What Does Europe Want? The Union and its Discontents. Slavoj Žižek

      The Vicious Cycle of Depression

      Everything, however, changed after the 2008 crisis. The cost of the bank losses that were created by uncontrolled speculation were transfered to national governments, which were in turn transferred to society at large. The flawed model of Greek development collapsed and the country was deprived of the opportunity to borrow, causing it to become dependent on the IMF and the European bank. And all this was accompanied by an extremely severe austerity programme.

      This programme, which the Greek government adopted without proper debate, consists of two parts: ‘stabilisation’ and ‘reform’. The conditions of the programme are presented as positive, in order to cover up the huge social destruction it has caused. In Greece, the part of the programme named ‘stabilisation’ leads to indirect, destructive taxation, large cuts in public spending and the destruction of the welfare state, especially in the areas of health, education and social security, as well as the privatisation of basic social goods, such as water and energy. The programme which forms part of the ‘reform’ deals with the simplification of redundancy procedure, the elimination of collective agreements and the creation of ‘special economic zones’. This is accompanied by many other regulations designed to facilitate the investment of powerful and colonialist economic forces, without the inconvenience of, say, having to go all the way to South Sudan. These are just some of the conditions that are in the ‘Memorandum’, the contract that was signed by Greece with the IMF, the European Union and the European Central Bank.

      These measures are naturally supposed to lead Greece out of the crisis. The strict ‘stabilisation’ programme should lead to budget surpluses, allowing the country to stop borrowing, while at the same time enabling it to pay off the debt. On the other hand, the ‘reforms’ are aimed at regaining market confidence, encouraging them to invest after witnessing the destroyed welfare state and the desperate, insecure and low-paid workers in the labour market. This would lead to new ‘development’; something which does not exist anywhere except in ‘holy books’ and the perverted minds of global neoliberalism.

      It was assumed that the programme would be very effective and fast, and that Greece would soon be ‘reborn’ and back on the path of growth. But three years after the signing of the ‘Memorandum’, the situation is becoming worse. The economy is sinking further, and the taxes are obviously not collected, for the simple reason that the Greek citizens are unable to pay them. The reduction of spending has now reached the core of social integrity, creating the conditions of a humanitarian crisis. In other words, we are now talking about people who are reduced to eating rubbish and sleeping on the pavements, about pensioners who can not afford to buy bread, of households without electricity, of patients who are unable to afford medicine and treatment. And all this within the eurozone.

      Investors, of course, do not come, given that the current bankruptcy option remains open. And of course, the authors of the ‘Memorandum’ after each tragic failure, react by imposing