Utopia Builders Set Up Boutiques to Sell Shoddy Product

A retort to Dr Peter McMahon's "Global neo-imperial Fantasies Come Unstuck".

By Con George-Kotzabasis

The utopia builders, a la McMahon, have set up their boutiques in the global market to sell their shoddy product. After the collapse of the historically misplaced Communist utopia, with its Gulag Archipelagos and Killing Fields, the Left's sorcerers apprentices are now concocting their new mantric utopia of "global governance'', to take the place of the displaced one. Two fundamental contradictions haunt your argument, and ultimately bury the phantoms of the ne-cons and of neo-imperialism that you raised in your piece. You state that "in the 1970's a new global system was emerging". Your phantoms however, the neo-cons, were only in power in 2000. By this time the system was already robust and on its course. The neo-cons were not fabricating a new version of it, as you claim, but were merely its new "managers". And in the aftermath of 9/11, they were also trying to protect it. That was the reason why they went to war, not oil.

The second fundamental flaw in your argument is, that while you claim that "human experiences are too diverse to bend to the logic of one homogeneous society... Or one global market", your panacea for the ills of "global neo-imperialism" is "global-scale governance". At the same time you concede that such "governance" will have "to bend to the logic of...One global market". But how will you put in place such governance upon such "diverse" non-homogeneous societies? Didn't the recent failure of the EU to unite in reference to the amendments of its constitution, which is, moreover, culturally homogeneous, teach you anything?

Your remedy of "global-scale governance", is intellectually unhinged and cannot be taken seriously. All you accomplish with your piece is to replace the "phantoms" of the neo-cons with your greater phantom of universal governance. By such intellectual credentials, Plato would never allow you to enter his Academy.

New Democracy under Strong Leadership of Samaras Will Win Elections on June 17

By Con George-Kotzabasis June 15

The survival of nations may sometimes depend on the life of one man. Edward Gibbon

It is inordinately difficult, even for a modern Tiresias, to predict the outcome of the Greek elections, especially when voters are actuated by their intense hopes and fears about the results of either the pro or anti-memorandum scenario that would affect so profoundly their future existence. However judging from the swift change of Syriza’s policy only few days before the voting from the hard position of denouncing the Memorandum to the soft position of solely re-negotiating the burdensome points of the Memorandum with the European leaders, which is no different from the position of New Democracy, Pasok, and the Democratic Left,  Syriza was forced to change its intransigent stand in annulling the Memorandum, as it was pronounced in its pre-electoral programme last week, as a result, I suspect, of an internal private poll that showed clearly that New Democracy was outdistancing by a wide margin Syriza in the opinion poll, thus compelling the latter to abandon its principle policy of annulling the Memorandum that apparently scared the electorate that such action would entail Greece’s exit from the Eurozone. Now Syriza sings its hosannas to re-negotiating the Memorandum and making a desperate attempt to join the chorus of reason from its previous dangerous position of denouncing it and taking Greece out of the European Union. But this reversal of policy is too late for Syriza and is exposing it also to the fraud that it attempted to perpetrate on the Greek people.

Antonis Samaras, the illustrious leader of New Democracy, in his sagacious move to form a Pro-European Patriotic Front that would anchor Greece within Europe while negotiating the shoals of the Memorandum that threatened the country’s sinking into everlasting debt and economic poverty, will be the justified victor of the election on June 17. The Tsipras phenomenon was always a flash in the pan and as soon as it was placed upon the burning coals of reality would be blackened and return back to its true colour that from the beginning was its natural intellectual and political shade.

    

Antonis Samaras Will Save Greece from Frightening Catastrophe

By Con George-Kotzabasis May 20, 2012

Professor Varoufakis I don’t share your conclusion that the next election will be as “inconclusive” as the previous one. Already there are signs, and my strong belief is, that Syriza, the radical left party, will be a big loser on June 17 and its fickle flip-flop and slipping, as adumbrated by some recent statements of its chameleon leader Tsipras, from its original position of denouncing the Memorandum--by which it boosted its electoral results--and by replacing it with its gradual revision, that essentially is no different from the position of New Democracy (ND) and Pasok, will clearly expose it to the electorate as being blatantly inconsistent and fraudulent and therefore no longer trust it as a serious-minded party that could get Greece off  the hook, especially when its political dilettantism, thoughtless and dangerous policies would push Greece out of the Eurozone. Also to consider, as you do, that New Democracy’s and Pasok’s anti-austerity stand is “rhetoric,” is to be a fugitive from reality, especially in the case of Samaras who was the only politician both in Greece and Europe from early on May 2010, to denounce austerity measures as barren without rekindling the economy and led ND not to vote in Parliament the first Memorandum which embodied these infelicitous measures.

