Collapse, Part 1: Greece
When systems are broke and broken, collapse is the only way forward.
The theme this week is collapse. It’s a big, complex topic because there are as many types of collapse as there are systems. Some systems appear stable on the surface but collapse suddenly; others visibly decay for decades before finally slipping beneath the waves of history, and some go through stages of collapse.
The taxonomy of collapse is broad, and each unsustainable system (i.e. a system that will fail despite claims to the contrary) has its unique characteristics.
Which brings us to Greece.
I have written extensively about Greece and the doomed financial arrangement known as the euro for many years–for example: Greece, Please Do The Right Thing: Default Now (June 1, 2011).
When Debt is More Important Than People, The System Is Evil (February 18, 2012)
Greece at the Crossroads: the Oligarchs Blew It (January 27, 2015)
Greece and the Endgame of the Neocolonial Model of Exploitation(February 19, 2015)
When Europe Gets Greece’s Jingle Mail: Dealing with Default (May 15, 2015)
With the bankruptcy of Greece now undeniable, we’ve finally reached the endgame of the Neocolonial-Financialization Model. There are no more markets in Greece to exploit with financialization, and the fact that the mountains of debt are unpayable can no longer be masked.
Europe’s financial Aristocracy has an unsolvable dilemma: writing off defaulted debt also writes off assets and income streams, for every debt is somebody else’s asset and income stream. When all those phantom assets are recognized as worthless, collateral vanishes and the system implodes.
The peripheral nations of the EU are effectively neocolonial debtors of the core, and the taxpayers of the core nations are now feudal serfs whose labor is devoted to making good on any loans to the periphery that go bad. (see chart of Greece’s debtors below)
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