Yanis Varoufakis, Adults in the Room. My Battle with Europe’s Deep Establishment (London_ The Bodley Head, 2017).pdf
Yanis Varoufakis, Adults in the Room. My Battle with Europe’s DeepEstablishment (London: The Bodley Head, 2017)the crisis’ burden got shifted from the private to the public sector, “PIIGS” and “profligate”States became the new target for media-fuelled public anger. Later still, it was the turn of foreign migrants coming from countries that had already been squeezed in previous decadesby unsustainable debt, the IMF’s heavy-handed technical advice, and the dubious wisdom of currency unions (e.g. the French-Franc-tied CFA currencies in Central and Western Africa).In an eerie recurrence of the 1930s, “the deepening crisis would produce a xenophobic,illiberal, anti-Europeanist nationalist” reaction (482). To add scorn to injury, “it is one of history’s cruel ironies that Nazism is rearing its ugly head in Greece” with the electoralsuccess of the ultra-right Golden Dawn party (215). As a scholar and a citizen of Iceland, which despite its geographic isolation and economicpeculiarities (e.g. energy security by geothermal power) experienced a complete financialcollapse immediately after the 2008 credit crunch, Varoufakis’ account of the recent “Greek tragedy” flags out significant differences worth thinking about (49; Iceland’s woes havebeen covered extensively in
, especially issues 6(1), 7(1) and 8(1)).Iceland, after a failed attempt at rescuing its national banks, opted essentially forletting them go bankrupt. Greece and the whole European Union committedthemselves to saving them at any cost, even if it meant letting Greek pensionersstarve, Greek citizens die because of unaffordable healthcare, and Greek homelessnessexplode (i.e. the “humanitarian crisis” denounced by Varoufakis, 37).“[C]apital controls” were reintroduced in Iceland “in the wake of its own financialcollapse in 2008” and kept in place for a decade in order to prevent capital flight andallow the Icelandic State to have a manageable monetary mass whereby to restart andreorganise the national economy (121). The European Union did nothing of the sort,and actually allowed financial speculation between member countries to take place aswell as the continued siphoning of large amounts of money into non-EU countries andtax havens (cf. the recent Panama Papers and Paradise Papers scandals). A new Icelandic government not tainted by collusion with the banking sector cameeventually into power in 2009. Their role was to clean up the mess left by theconservative parties that had always claimed to be the business-savvy ones. The newIcelandic government proved genuinely disposed and overall adept to serve thecommon good, even if it meant conflicting with the IMF or pushing for what RachaelLorna Johnstone and Aðalheiður Ámundadóttir call “progressive regressive measures”,i.e. austerity for the better off so as to pay for the welfare needed by the worse off intimes of dwindling resources (“Defending Economic, Social and Cultural Rights inIceland’s Financial Crisis”,
3, 2011: 454-77). Syriza’s newand largely untainted government in Greece, under its creditors’ enormous pressure,
Yanis Varoufakis, Adults in the Room. My Battle with Europe’s DeepEstablishment (London: The Bodley Head, 2017)did much less to alter the regressive-regressive measures that the previous twogovernments had already enacted. Varoufakis regrets that his own achievements asfinance minister were, in this respect, meaningful but scarce, given the extent of hiscountry’s gruelling humanitarian crisis (e.g. the prepaid “plastic card[s]” providing forthe needs of the poorest families, 476).Iceland’s currency could be devaluated and was devaluated, first by sheer speculativepressure and then by central bank’s
fiat
, thus making the nation’s export goods andincoming tourism more attractive. Greece’s Euro, which is also the currency of itschief creditor countries with a very different set of post-2008 problems, could not andwas not devaluated.In Iceland, the new government, the central bank, the trade unions and theindustrialists’ representatives participated in largely cooperative and constructivebehaviour to keep unemployment in check and favour the nation’s recovery. In Greece,not to mention within the EU, bitter divisions affected all interest groups andprevented the same synergy from being firmly established. The pulverising atomism of selfish
furbizia
trumped comprehensive cooperation: the common good, consequently,agonised.Debt bondage by foreign loan or so-called “rescue packages” became a likely outcomeof the Icelandic crisis too. The international pressure towards this dubious solutionwas noteworthy, as epitomised by Gordon Brown’s Labour government invoking in2008 the UK’s anti-terrorism legislation so as to freeze the assets of all Icelandicnationals and businesses based on British soil. Against all odds, the Icelandic nationrejected debt bondage, i.e. getting loans to repay other loans to repay other loans torepay other loans and so on
ad nauseam
(French economist Gérard de Bernis used tocall it “the usury model” of State funding: cf. his 1999 essay “Globalization: Historyand Problems“). This refusal occurred
via
two referenda promoted by a president of the republic in search of lost popularity—this long-time president having been too vocal a cheerleader of the banks that, a mere five years after their privatisation, hadbrought the country to its knees. Only one allegedly ‘populist’ centre-right partysupported the rejection of the “Icesave” agreement with the Dutch and Britishgovernments on both occasions (i.e. the Progressive Party), while the self-proclaimed“responsible” parties spoke favourably of it, on either occasion (e.g. the Left-Greens)or even on both occasions (e.g. the Independence Party). In 2015, the people of Greece voted by a sizeable majority against the third bailout agreement that the Syrizagovernment had itself opposed but ended up accepting nonetheless—a U-turn that Varoufakis defines aptly as “the overthrowing of a people” (467). Varoufakis’ new book is most interesting, well-written and, above all, it constitutes a
Yanis Varoufakis, Adults in the Room. My Battle with Europe’s DeepEstablishment (London: The Bodley Head, 2017)political memoir that future scholars, politicians and activists should consult in order to beready for the next major crisis that, sooner or later, will come to pass. On top of that, it is anapology, in at least two senses. First of all, it is a self-defence by a politician who, in thepanic and confusion of the Greek depression, has been accused of all sorts of nasty schemesand treacherous actions, sometimes grotesquely. Secondly, it is a token of self-promotion,for Varoufakis has now a Europeanist party to sponsor, with the aim of making Europeaninstitutions much more democratic and considerably less technocratic. Apologetic partiality aside, there is no doubt that the conversations and the events reportedin Varoufakis’ book did occur as we are told, or at least the vast majority of them, as therobust critical apparatus of the book can help confirm. Any person interested in currentsocio-political affairs should read them and meditate upon the astounding amount of deceitful cynicism, harmful cleverness and obtuse pride that they display. Every attempt atimproving the world’s economic order and political praxes—and Varoufakis’ book spots goodwill, intelligent leadership and responsible policy too, in both Nordic and Mediterraneannations, as well as on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean—is bound to have to face and,hopefully, surmount such obstacles. Varoufakis, on his part, has been trying hard for years,but to no avail.
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