2024-03-05 17:18:00
Greece pyear of the year. In its double edition at the end of December, The Economist has selected the Country of the Year since 2013.
This year, after a long discussion, the prize, which is awarded for progress achieved, was awarded to Greece.
Greece entered a deep economic crisis in 2009 after the effects of the Great Depression, fiscal excesses that even led the government to deceive investors about the true results of its public finances, and that put its country on the verge of abandoning the Euro Zone.
But in 2023 it regained investment grade as a risk rating. It is considered one of the most successful exits from a deep financial crisis. The big banks characterize Greece’s performance as “an exceptional economic story.”
Even in 2023 and despite serious flaws in its railway system and corruption revealed by a serious accident and a telephone spying scandal, the center-right government was re-elected.
Welfare
People are complex. We have spiritual, mental, physical, emotional needs. And our well-being depends on our development in all these areas.
We are also eminently social beings and our well-being depends on our relationships. In this aspect, nothing can replace the fraternal relationship, the solidarity between people, the social friendship that Pope Francis tells us about. In religious terms, our relational reality can only be satisfied by following the commandment of love that Jesus taught us: love one another as I have loved you.
If we followed this commandment, we would not need much more to achieve the well-being of all in the midst of earthly limitations. But we are imperfect, and we must organize our society for imperfection.
In this complexity, the government organization deeply affects our well-being in at least two very important areas: the possibility of satisfying our material needs and the possibility of developing in freedom with respect for our dignity.
To cover the first of these areas, private property, the freedom to undertake, to work and to contract has shown that competitive markets are the most efficient way to take advantage of the possibilities of cooperation between diverse people and the ability to innovate by making better things. things or inventing new things. This requires a legal system that protects freedoms, prevents coercion, and facilitates positive and negative incentives to encourage collaborative and innovative behavior.
For simplicity we could call this area of social organization the area of economic efficiency. It is the area that fundamentally allows us to earn the fruits of free production.
To cover the second of the areas in which the organization of the state affects citizen well-being, liberal democracy is the best construction that humanity has developed. It is the organization based on participatory debate, with a fair and credible electoral system to reach decisions by the majority with respect for minorities, through the rule of law; with assignment of powers and division of powers; with political, press and demonstration freedoms; with judicial control of the administration, due process and independent judges.
Likewise, for simplicity we could call this area of state organization the area of the rule of law. It is the area that fundamentally allows us to obtain the satisfaction inherent in our dignity as persons, for being actors in the social organization and earning the fruits of participation in freedom.
The essentiality of the rule of law
As we know, both areas, that of production and that of participation in freedom, are necessary for human well-being.
But I think the example of Greece illuminates the priority of the rule of law area.
Greece fell into its deep and very hard economic and financial crisis due to serious violations of its competitive markets and economic efficiency by leftist governments that forgot that resources are limited (knowledge, geography, time, nature, capital, population). It was even done by violating the rules that limit the action of rulers and resorting to deception.
But the rule of law survived. And the free participation of citizens, political parties, and civil society was able – with very great costs and deprivations – to overcome the difficulties of the productive system and get back on track in a relatively short time, although of course very painful for its population.
This situation compares with the very long periods and enormous suffering of murders, imprisonments, exiles, migrations suffered by societies that lose their rule of law, such as the Cuba of the Castros, the Chile of Pinochet, the Russia of Putin, the Venezuela of Chaves and Maduro or the Nicaragua of Ortega and Murillo.
For me the conclusion is obvious. Although it does not intend to present it as a scientific truth.
Of course, we must avoid the abuses of economic policies that weaken free production, since their effects are very harmful and difficult to correct.
But the priority is to defend the participation of all free people in social life. Recovering the rule of law is even more difficult. Its validity is even more necessary.
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