[lbo-talk] Economic psychology?

Wojtek S wsoko52 at gmail.com
Mon Jul 23 15:25:33 PDT 2012


Of course, these are both hypothetical and empirical questions and no one can answer them definitively. However, I submit to you, dear reader, that the answer is not as straightforward as in the US and the UK cases. Whereas the yellow buttons would hold no attraction for President Obama and PM Cameron, Mrs Merkel’s yellow button is a far more powerful candidate. For my part, I would like to think that Mrs Merkel would want to opt for the red button. But I seriously fear that she would be terrorised by the reaction of the German electorate were she to do this, and thus let the Greeks and the Italians, the Spaniards and the Portuguese, ‘off the hook’ so easily. For two years now, the German public has become convinced (falsely) that Germany has escaped the worse of the Crisis because of the German people’s virtuous embracement of thriftiness and hard work; in contrast to the spendthrift Southerners who, like the fickle grasshopper, made no provisions for when the tide turns nasty. This mindset goes hand in hand with a moral righteousness which implants in good people’s hearts and minds a penchant for exacting punishment on the grasshoppers – even if punishing them also comes at a cost to themselves.

http://yanisvaroufakis.eu/2012/07/23/a-mental-experiment-for-establishing-the-relative-mood-for-solving-the-crisis-in-europe-in-britain-in-the-usa/ -- Wojtek

"An anarchist is a neoliberal without money."



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