Syriza could not have been taken seriously by anyone with a serious disposition in politics, and Varoufakis, who so egregiously supported it prior to the May 6 election, should have known better. All of its leaders, breast-fed by Stalin, Trotsky, and Mao, are habituated and stuck to the nostrums of communism that have been built on sand and have been washed away by the sea long ago. The socialist Pasok, with its preposterous economic policies and political ‘sins’of the past and deep-rooted corruption, has lost all credibility among the populace, and therefore is unable by itself   to get the country out of the crisis. All the other parties with their ‘certified insanity’, and I would include in this group Syriza, are Napoleons locked up in mental institutions.

Ergo, my choice is the much maligned Antonis Samaras who since his incumbency as leader of New Democracy two-and-a-half years ago has demonstrated magnificent qualities of leadership in political and economic insight, in resiliency and swiftness of approach to the critical issues—an example of this was the rejection of the first Memorandum and the forced acceptance of the second in circumstances when Greece was at the edge of the abyss and had to be saved--in his unflappable determination to convince the European leaders that austerity without growth would fail, and in his brilliant success in persuading them of the correctness of his argument and thus opening  the second Memorandum to the necessary modifications that would include growth. Samaras is gifted with high intelligence and a strong character without the big ego  that considers le tout c’est moi, to paraphrase Louis XIV, that often negates the strength of character, and he is the only  Greek leader who has better than a chance to pull Greece out of the crisis.            

Greece: Democratic Left Lost its Courage before Great Danger

By Con George-Kotzabasis May 15, 2012

At this critical juncture for Greece whose fate is at stake and the formation of a unity government is imperative, the resolution of the latter’s impasse is in the hands of Fotis Kouvelis, the Leader of the Democratic Left, since the foolish, historically ignorant, hubristic, and unimaginative stand both of Syriza and the Communist Party (CP) to neither participate nor support a coalition government that will be condemned and discredited for many years to come for their politically barren obduracy, only Kouvelis who holds the key to the problem of forming a coalition government can prevent the country’s exit from Europe and at the same time as the embodiment of the ANANEOTIKI Aristera (Renewed Left), can salvage the political ideological credibility of the Left in Greece that is threatened to be obliterated by the doltish position of Syriza and CP.

The constant designated desire of a majority of the Greek people before and after the election was for the parties to form a coalition government and to remain in the Eurozone; also an overwhelming majority of people do not want another election. In the face of this bulky 70% wish of the people to have a coalition government and to stay in Europe, Syriza’s hope that by contravening the wish of the electorate it will increase its electoral percentage and be the first party in a second election is unwarranted and is a chimera. On the contrary a party with foresight, imagination, and daring can see that by fulfilling these strong wishes of the majority the chances are greater for such party to increase its votes than to be condemned for its participation in a coalition government with New Democracy and Pasok as Tsipras, the leader of Syriza, attempts to frighten Kouvelis. Especially when the setting up of such government is based on two conditions, (a) remaining in Europe and (b) to the extent possible radically modifies the Memorandum.

When your house is on fire you don't ask who was responsible for it. The first thing you must do is to put the fire out before it burns your house with all those who are ready to help you. The historical and wise responsibility of Mr. Kouvelis is to cooperate with those parties which strongly want to save Greece from leaving Europe and prevent the absolute poverty that such departure would afflict the country.

The stupid and historical irresponsibility of Syriza must be countervailed by the wise, and historically daring, decision of Fotis Kouvelis to form government with New Democracy and Pasok despite their past misdeeds. It ‘s up to Kouvelis to cut this Gordian knot of Tsipras obstruction to the formation of a unity government and whether in the historical annals of Greece his name will be written in gold letters or in black charcoal.

