The Vassal and the Lords

Abstract

What are the key features of the Greek social formation from the foundation of the Greek state in 1830 to the late 1930s and how are those features related to debt? Answering this question requires a periodization of the Greek social formation as it came to be inserted in the uneven cycles of production and reproduction of the imperial chain, structurally marked by the hegemony of the core over the periphery. The context in which we place our periodization corresponds roughly to the upswings and downturns of European and global capitalism, which should be seen in tandem with a major global hegemonic transition, namely, from Britain’s predominance in the Eastern Mediterranean and world affairs to the USA’s supremacy after World War II. Britain’s slow imperial decline, which began as early as 1890s, finds clear expression in the following historical facts:

• i) inability to guide, both politically and militarily, its imperial alliance against Germany during World War I in such important theatres as Western Europe and the Near/Middle East; World War I turns Britain and France into debtor powers, their public finances now being dependent on the new creditor power, the USA;

• ii) inability to streamline financial and geo-political developments, at least in coordination with other European powers during the interwar period marked by the severe financial crisis of 1929–33 and the rise of fascism and Nazism.