ECTS:

4

Code:

ΚΕ0Ε46

Cycle / Level:

Undergraduate

Compulsory / Optional:

Optional

Teaching Period:

Spring

Course Content:

In this course we study, from the perspective of contemporary history, the interwoven aspects of the financial, economic, political and humanitarian crisis that broke out in Greece in 2010 and continues unabated to the present day. The course has no special prerequisites, beyond critical thought and the expected interest in politics, economics, and history.
First we examine its historical framework, and the riots of December 2008. We then focus on its ramifications and impact on Greek society, public life, and personal experience of the persons living in Greece.We study the local and international economic developments and political choices that led to the default of the Greek state, as well as its institutional repercussions in the European Union. Placing it in the context of current geopolitical struggles, we trace the factors that facilitated its development as well as those that hindered it, in comparative perspective with other countries on the periphery of the European Union. Focussing on institutions, political and financial groups, and persons that played significant roles in its unfolding, we highlight the political discourses developed in its context. Finally, we study critically the various theories that developed in order to explain and interprete the crisis.

On successfully completing this course, students will have learnt basic facts about the current crisis in Greece, its implications for European governance, and also the main theories pertaining to explain it. They will be able to analyse its parametres and trace its causes, its social, political, and economic consequences, and its possible outcomes. Also, to assess the role of political management by the Greek government and the EU institutions during the development of the crisis. Finally, to demystify racist stereotypes developed since the onset of the crisis against Greeks and other peoples in the European Union periphery.

Lesson I. The basic notions of our course. Debt, Financialisation, Expropriatory Accumulation. Left and Right. Ideology. Patriarchy. Capitalist mode of production and capitalist world system. Modern state and state system. Nationalism and national movements. Imperialism and colonialism. Racism and orientalism. Conservatism, liberalism, radicalism.
Lesson IΙ. Basic terms and facts: Economic and financial data. Financialisation. Greece and international organisations:, European Union, Eurozone, NATO.
Lesson IIΙ. Capitalist mode of production and capitalist world system in historical perspective. Crises that marked their history. Financial and Political Counter-Revolution in Europe, 1789-2020.
Lesson ΙV. Birth and development of the Greek state. Historical and geopolitical background. Greek politics and international tensions. Loans of the War of Independence, 1824-1825. Economic crises and state defaults in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Lesson V. European Union and the Eurozone. Debt, euro, crisis.
Lesson VI. Greek Crisis and Eurozone governance. Conservatism, liberalism, radicalism. The Schacht Doctrine.
Lesson VΙΙ. Social and Political Factors and Consequences of the Economic Crisis in Greece. Left and Right in the Greek Metapolitefsi. Pasok and Syriza. Extreme Right and fascism.
Lesson VIII. The Debt Truth Committee of the Hellenic Parliament (2015).
Lesson IX. Rise of the oligarchs, and variants of the Extreme Right.
Lesson IX. Sovereignty, Geopolitical Dislocations, and International Aspects of the Greek Crisis. International interests and Influence in Greece: EU, USA, Russia, and China. OBOR.
Lesson X. Gendering the crisis.
Lesson XI. The dilapidation of the health system, and the present syndemic.
Lesson XΙΙ. Proposals and perspectives on exiting the crisis.
Lesson XΙΙΙ. Recapitulation

On successfully completing this course, students will have learnt basic facts about the current crisis in Greece, that came to the surface in 2010 and is compounded by the present pandemic. Also its precedents, its international economic and geopolitical context, implications for European governance, and the main theories pertaining to explain it. They will be able to analyse its parametres and trace its causes, as well as its social, political, and economic consequences, and its possible outcomes. Also, to assess the role of political management by the Greek government and the EU institutions during the development of the crisis, to reflect on the resistance of the Greek people to its arguably unfair burdening with exit from the crisis, and to evaluate the various proposals that have been presented for leaving the crisis behind. Finally, to demystify racist stereotypes developed since the onset of the crisis against the Greek and other peoples in the European Union periphery. On successfully completing this course, students will have learnt basic facts about the current crisis in Greece, its implications for European governance, and also the main theories pertaining to explain it. They will be able to analyse its parametres and trace its causes, its social, political, and economic consequences, and its possible outcomes. Also, to assess the role of political management by the Greek government and the EU institutions during the development of the crisis. Finally, to demystify racist stereotypes developed since the onset of the crisis against Greeks and other peoples in the European Union periphery.