Regrettably Kouvelis failed to cut the Gordian knot of Tsipras that obstructed a unity government and form a coalition government with New Democracy and Pasok without the participation of Syriza. He proved to be too weak to cross the intransigent and verboten line of Tsipras non-participation and boldly form government with New Democracy and Pasok at this critical time for the country. Intelligence without moral strength is useless in politics. Kouvelis’ repeated ‘rehearsal’ of an Ecumenical government, in which Syriza constantly and invariably refused to be part of it, by obdurately and stupidly sticking to it to the end became a burlesque farce. History will not be kind to him for this remarkable dereliction of duty and lack of courage before this great danger of the country when the question for it is to be or not to be, and he will be justifiably and appropriately be condemned for his obdurate refusal and failure of character to play a major part in salvaging Greece from its deadly woes that put at risk not only the economic but also the democratic existence of the country.

I rest on my oars: your turn now

Critics of the Leader of New Democracy Call for his Ousting

Life favours the brave. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

By Con George-Kotzabasis May 7, 2012

The deplorable low votes the major party in the electoral contest of Greece, on May 6, New Democracy obtained, has rallied some of the critics of its leader Antonis Samaras to ask for his ousting. One of them is Andreas Koutras, a very bright trained physicist who has changed his profession and presently is a top savvy financial consultant in the UK.

Surprisingly, you are profoundly pessimistic, not to say nihilistic, about Samaras, who is the greatest politician appearing on the political firmament of Greece since the great ethnarch Eleftherios Venizelos. Samaras is “framed in the prodigality of nature,” to quote Shakespeare, endowed with that rare combination of high intellect, imagination, stupendous moral strength, and political insight, which he proved by his prediction of the disastrous policy of austerity without economic resurgence, which the first Memorandum of the European Commission had directed Greece to implement as a remedy for its economic woes.

Statesmen are not responsible for the ignorance and political immaturity of their people. They try to lead daringly even in a vacuum of understanding among their people about the real dangers their country is facing. The tragedy of Samaras was that his clear, sagacious, and bold policies were not able to overcome and trump the ignorance of a large part of the electorate about the real dangers that were threatening Greece, especially in a state of akyvernisia (un-governability), which he also foresaw and tried with Herculean efforts to prevent, that presently its dark shadow hovers over Greece as a result of the inability of the political parties who won the election to come to an understanding and form government.

As a physicist you must know the fate of Galileo and how difficult it is to nullify ignorance. And your quote of Hitchens in your blog gives me the sense that you are aware of this difficulty. To wish therefore for Samaras removal, seems to me not only unjust but also politically immoral. And to hope that the leader of the radical left party Syriza that came second in the election,, a staunch votary of Hugo Chavez, that he will change his inveterate leftist populist position of anti-Europe led by Germany, is to indulge in wishful thinking.

Sometime ago you proposed a financial plan of how Greece could get out of its debt. Do you consider that it was your personal failure because people were too stupid to adopt it? Samaras, likewise, called for elections at a critical time for Greece and dared to lead a highly dejected and crestfallen people in these exceedingly difficult circumstances for the purpose of saving Greece. Do you blame him for doing this?

In the Thunderous Sky of Greece a Lightning Bolt of Creative Destruction is about to Strike the Country

By Con George-Kotzabasis April 27, 2012

History has shown that at critical moments, in countries of advanced and high culture, men of stupendous ability, imagination, foresight, and fortitude, sprang, like phoenixes from the ashes, to salvage their countries from mortal threats. Themistocles at the battle of Salamis that saved Greece from the barbarian Persian invasion, is one example, the other is Charles Martel, who at the battle of Poitiers stopped the barbarian Muslim invasion from conquering Europe. In our modern contemporaneous times, Greece, on the verge of being devoured and crashed by the ‘hungry fangs’ of default and economic poverty, is just as promptly to be saved by a modern-day Periclean statesman, Antonis Samaras.

