Last month I described how the annual Athens Democracy Forum had discussed the worldwide decline in the quality and practice of democracy.
Despite a strong centrist government in Greece, with a major emphasis on modernisation and little effective parliamentary opposition, there are nevertheless structural or systemic faults, especially in social cohesion and the workforce, which make Greece’s own democracy unstable.
A former government minister for labour and social security, Tassos Giannitsis, argues that the core problem in Greece is systemic: “The very system of governance undermines itself and operates against the system to which it belongs.”
A recent front-page commentary in Kathimerini newspaper drew attention to the fact that, “outside Athens’ National Theatre, a grim tableau unfolds each evening”. Juxtaposed with this symbol of high culture is “a landscape of despair”, where “homeless people and drug users occupy the surrounding streets, injecting in doorways, shuffling along the cracked sidewalks.”
Highlighting the fact that in the same area there are more than 30 theatres, doing vigorous business, the newspaper argued that “the vitality of art cannot erase the visible misery of the streets”.
As I write, this newspaper reports that “the number of homeless people in Ireland reaches new record high” (November 28th). Despite the differences between the Greek and Irish political systems, parallels between the two countries, and the two cultures, in social and economic terms, are inevitable.
One reason for this is historical: political independence (200 years ago in Greece, a century ago in Ireland) provided more than the right to self-government and self-determination. Tenant farmers were empowered to own their land, while a rising middle-class provided a bourgeois model for self-improvement. Suddenly, freedom meant the opportunity to change one’s life radically, with the previously impossible “get-rich-quick” now a major motive.
The huge difference between Ireland and Greece is, of course, sunshine and, therefore, tourism. Unlike Ireland, the Greek economy is utterly dependent on tourism, and the provision of classy resort-type beachside accommodation has led to severe criticisms of how this sunshine is being exploited for gain, much of which leaves Greece since many resorts are foreign-owned.
Recent announcements of government policies relating to tourism have done little to curb criticism of foreign investment or to encourage the idea that Greek hospitality should be “authentic” rather than the bland luxury offered to well-heeled visitors.
At least 25 per cent of Greece’s workforce is involved in tourism, but at the level of higher skills the labour force is marked by absence: approximately 400,000 people between the ages of 25 and 39 have emigrated since 2009 in search of better professional conditions, higher wages than they could ever hope to earn in Greece, and to escape the bureaucracy which stifles creativity and self-advancement.
The OECD reports that graduates who stay in Greece earn 35-40 per cent less than their EU peers, even after adjusting for the differences in the cost of living.
The main attraction for Greek professionals working abroad to return home is not economic, but cultural. Family, location, lifestyle, and above all a sense of “cultural belonging”, with the cafe or neighbourhood “plateia” or square in the home town as a “third space”, are strong magnets. These, however, have to compete with the perceived bureaucracy, corruption and lack of training in high-skill sectors.
Giannitsis argues that worldwide “the gap between real social problems and the system’s readiness to address them” is exacerbated by globalised problems including geopolitical tensions, pandemics, and climate change.
He takes the contrast of the Athens theatre-versus-streetscape, which he calls “the mismatch between social expectations and reality”, to another level, and discusses the need for “new hierarchies and new perceptions and policies” to confront these ubiquitous challenges.
Yet Greece, with its deeply conservative – not to say bourgeois – social momentum and government, is, in Giannitsis’s words, “unable or unwilling, for reasons of inefficiency or self-interest, to adapt.”
We can see this most clearly in Greece in the gap between the tax-paying wage-earner and the self-employed. The average public servant such as police officer, teacher, nurse, doctor or local government clerk, takes home about €900 a month – approximately 50 per cent of their gross income. This is almost certainly insufficient to enable them to buy a house or apartment.
In Athens, a civil servant would quite likely have to take an evening job in a bar or late-night shop, just to pay the rent on a city apartment. As a result, many avoid paying tax.
The standard question in a shop – especially a restaurant – is “cash or card?” The transaction favours cash for a discount. Two shops which I frequent on a daily basis offer this discount; I have no hesitation in taking advantage, for the sake of my own pocket and that of the shopkeeper.