tax-and-spend bureaucrats of Constantinople even more.

Centuries of Muslim subjugation did encourage Greek nationalism, but not necessarily Greek faith in big government. The birth of modern Greece in July, 1832 was midwifed by the Western powers, who immediately installed a king who was not Greek at all, but German. The events of the 20^th century, from the fruitless war with Turkey to the fascist occupation to the dictatorship supported by the CIA, likewise reinforced Greek cynicism about rulers from distant places pulling their strings. 

The result on all this history is still stamped on the Greek spirit and landscape. Drive around the country, and you’ll see lots of people living in ugly buildings with unfinished upper floors—deliberately unfinished, that is, because incomplete buildings are not fully taxed. Indeed, dodging taxes is the Greek national pastime, with up to 60% estimated not to pay anything at all. Meanwhile, her citizens continue to reap the benefits of modern infrastructure, health care, environmental laws, public pensions, etc.—all of which cost money the Greek themselves begrudge paying.

Sound familiar? It should. In the US, there's a rising (and very Greek) sentiment that any money sent to government is money wasted, more likely to go to booze and hookers for bureaucrats than the services they're meant for. This is a patently self-serving prejudice, of course -- most taxpayers, I'd wager, would rather believe their taxes go for naught than actually see it benefit people other than themselves. Isn't revulsion against taxes in America -- which are low relative to other developed nations -- is just another way of saying that money spend on anything other than me, personally, is wasted? Yet, like the Greeks, we still expect our highways, food inspectors, and cops to be there when we need them.

American fiscal conservatives have been striving to “starve the beast” of big government since the 1980s . The Greeks have been doing it for generations, obliging their government to borrow more and more to meet its obligations. The practical result -- a public fiscal catastrophe -- is seen roiling the streets of Athens right now. 

Therein lies the lesson. Starving the beast, whether in Athens or Washington, is an oddly Pyrrhic exercise, for nations with weak, penurious governments rarely have healthy, innovative economies. Indeed, past evidence suggests quite the opposite. Historic commercial powers like Elizabethan England, Pre-WWI Germany, and the Venetian Republic all had strong political leadership, each capable of taking resolute action against their respective challenges. For some reason, the illusion has spread among American conservatives and economic libertarians that minimal government somehow must equate with a productive private sector. In fact, this is a false correlation, inspired more by ideology than actual historical experience. Far more often, strong economies have only come with strong, proactive governments.

This was the case in ancient Athens in the late 5th century BCE. That was when a tax-and-spender named Pericles launched some lavish public works programs that caused many ancient Tea Partiers to grumble about the size and scope of government. Pericles got his way anyway, with the fortunate consequence that the Parthenon and other fruits of classical age of ancient Greece actually had a chance to happen. Today, Pericles' "big government" programs represent one of the zeniths of Western civilization.

But Athens' classical moment was brief indeed. Far more often, Greek hostility to joining their resources in a common endeavor led to division, paralysis in the face of chronic problems, and national mediocrity. The classical Greek city-states fell under the rule first of Macedon--a militaristic monarchy--and then to Rome. The latter was not run by free-market libertarians. Instead, the Romans well understood that while government might be a "beast", it was their beast (Res publica, "the public thing").  

In the current political climate, it's easy to dismiss the importance of government. "Shut 'er down!" cried many Tea Partiers last spring, when the threat of a federal government shutdown was narrowly averted. Now, with the debate over the federal debt ceiling coming to a head, maybe it's time to remind folks that there's value in "the public thing" after all. Maybe it's time we started acting less like Greeks, and more like Romans.