In the early 1980’s, with the advent of Andreas Papandreou’s socialist government in power, which proved to be the destructive force that brought Greece to its present catastrophe, that immediately started implementing the serial economic crime of a policy of deficits, the country entered the vicious circle of government spending without economic development. By the early 90’s it was glaringly clear that the debt of the country was reaching astronomical heights that would lead it to the precipice of default and bankruptcy. In 1994, Constantinos Mitsotakis, the former prime minister of Greece, in a prophetic speech in Parliament, predicted that the economically crass and thoughtless policies of Pasok would send Greece as a mendicant to the International Monetary Fund to spare it from pauperism. Andreas Papandreou himself was shocked when at a sober moment glanced at the unfathomable debt that the country was in, as a result of his dirigisme economic policies. It was in his presence when his minister of finance Kostas Simitis remarked, in an accusatory and pungent phrase, that this was “the revenge of the economy.”

The false prosperity that had engulfed Greece turned a sizable part of its population to indulge in the charms and seductions of dolce vita at the expense of government largesse. A whole generation of Greeks had been spoiled and became kaloperasakides (the easy life of prodigally good-timers) under the perpetual munificence of the State. In such a social situation the New Democracy party, though imbued with the precepts of The Austrian School of economics versus Keynesianism, and realising, as its leader Constantinos Mitsotakis did, that the country was approaching in a rapid pace the edge of insolvency, had its hands politically manacled and could not implement decisively and with celerity, and with the necessary degree required, policies of economic restraint that would have prevented the transformation of Greece into a mendicant status, since there did not exist even a small constituency on the political landscape of Greece that would contemplate, least of all accept, policies of austerity. The Greeks had been ‘pathologically’ conditioned to the ‘benefits’ accruing from big government, introduced by Andreas Papandreou, and any attempt to small government by any party in power or any opposition propagating  such an idea, could neither hold or win government. Who would give up the ‘free tans’ in sunny Greece that so profusely and generously the State was providing? And who would give up the cushy and loafing jobs in the public sector that the party boys and girls of Pasok and New Democracy were enjoying and relishing? This is the point from which the economic tragedy of Greece had started and would continue to its tragic end.

Thirty years of frivolous public spending brought debt-to-GDP ratio of 120%. Since October 2009 when the son of Andreas Papandreou, George, became prime minister and implemented measures of severe austerity as directed from Brussels in the first memorandum, debt reached 168% of GDP. With the continued recession of the country for the fifth year, Greece lost 16%--18% of its GDP since 2009.

From early 2010 the Opposition leader, Antonis Samaras, few months after his election as leader of the New Democracy party, was warning the Papandreou government of the danger that the austerity measures without economic recovery would lead the country into recession. But his was a lone voice in the wilderness. And for his bold and insightful decision to oppose and vote against the first memorandum replete with the leaden heaviness of austerity that would sink the Greek economy as it did, he was vehemently reprimanded both from within and outside the country. The Economist magazine severely criticised him for his stand against the memorandum but only to lament its critique two years later and concede that Samaras was right. Likewise, Chancellor Merkel and many European ministers with whom Samaras had quarrelled and pointed out to them that austerity measures without rekindling the economy would not resolve Greece’s problem but would make it more abstruse and harder to crack. It took two years for the top brains of Europe to realize that the austerity pills that they were forcing into Greece’s mouth to remedy its ills would have the effect of poisoning its body. (In two years of the severe austerity of the Memorandum, as we indicated above, Greece increased its debt to GDP by a great amount and lost a substantial part of its Gross Domestic Product as enterprises closed and unemployment ravaged the country.) And in turn, like The Economist, admitting that Samaras had won the argument, as all Europeans now are calling for economic recovery and development, supplemented by austerity measures that are necessary, as the way to restore a country’s economic strength.

The May 6 Elections of Greece Crucial for the Future of the Country

The impending election that has been called by the interim government of Lucas Papademos for May 6 is of momentous significance for the future course of the country. Greeks will be called to be partisans of the hard climb to the peak of Mt Olympus from where the sun of hope will rise once again over Greece or be partisans to a free fall in a long twilight of despair. The first is the thunderous call of the New Democracy Party under the Gulliverian and imaginative political leadership of Antonis Samaras, and the second is the deathlike mute call of a congeries of small parties from the left and the right led by Lilliputian politicians. These politically 'pigmyfied' parties, among which is the Communist Party, have no policies of rescuing Greece from its woes, except policies that would lead to the exiting from the European Union and return to the drachma that would lead in turn to the absolute poverty of the country, deliberately drop the curtain on all hope on Greece as their sole aim is to sordidly profit politically by their investment in hopelessness.

