"Move out of the sun!"

Interpretation by Peter Sloterdijk (Wikipedia)

According to Peter Sloterdijk, in his Critique of Cynical Reason, this is "perhaps the most well known anecdote from Greek antiquity, and not without justice". He states that "It demonstates in one stroke what antiquity understands by philosophical wisdom — not so much a theoretical knowledge but rather an unerring sovereign spirit [… T]he wise man […] turns his back on the subjective principle of power, ambition, and the urge to be recognized. He is the first one who is uninhibited enough to say the truth to the prince. Diogenes' answer negates not only the desire for power, but the power of desire as such".

The sun is out today in Greece and Greeks are voting about their future. Perhaps a miracle happens and they will elect a few people of Diogenes' measure!

Dostojewski on the side of Greeks

To the Greek readers of this blog, battered by foreigners for some time now, I would like to offer on the eve of the most important election this amateur translation of a section of Dostojewski's "The Player".

The young Russian (the player) said: “It is not a given which of the two is worse, the wild Russian way of life or the German style to accumulate money through honest work. I, for one, would rather travel around as a nomad with a tent all my life instead of praying to the German idol”.

“What German idol?”, the General asked.

“The German way to accumulate wealth. I don’t like such virtues. I walked around here yesterday and whatever I saw and observed is just like in German picture books. Every house has a house elder who is perfectly righteous and virtuous, so virtuous that one has to almost fear in his presence. Every such house elder, or house father, has a family and in the evenings they read instruction books to one another. Outside the house the trees blossom, the wind blows and the sun is about to set. Everything is just so cosy.

So here the family lives in total serfdom under the house father. Suppose the house father has accumulated financial wealth and intends to pass on his business to his elder son, then there is nothing left for the daughter who will become an old virgin. And the younger son they sell as soldier. And all of this happens in the name of righteousness, undue righteousness where even the younger son who was sold believes that he was sold out of righteousness. Isn’t that an ideal situation where the sheep is joyful on his way to the slaughter? But further. It is not easy for the elder son, either. He has this Amalia whom he loves but whom he can’t marry because they haven’t accumulated enough money yet. Now they wait in a chaste and faithful manner and they also walk to the slaugther with a smile. Amalia’s face gets old and her skin dries out. Finally, after about 20 years, they have accumulated the necessary wealth in a righteous and virtuous way. The house father blesses his 40-year old son and the 35-year old Amalia with her dried-out breasts and red nose. The house father holds a moralizing speech, cries a bit and then he dies. Now the elder son becomes the virtuous house father and the story begins from scratch. This goes on and on and after 5 or 6 generations, the result may be some Baron Rothschild or Hoppe & Co., or something like that. Now, isn’t this a moving spectacle? Centuries of inherited work, patience, cleverness, virtuousness, righteousness, perseverence, thriftiness and the stork on the roof! What else do you want? There is nothing more desirable than that! And with this conviction the Germans hold court over the rest of the world and whoever is found guilty, that is whoever is not like them, will be damned. Now I prefer to live the Russian way, to live an exuberant life and to increase my wealth in the casino, if necessary. I don’t want to be Hoppe & Co. in 5 generations. I don’t need money for myself. I am the purpose of everything and not just a factor to create wealth”. 

In the 1960s, American comedians were joking "vote for the Kennedy of your choice but vote for a Kennedy!" To Greeks I can only recommend in all seriousness "vote for the party of your choice but don't vote for those who remind me of the thugs which started crowding the Munich beer halls in the 1920s".

Is Samaras in a good position?

The way I understand Greek election law, the head of the largest party gets 3 days to form a coalition government (unless his party already has a majority). If he fails, that task moves on the head of the second largest party. And so on.

Three things seem fairly certain: (a) ND/PASOK will not reach a combined majority; (b) Samaras (ND) will come out first and (c) Venizelos (PASOK) will come out second. I emphasize the words fairly certain because everything seems possible at this stage of the game.

In the above sceanrio, Samaras would have 3 days to form a coalition government and I see no way how he could accomplish that without Venizelos. So, Samaras is condemned to be successful with Venizelos because otherwise he is out of luck.

It is in Venizelos' hands to make Samaras successful or not. Obviously, he will not do anything that could be deemed "destructive" at such a critical stage of the country. On the contrary, he has already said that a ND/PASOK coalition (including perhaps others) would have to be the solution and he has already said that he did not have to be No. 1 in a new government. Thus, Venizelos has made himself invulnerable to any possible attacks of "playing partisan games".

