Debt and Destruction: The Making of the Greek and Euro-Atlantic Ruling Classes

Abstract

We seem to have come full circle. In February 1947 Dean Acheson saw in the fall of Greece the fall of Western civilization as a whole and urged the US establishment to provide aid to Greece and intervene there, because the ‘fall of Greece will contaminate the whole of Europe and the Middle East’ benefitting the Eastern Soviet enemy. Today, Greece’s fall is also imminent challenging the survival of the entire European architecture whereas the entire Middle East is up in flames, yet no analogous plea has been made by the USA. The American president, Barack Obama, even warned the British PM, David Cameron, not to put in jeopardy Britain’s position in the EU by calling a referendum.¹ An unprecedented decision by the ‘troika’ in March 2013 forced the restructuring of the financial system of Cyprus, liquidating Laiki Bank and imposing a ‘haircut’ of up to 60 per cent on any deposit above 100,000 euros. Why is all this happening? Is Greece (and Europe) no more important for the USA to necessitate a kind of a new Marshall Plan to solve Europe’s and Greece’s financial woes? We argue that the USA does what it does today not because it considers Greece and Europe insignificant, but because it is no longer the power it used to be in the 1940s and 1950s. Our thesis will become clearer by looking briefly at the main tendencies and processes of the international system since the 1970s, processes and tendencies that affect or even condition the preferences of the various political agencies and national states today.