The socialist party, Pasok, the main opponent of New Democracy, although on the side of hope, even under the new leadership of Evangelos Venizelos, is totally discredited, as it has been the party that led Greece to its present catastrophe by a bout of unbelievable and unprecedented economic and political mistakes, that Venizelos himself was involved in and responsible, during the last two years that was in government. Moreover, the latest decision of the High Court of Greece to apprehend and charge a former luminary of Pasok and right-hand man of Andreas Papandreou, the founding father of the Panhellenic Socialist Movement, Akes Tsohatzopoulos, his wife and daughter, and some of his relatives, with bribery and corruption and with being the receiver and beneficiary of millions of dollars as paid commissions, during his tenure as minister of defence, from German and Russian companies to which he had authorized major assignments and projects of his department, has indelibly marked Pasok as venally corrupt;  particularly when its present leader Venizelos, at the initial investigations of Tsohatzopoulos, with the stentorian voice of the lawyer, that he is, was defending and exculpating from any knave dealings, and with the usual catch-all alibi of the typical politician,  that the “accusation against Tsohatzopoulos was politically motivated.” Hence, inconceivable political incompetence and culpability, and unfathomable corruption on the part of Pasok, will be two major themes that will dominate the elections and which will ineluctably lead to new lows in the polls for the socialists.

 In this critical economic and political setting that the country is in and the looming threat of the breaking of social cohesion, Samaras is asking the Greek people to give New Democracy the “auto-dynamism,” by a majority of votes in the elections, so he can have his hands untied to govern the country with decisiveness and clear uncompromised policies that would put Greece on the trajectory of economic recovery and development. He argues cogently, that in the present political situation of Greece when consensus about the necessary economic policies among parties of how to regenerate the economy of the country is absent, a coalition government--which is the designated position of Pasok and according to the polls at this moment the desire of a majority of the electorate--will be politically impracticable, and more importantly, would not drag out the country from its peril but would further engulf it into profounder depths; as one could not govern effectively a country in a crisis and gradually bring it out of it  by being compelled to make compromises to one’s political partners, but only by a well-defined plan and decisive and prompt action to implement it without compromises, by a leader who has a strong mandate from the electorate.

Samaras believes, and reasonably hopes with the confidence of a statesman, that during the electoral period and closer to election date, there will be a dramatic shift of voters toward polarized positions, once the crucial issues of the country are spelled out clearly and without lies to the people by New Democracy and by foreshadowing the practical economic policies backed by real numbers that would put Greece on the track of economic recovery, there is a great chance that the majority of Greeks will give New Democracy a strong mandate to govern on its own for the benefit of all Greeks and for the salvation of the country.

Samaras contended long ago, that only through a clear strong authorization given to him by a majority of the people he would be able to radically change Greece. For real economic development entails not only good policies and incentives but a transformation in the views and customs of people toward such development. He puts great emphasis on the value of human capital and entrepreneurship as the prerequisites for the economic recovery of the country. That is why he has promised to re-legitimize private enterprise and effort that for many years now has been delegitimized in the country by communist-led unions, to whom profit has been, as always, the devil-incarnate of the capitalist free market.