But there are so many other ways, nice and subtle ones, to block Samaras from reaching a deal with Venizelos. And 3 days can pass very quickly! If they pass without success for Samaras, the man will be brandmarked as a loser.

Should Venizelos reach the point where he is asked to form a government, he starts from a much better position than Samaras. First of all, Samaras will be discredited even within his own party, opening the door for Venizelos to negotiate with someone else and, secondly, that someone else might be a more sensible man than Samaras is.

Whichever way I slice it, I would prefer to be in Venizelos' position rather than in Samaras'.


UPDATE after the first exit-poll
Ooops, a small detail obviously escaped me. I had never even considered that PASOK's second place might be in danger. Now it looks very much like it will be. So much for predictions...

Not a bad home; not bad at all!

My wife's cousin has a small farm about 1 hour South of Thessaloniki where he spends weekends. On our last visit, he took us to his neighbor's house. Here is a video about it.

This is just one example of the many contradictions in today's Greece. On one hand, one might think that Greeks are doing everything possible to destroy their beautiful country (litter all over the place; deserted unfinished buildings; a run-down environment; etc.). On the other hand, one continuously runs into extremely beautiful things which Greeks have created and are creating to this day.

Well, if Greece weren't full of such contradictions, perhaps it would be boring...

Reason must prevail, reason will prevail --- and what if reason doesn't prevail?

Once again, Greece - a country of 11 million people - will capture the world's attention next Sunday. One wonders which election will receive more world-wide publicity - the French or the Greek one... (not to even mention the fact that there is a fairly important election in Germany as well).

When I first heard of the Greek rule that opinion polls could not be published in the last 2 weeks prior to an election, I thought that this was a rather good idea. As the election approaches, I am no longer so sure. Opinion polls can and obviously do influence the outcome of elections but is that all bad? When you see opinion polls until the very last day, it's like having a second chance and being able to review one's decision before casting the final vote irrevocably. You may rightfully want to give ND/PASOK a real lesson by voting for extremists but do you really want extremists in power?

What would be a desireable outcome? A recent tweet suggested that ND/PASOK should get a combined majority, form a coalition government and, sort of as a first act, disavow themselves from all their campaign rhetoric and continue on the road on which they had embarked with Lukas Papademos last November. Would appear quite reasonable but is that what the Greek people want?

As of now, I would consider the following as the most desirable result for Greece: one of the extreme sides (or both sides together if they decide to cooperate) should get exactly "50% minus 1" of the vote. That would get the point across to ND/PASOK that the Greek people have really had it but before they decide to tip the scale completely against the country's future, they are willing to give the political establishment one last, one very last - really, one really very, very last chance.

If the political establishment did not get this point, then things would undoubtedly start taking care of themselves in Greece going forward (however one wishes to interpret that...).

A guide to Greek politics before the election

Nick Malkoutzis of the Ekathimerini has compiled this remarkable analysis of the painful transition which Greek political parties (and their electorate) find themselves in. It takes time to read it but that is time well spent.

One question which I have had for a long time has been answered in this paper: what percentage of the vote do ND/PASOK need to get in order to have a combined majority? The answer is --- that depends! 

"If support for the parties that remain outside Parliament combines to make 3 per cent, then the winning party or the parties that will form a coalition will need to get 39.2 per cent of the vote. If the unsuccessful parties garner a combined vote of 10 per cent, the threshold for the winning party or the coalition drops to 36.4 per cent. The latest Public Issue poll predicted that the non-parliamentary parties would get a total of 9 per cent".

Given the fact that ND/PASOK had always garnered between 77,40% - 86,86% of the vote in the last 30 years, one would think that to get 36,40% of the vote this time around should be a piece of cake.

Or should it not?

Can Greece exist purely as a service economy?

Approximately 80% of Greece's economy is in services. The point has been made over and over again that Greeks are not nearly so akin to manufacturing as they are to services (a nation of shop keepers, taverna and bar owners, traders, etc.).

Can Greece exist purely as a service economy?

Theoretically yes; practically only with great difficulty. The more Greece becomes a service economy, the less products will be manufactured in Greece. However, Greeks will not consume manufactured products to any lesser degree than other people. Thus, the manufactured products which Greeks will want to have are going to be manufactured elsewhere and imported to Greece.

Obviously, if Greece's services were offered abroad and generated income from abroad, things would be different. But to accomplish that, Greece would not only have to significantly increase exports (without manufactured products?) but also to approximately double the revenue from tourism (or generate other sources of foreign income).

Bottom-line: it is very unlikely that Greece will be able to manage without at least some focus on new domestic manufacturing.