Greece bailout because…Kant?

[9thdoctor]

One may think that this retreat from game theory is motivated by some radical-left agenda. Not so. The major influence here is Immanuel Kant, the German philosopher who taught us that the rational and the free escape the empire of expediency by doing what is right.

How do we know that our modest policy agenda, which constitutes our red line, is right in Kant’s terms? We know by looking into the eyes of the hungry in the streets of our cities or contemplating our stressed middle class, or considering the interests of hard-working people in every European village and city within our monetary union. After all, Europe will only regain its soul when it regains the people’s trust by putting their interests center-stage.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/17/opinion/yanis-varoufakis-no-time-for-games-in-europe.html?_r=0

I find myself looking forward to some able Objectivist writing a reply that explains: No Greece bailout because…Aristotle. Hopefully it won’t be an intellectual embarrassment that misrepresents Kant. Honestly I don’t even see the connection to Kant in what Varoufakis wrote.

[syrakusos]

I don't know about Aristotle on the public debt, but I do know von Mises. Heck, even Nicole Oresme could have advised Greece on this. You know… If you read The Anabasis of Xenophon, there is a scene where the Greeks are prevented from moving forward because hostile natives hold the high ground of a mountain pass. Xenophon calls the Spartan. More or less he says, "You Spartans raise your boys to be thieves, so go steal this mountain pass for us." And the Spartan commander laughs and says, "You Athenians elect to high office anyone who promises to loot the public treasury, but OK, we'll take the pass." Greece figured that the European Central Bank was the public treasury.

You can blame "southern" culture. The poorest nations of the EU are the Mediterranean tier: Greece, Italy, Spain, and Portugal. You can blame religion. ( If anything killed Greece, it was Christianity. Blame Paul.) But if people have free will then the people of Greece have volitionally chosen a disastrous course for over 50 years, if not 150 or 200. If you look at the history of modern Greece, they never had any prosperity. They never developed a single "home industry" not glass, not automotive, not chemicals, nothing… Greece today is just Greece 1820 with automobiles.

Public debt has many dimensions. In the USA it is care for the aged. In Britain, it is care for the unemployed. In Greece it is pensions for government employees. Aristotle has nothing to do with it.

[Brant Gaede]

Since he's broke he might as well be erudite.

If Greece defaults and leaves the EU and its damnable euro it will still have the problem of austerity and hoi polloi political backlash against who's in power seemingly the cause of all the pain. So the Greeks will take what they can get as long as they can get it.

The world is being debt funneled en masse to where Greece now is. Over the next few decades it will change at a speed and in ways hard to imagine, but first--the pain then the necessity of getting over it for the credit will be dried up then real capital saved up and used.

--Brant

[studiodekadent]

In other words Varoufakis is arguing that bailing out Greece is deontologically correct.

Or is he? He then talks about his party's policy agenda as being "the right thing to do" and then seems to demand a bailout as instrumental for such an agenda to be implemented.

I obviously have issues with Kant but I can't see how Kant would approve of this either. Bailouts of Greece would effectively treat German and British taxpayers as means-to-an-end rather than ends-in-themselves. In addition, are bailouts logically universalizable? If everyone just bailed out everyone else the result would probably destroy the entire global financial structure and thus make it impossible for any more lending or borrowing (or bailouts) to take place. If everyone kept bailing out everyone else, would the concept of "debt" even have a meaning in the first place? No, it wouldn't - a debt has to be paid back and if bailouts were universal then there would be no paying back.

Also, Varoufakis' argument about looking into the eyes of the poor is horribly emotivist/sentimentalist... something which Kant would dismiss as a motive based on "inclination" rather than sincere rational conviction. It also seems to be verging on consequentialist reasoning... a big no-no in Kantianism.

As for Varoufakis' policy agenda and whether or not is satisfies the Kantian standard, I'll let Robert Nozick's work serve as my rebuttal.

[anthony]

This is the same Mr. V seen often with a canary-eating grin? I'd tend to ignore all the philosophical Kantian fluff, as pre-rationalization for what he plans to do. He has the EU over a barrel, and he knows it and knows they know it. His "game-theory" expertise is a giveaway. The EU's perception might well be that he is "...devising bluffs...struggling to improve upon a weak hand". No indeed, as he demurs, not a bluff - instead I think it's a form of double-bluff (indicating a weak hand when it's powerful, or a strong hand when it is weak) which is his strategy. For all the appeals to pity and arguments from pragmatic selfishness, my guess is he's a cynical game player and skeptic at heart. In my poker days I played with several Cypriot Greeks, I recognize the style..

[Reidy]

To put it less eruditely than studiodekadent did, have you noticed that they guy is defending his job, his political influence and his class prerogatives (probably including a chauffeured limo) by appealing to Kantian disinterest?

[Jules Troy]

Greece should be allowed to burn..