• Giovanni Arrighi, The long twentieth century: money, power, and the origins of our times, Verso, London, New York 1994.
• George Caffentzis, In Letters of Blood and Fire. Work, Machines, and the Crisis of Capitalism, PM Press, Ώκλαντ, Μπρούκλυν 2013.
• Bernard Connolly, The Rotten Heart Of Europe. The Dirty War For Europe's Money, Faber and Faber, Λονδίνο, Βοστώνη 1995.
• Nigel Dodd, The social life of money, Princeton University Press, Princeton, Oxford, 2014.
• Silvia Federici, Caliban and the Witch. Women, Body, and Primitive Accumulation, Autonomedia, Νέα Υόρκη 2004.
• Heiner Flassbeck, Costas Lapavitsas, Against The Troika. Crisis And Austerity In The Eurozone, foreword Oskar Lafontaine, preface Paul Mason, afterword Alberto Garzón Espinosa, Verso, London, New York 2015.
• David Graeber, Debt. The First 5.000 Years, Mellville House, Νέα Υόρκη 2011.
• Sandy Brian Hager, Public Debt, Inequality, and Power. The Making of a Modern Debt State, University of California Press, Oakland 2016.
• David Harvey, The New Imperialism, Oxford University Press, Οξφόρδη 2003.
• David Harvey, A Brief History of Neoliberalism, Oxford University Press, Οξφόρδη 2005.
• David Harvey, Seventeen Contradictions and the End of Capitalism, Oxford University Press, Oxford, New York 2014.
• Michael Hudson, The Bubble and Beyond. Fictitious Capital, Debt Deflation and Global Crisis, ISLET-Verlag, Dresden 2012.
• Greta R. Krippner, Capitalizing on Crisis, The Political Origins of the Rise of Finance, Harvard University Press, Cambridge Massachusetts, London, 2011.
• Costas Lapavitsas, A. Kaltenbrunner, G. Lambrinidis, D. Lindo, J. Meadway, J. Michell, J.P. Painceira, E. Pires, J. Powell, A. Stenfors, N. Teles, The Eurozone Between Austerity And Default, RMF Occasional Report September 2010, London 2010.
• Costas Lapavitsas, Profiting Without Producing. How Finance Exploits Us All, Verso, Λονδινο, Νεα Υόρκη 2013.
• Christina Laskaridis (ed.), False Dilemmas. An Introductory Guide to the Eurozone Debt Crisis, Corporate Watch, Λονδίνο 2014.
• Thomas Piketty, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, μετάφραση Arthur Goldhammer, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Καίμπριτζ Μασαχουσέτης, Λονδίνο 2014 [2013].
• Wolfgang Streeck, Kathleen Thelen, Beyond continuity: institutional change in advanced political economies, Oxford University Press, Νέα Υόρκη 2005.
• Wolfgang Streeck, Buying Time: The Delayed Crisis of Democratic Capitalism, μετάφραση Patrick Camiller, Verso, Λονδίνο, Νέα Υόρκη 2014.
• Jan Toporowski, Why the World Economy Needs a Financial Crash and Other Critical Essays on Finance and Financial Economics, Anthem Press 2010.
• Eric Toussaint, Your Money or Your Life! The Tyranny of Global Finance, translation Raghu Krishnan, Vicki Briault Manus, Pluto Press, London 1999.
• Truth Committee on Public Debt, Preliminary Report. June 2015, Hellenic Parliament, Athens 2015.
• Truth Committee on Public Debt, Illegitimacy, Illegality, Odiousness and Unsustainability of the August 2015 MoU and Loan Agreement, Hellenic Parliament, Athens 2015.

Further Reading

• Perry Anderson, The New Old World, Verso, Λονδίνο, Νέα Υόρκη 2009.
• Alexander Anievas, Kerem Nişancıoğlu, How the West Came to Rule: The Geopolitical Origins of Capitalism, Pluto Press, London 2015.
• Bastiaan van Apeldoorn, “Saving Europe for Whom? The Crisis of Neoliberal European Socio-Economic Governance”, EUI Alumni Conference, Firenze 2011.
• Norberto Bobbio, Left and Right. The Significance of a Political Distinction, Translated and Introduced by Allan Cameron, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 1996 [1994].
• Geoff Eley, Forging Democracy: The History of the Left in Europe, 1850-2000, Oxford University Press, New York 2002.Tassos Giannitsis, Stavros Zografakis, Greece: Solidarity and Adjustment in Times of Crisis, Institut für Makroökonomie und Konjunkturforschung/ Macroeconomic Policy Institute, March 2015, at https://goo.gl/YgDtV8 .
• Judith L. Herman, Trauma and Recovery. The Aftermath of Violence from Domestic Abuse to Political Terror, Basic Books, New York 2015 [1992].
• Michael Hudson, Killing the Host. How Financial Parasites and Debt Bondage Destroy the Global Economy, CounterPunch Books, Petrolia 2015.
• International Monetary Fund, IMF Country Report No.16/130, Greece. Preliminary Debt Sustainability Analysis. Updated Estimates And Further Considerations, International Monetary Fund Publication Services, Washington, September 2016.
• International Monetary Fund, Debt: Use it Wisely. Fiscal monitor, Ουάσιγκτον, Οκτώβριος 2016. Rosa Luxemburg, The Accumulation of Capital, μετάφραση Agnes Schwarzschild, εισαγωγή Tadeusz Kowalik, Routledge, Λονδίνο, Νέα Υόρκη 2003 [1913].
• Costas Lapavitsas, Theodore Mariolis, Constantinos Gavrielides, Eurozone Failure, German Policies, and a New Path For Greece. Policy Analysis And Proposals, Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung, Berlin 2017, p. 41.
• Karl Marx, Capital. A Critique of Political Economy, τ. Α΄, εισαγωγή Ernest Mandel, μετάφραση Ben Fowkes, Penguin Books, Χάρμοντζουερθ 1976.
• Arno J. Mayer, Dynamics of Counterrevolution in Europe, 1870 – 1956: An Analytic Framework, Harper Torchbooks, Νέα Υόρκη 1971.
• Alan S. Milward, George Brennan, Federico Romero, The European Rescue of the Nation-State, Routledge 2 London New York 2000.
• Alan S. Milward, Politics and Economics in the History of the European Union, Routledge, Abingdon, New York 2005. Kees van der Pijl, Global Rivalries From The Cold War To Iraq, Pluto Press, London, Ann Arbor 2006.