The present high unemployment of more than 20% Samaras contends, will not be reduced by mere lower labour costs which already have been decreased by 15% in the private sector while the tax burden on the latter has increased by 50% and energy costs by 450%. Even if Greeks worked for free no one would hire them with such high taxes and energy costs. Samaras in his Zappeio III speech few days ago declared that he would cut corporate tax to a flat rate of 15%, sharply cut pay-roll tax, lower personal income-tax to 32% maximum, and reduce taxes substantially on fuel and tourism. This would harden rampant tax evasion and would unleash the creativity of the private sector and hence commence the gradual reduction in unemployment. He also announced, that he would increase the lowest pensions to 700 euros per month--that were reduced drastically by the second Memorandum under the austerity measures--and would increase the endowment of families with many children which would not only correct an injustice inflicted upon these two weak sections of society but would also have favourable economic consequence as they  would increase consumer demand, which is so important in rekindling the economy, as both recipients of this government assistance spend their money in consumer goods. He would do these two things without increasing public expenditure and hence worsening the deficit, but by cutting government wastage that is so massive and profligate in the State’s spending. Further, he will provide incentives to private enterprise in areas where Greece has almost unchallengeable comparative advantage, i.e., in the merchant marine sector, ship building, and tourism; and in the production and merchandise of olive oil and other agricultural goods by the local producers themselves, not by foreign ones as is the case presently, whose development in all the above sectors will vitally affect the resurgence of the economy. He also proposes to provide incentives to entrepreneurs to exploit the rich mineral resources of the country and to give priority to find and tap the vast natural gas deposits under the Aegean Sea, by declaring the Greek AOZ (Exclusive Economic Zone) that could transform the export dynamic of Greece. He intends further, to reverse the present dryness of liquidity in the country by proffering amnesty from any legal penalties to those who withdrew their cash holdings from Greek banks during the height of the crisis and deposited them overseas once they bring them back to the country; and also by immediately paying back the 6.5 billion euros that the government owes to domestic enterprises; these two measures would increase the liquidity of the banks and hence their ability to provide loans to the private sector, especially to small businesses, that are the backbone of the country’s economy. Moreover, the re-capitalization of the banks, Samaras argues, will enable them to borrow funds at low interest rates from the European Central Bank, that were set up by it last December, which would be used to put Greece on the track of recovery and economic development.  

It is by this method of supply-side economics, as that wunderkind Alders Borg the Swedish Finance Minister illustrated for his own country that Greece’s economy will rise again. The necessary austerity measures stipulated in the new Memorandum that Greece has to implement must be accompanied by the rejuvenated “animal spirits” of private enterprise. Samaras, consistently has been saying for the last two years that “we need a recovery to jump-start the economy,” and in conditions of recession austerity measures cannot stimulate the economy but on the contrary sink it deeper into stagnation.

The vision and plan of Samaras is to plant radical changes on the whole landscape of Greece. In his Zappeio speech he adumbrates constitutional changes that would separate the three branches of government the executive, the legislative, and the judiciary and thus prevent a member of parliament from being a minister, which has been in the past a malignant link of political corruption and has bestowed ‘asylum’ to members of parliament for their malfeasances. He pledges to bring changes to educational institutions that would reclaim the proud heritage of Greece that tragically has been eroded by the cultural relativists of a left coterie of pseudo-intellectuals and led to the disconnection of many young Greeks from their great cultural origins. He also promises to take drastic measures against illegal migrants, whom he calls “unarmed invaders” of Greece that under the soft immigration policies of Pasok they have occupied the main centres of cities, and remove them to provincial hostels until their eventual expulsion.  Another important commitment of Samaras is to transform the bon vivant ethos of many Greeks, which up till now its tab has been picked up by the government, into a creatively productive one. On the new green tree planted by New Democracy, the singing cicadas will be replaced by fecund working bees. As Samaras is fully aware that sustainable economic development cannot be accomplished without transformative changes in the thinking and the mores of the people, especially of the younger generation.

Samaras is “framed in the prodigality of nature,” to quote Shakespeare. He is endowed charismatically both with a high intellect and remarkable moral strength along with the will and determination—all the stuff out of which statesmen are made--to change all things in Greece. But whether this lightning bolt of creative destruction will strike Greece or not depends on the strong mandate that he needs from the people. If Greeks do not fail, at this critical juncture, from fulfilling their historical duty to render to New Democracy a majority of seats in Parliament, then Antonis Samaras, in turn, will consummate the cultural political and economic Renaissance of Greece.

Hic Rhodus hic Salta                             

Achievements of Capitalism not Span out of the Rolling Dice of a Casino

By Con George-Kotzabasis

I have not read Joseph Stiglitz’s book. But I assume from your short description of it, that he is not contending that capitalism did not raise the standard of living of the masses during its long development nor that it needs poverty to flourish. All my comments, including the one you refer to address specifically these two points and not to the ‘casino’ “financial capitalists,” that Professor Stiglitz speaks of, which were mainly responsible, alongside government dirigisme, for the meltdown. But you are grossly remiss in ‘cheering’ Stiglitz: the achievements of capitalism were not span out of the rolling dice of a casino.