[Brant Gaede]

In other words Varoufakis is arguing that bailing out Greece is deontologically correct.

Or is he? He then talks about his party's policy agenda as being "the right thing to do" and then seems to demand a bailout as instrumental for such an agenda to be implemented.

I obviously have issues with Kant but I can't see how Kant would approve of this either. Bailouts of Greece would effectively treat German and British taxpayers as means-to-an-end rather than ends-in-themselves. In addition, are bailouts logically universalizable? If everyone just bailed out everyone else the result would probably destroy the entire global financial structure and thus make it impossible for any more lending or borrowing (or bailouts) to take place. If everyone kept bailing out everyone else, would the concept of "debt" even have a meaning in the first place? No, it wouldn't - a debt has to be paid back and if bailouts were universal then there would be no paying back.

Also, Varoufakis' argument about looking into the eyes of the poor is horribly emotivist/sentimentalist... something which Kant would dismiss as a motive based on "inclination" rather than sincere rational conviction. It also seems to be verging on consequentialist reasoning... a big no-no in Kantianism.

As for Varoufakis' policy agenda and whether or not is satisfies the Kantian standard, I'll let Robert Nozick's work serve as my rebuttal.

Debt does not have to be paid back. It's no problem, though, if it's a government's debt in its sovereign currency, something Greece doesn't have, so it's something of a problem for Greece.

--Brant

[Francisco Ferrer]

The debt that the Greek government owes to European banks should be renounced for the simple reason that repaying it would involve the violation of property rights on a massive scale. I realize that such a statement seems to fly in the face of the facts of the case. Banks lent money to Greece with the reasonable expectation that it would be repaid, principal and interest. If the money is not repaid, then the lenders are deprived of their rightful property.

The problem is that the borrowers, various officeholders in Greece, did not make a promise to repay the loans themselves, but to use the police power of the Greek government to force others to make good on the borrowed money. In short, they put others on the hook through taxation. While it may be true that some Greek taxpayers may have voted some of the borrowing politicians into office and some taxpayers may have used some public goods purchased with the loans, it does not follow that all present and future taxpayers are morally liable.

Furthermore, one should not feel any great sympathy for the lenders, for anyone that does business with government is fully aware that his profits ultimately come from money acquired through coercion. Of course, the likely result of debt renunciation is that Greece's government would never be able to borrow again.

And would that be so horrible? A government deprived of the ability to obligate other people to cover its irresponsible spending? Why, that policy should be adopted in the USA forthwith!

For all his sins, Andrew Jackson can at least win one's respect for paying off the national debt in 1835 and not leaving a future generation of Americans to make good on loans they never contracted.

[Brant Gaede]

Poor Greece. Now Frisco's after it.

--Brant

how much more can a country bear?

[Francisco Ferrer]

Does wishing a country free of a bloodsucking government qualify as being "after it"?

So be it, then. I am also "after" my own country.

[Brant Gaede]

Shudder.

[Francisco Ferrer]

And I apologize for arousing your horror of a nation free of debt.

[Brant Gaede]

It's the getting there, not the being there.

[Francisco Ferrer]

You can't be there if you don't get there.

[Brant Gaede]

There are various possible ways to get there with various consequences. Then there is the problem of staying there or not leaving for long. Didn't happen after Jackson. The problem is the attitude toward the public purse and how it can be looted.

--Brant

[Francisco Ferrer]

Maximizing private savings and investment and decreasing government looting (to pay off the debt) is the consequence that those who value capitalism and individual liberty should prefer.

Shuddering at the prospect of moving in that direction won't get us there.

[Brant Gaede]

The "shudder" was for the country as it is, not in taking it on. Sorry I nuanced my way out of your line of thought. "We gotta get out of this place" refers to fight or flight--that is stand and fight for freedom or get out for there's no stopping this shit. I got out of Vietnam; now America itself? Nope. Not for me, but I am getting a passport so I can go to Nogales, Sonora Mexico and buy booze and get some dental work done and do some touristy stuff.

--Brant

[Jules Troy]

Similar in Alberta. Now that oil has dropped through the floor the overlooking overspending asshats are mulling over all kinds of new abuses to foist on us. Increased income tax, bringing in a provincial sales tax,...etc etc.

[9thdoctor]

Aristotle has nothing to do with it.

If Rand were to have used this situation as the context for an essay I can imagine her citing Aristotle as the prime Greek example of a philosopher dedicated to reason and respect for reality. From there she'd transition into the Objectivist view of the situation. So I'm not thinking of tying into any specific Aristotelian doctrine, I'm thinking of an Op-Ed sized (and style) piece. No footnotes, and probably no references. But still clearer than the supposed connection to Kant that Varoufakis has in mind. Or, perhaps, doesn't have in mind (he strikes me as a shallow poseur). Someone should remind him of Eichmann's self-defense.

In other words Varoufakis is arguing that bailing out Greece is deontologically correct.

...

Excellent post.