4 ms·

> I would love to hear from a Greek on this. I am Greek

klibertp 9y ago
Great! If you don't mind me asking, what do you think about the crisis - the reasons for it and the proposed and implemented coping strategies - your country has fallen into? You seem to suggest that the Greek work ethic is, in part, responsible for the crisis - if so, when that ethic became commonplace? And how come it formed in the first place? And why didn't it disappear naturally? I'm asking this, because in my country - a post-Soviet one, after 50 years of nominally communist policy - we used to also have little to no respect for work. But that was because there was little correlation between your work and the money it got you. Once we started getting all capitalist in the 90's that started to change and by today most of the society understands that if you want more money you need to work harder.
- treehau5 9y ago
  There are many reasons, too many to list here but in essence, modern Greece has had a very tough time, from the Ottoman yoke, to British control, monarchies and military dictatorships, the Balkan wars in their back yard, then WWI/WWII naturally took the country back further, especially w.r.t to Mussolini (the famous "Oxi day"). (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_modern_Greece https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_modern_Greece) After the war was a military dictatorship. So really we have had 1970 and on (heck 1970 was the first year the government and people could even decide on what _dialect_ of Greek language to use. To me, it's a miracle the country still stands and is a testament to it's resiliency. The Crisis is a big debt snowball that shouldn't have been allowed to happen, kind of similar to the American housing crisis where people who should have never been getting $500,000 mortgages were given $500,000 dollar mortgages then the world was shocked when they somehow managed to default, and meanwhile you had corrupt Wall Street bankers betting that these people would default. Similarly, you hand a country who has been in borderline poverty since the formation of their autonomous modern nation all this money, then are surprised when their corrupt politicians and banking institutions (as well as your corrupt Wall Street institutions like Goldman Sachs, who helped these corrupt bankers hide their debt) mishandle it. Then of course the IMF took advantage of the situation, and it turned into basically one big, as Americans would call it "poor tax" where you take advantage of someone who is already down. (Hey this guy can barely pay for his bills at it is, lets fuck him over and charge him 25$ dollars to cash his 300 dollar paycheck -- like this, but on a country level. Somehow that moderate amount of debt turned into 137% of GDP after it snowballed and stupid ass Greek politicians kept accepting these stupid packages with stupid terms /endrant) My suggestion about the Greek ethic was a sarcastic one, I put it in quotes, apologies if that didn't come through the text. Many people think just because you value work/life balance that you are somehow "lazy". I think Americans are seeing this now with millennials who demand they have adequate work/life balance (and good for them). It's always been a common adage that Americans live to work and (most European countries) work to live. I don't think this is necessary unique to Greeks, it just so happens we are in the crisis and it's an easy target to point the finger and just say "well if they just weren't so lazy!"

Great! If you don't mind me asking, what do you think about the crisis - the reasons for it and the proposed and implemented coping strategies - your country has fallen into? You seem to suggest that the Greek work ethic is, in part, responsible for the crisis - if so, when that ethic became commonplace? And how come it formed in the first place? And why didn't it disappear naturally? I'm asking this, because in my country - a post-Soviet one, after 50 years of nominally communist policy - we used to also have little to no respect for work. But that was because there was little correlation between your work and the money it got you. Once we started getting all capitalist in the 90's that started to change and by today most of the society understands that if you want more money you need to work harder.

treehau5 9y ago
There are many reasons, too many to list here but in essence, modern Greece has had a very tough time, from the Ottoman yoke, to British control, monarchies and military dictatorships, the Balkan wars in their back yard, then WWI/WWII naturally took the country back further, especially w.r.t to Mussolini (the famous "Oxi day"). (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_modern_Greece https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_modern_Greece) After the war was a military dictatorship. So really we have had 1970 and on (heck 1970 was the first year the government and people could even decide on what _dialect_ of Greek language to use. To me, it's a miracle the country still stands and is a testament to it's resiliency. The Crisis is a big debt snowball that shouldn't have been allowed to happen, kind of similar to the American housing crisis where people who should have never been getting $500,000 mortgages were given $500,000 dollar mortgages then the world was shocked when they somehow managed to default, and meanwhile you had corrupt Wall Street bankers betting that these people would default. Similarly, you hand a country who has been in borderline poverty since the formation of their autonomous modern nation all this money, then are surprised when their corrupt politicians and banking institutions (as well as your corrupt Wall Street institutions like Goldman Sachs, who helped these corrupt bankers hide their debt) mishandle it. Then of course the IMF took advantage of the situation, and it turned into basically one big, as Americans would call it "poor tax" where you take advantage of someone who is already down. (Hey this guy can barely pay for his bills at it is, lets fuck him over and charge him 25$ dollars to cash his 300 dollar paycheck -- like this, but on a country level. Somehow that moderate amount of debt turned into 137% of GDP after it snowballed and stupid ass Greek politicians kept accepting these stupid packages with stupid terms /endrant) My suggestion about the Greek ethic was a sarcastic one, I put it in quotes, apologies if that didn't come through the text. Many people think just because you value work/life balance that you are somehow "lazy". I think Americans are seeing this now with millennials who demand they have adequate work/life balance (and good for them). It's always been a common adage that Americans live to work and (most European countries) work to live. I don't think this is necessary unique to Greeks, it just so happens we are in the crisis and it's an easy target to point the finger and just say "well if they just weren't so lazy!"