As European
politicians ponder how to solve the current impasse over Greece's debts to
international creditors, some of the key players seem to be digging out their philosophy
books.
Kant "taught us
that the rational and the free escape the empire of expediency by doing what is
right," he argued. Whether "doing what is right" in this case
means "doing what Varoufakis wants" is, of course, open to debate.
Wolfgang Schaueble,
the German finance minister, seemed to be adopting a rather dogmatic
philosophy, by contrast.
When asked about the
potential for changes to the existing programme by German state television
channel ZDF Tuesday night, he said: "It's not about extending a credit
programme but about whether this bailout programme will be fulfilled, yes or
no."
Friedrich Nietzsche
pointed out that the German word for "guilt" and "debt" is
one and the same: "Schuld." The German philosopher argued that those
who could not pay financially paid instead through other kinds of suffering.
Economist Stuart
Holland, who co-authored "A Modest Proposal for Resolving the Eurozone
Crisis" with fellow economist James K. Galbraith and Varoufakis, has
previously drawn parallels between the Nietzschen perspective on debt and German
leaders' current stance.
The Greek portrayal of
the current situation suggests something of a Manichean view of the world - one
with a clear struggle between good and evil.
"Some of the
acrimony may result from Greece trying to cast this as a battle for right
versus wrong, while the Eurogroup (of euro zone finance ministers) sees this as
trying to resolve a business deal gone bad," Steven Englander, global head
of G10 currency strategy at Citi, argued.
What the resolution of
the crisis may come down to, of course, is the dictum of 6th century
philosopher Pythagoras (he of the triangular theorem): everything can be
explained by mathematics.
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