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My wife is Greek, I’m Northern European and have lived in Greece for more than 10 years (on and off). This sounds similar to what I have observed except in my v

My wife is Greek, I’m Northern European and have lived in Greece for more than 10 years (on and off). This sounds similar to what I have observed except in my view it’s even worse. Greece is a massively corrupt country, on all levels, starting from government/politics and culminating all the way down to day-to-day life. The Greeks have a tendency to blame the politicians for everything that goes wrong but it’s really the corrupt, disintegrating culture - that they are happy to espouse - that’s most to blame. After all, who is voting these corrupt politicians into power year after year? Terms like “the common good”, “strategic thinking”, “planning for the future” , “unity” are not only completely meaningless to the average Greek but actively frowned upon if not ridiculed. Populism holds sway and people are happy to vote for whatever powermonger ends up promising the most in terms of personal gain. Add to that a vast, monstrously centralized civil sector (the bureaucracy and time wasting here is of epic proportions) and one can quickly see why the country is in shambles. Of all the European countries I’ve lived in, I’d say that Italy is the most similar, corruption-wise. Something funny: Greece is, I think, the only country in the EU where the “Communist Party” (a direct appendage of the Stalinist era with ties to CCCP) has significant power and is voted into parliament every year. The previous prime minister Tsipras was in fact an offshoot of these hardened communists. Nevertheless, the country itself, outside the big cities, is beautiful beyond belief. It’s just too bad that the culture is so backwards with no sign of things changing for the better.

Fishysoup 7y ago
Greek here, agree with pretty much everything you said. Just wanted to point out that everyone running for public office is corrupt so that doesn't really give you any choices. Everyone who can leave the country does so. The people staying behind are those too poor to leave, and those profiting from the crisis (like those dentists that make 100 euro per appointment, have >20 appointments a day, and declare an annual income of 12000 euro a year).
- spapas82 7y ago
  I think you are generalizing a bit too much here! Not everybody that's running for public office is corrupt; there are some people that have good intentions. Of course they aren't able to do much good because the system is corrupt and anybody not going with the flow will be ostracized, but that doesn't change the fact that they did have good intentions. Also, not everybody leaves the country, and definitely not everybody stays back profites from the crisis! I know a lot of people that stay here and try to do the best they can because they love and like their country. Actually in my case very few of my friends and colleagues have left (i.e from my friends in university it's something like 10% of the people that left and most of them left before the crisis started to do PhDs is US Universities). After all as others have pointed out it is one of the most beautiful places in the world and after you live some years here you can tolerate many things (like slopy or corrupted officials) to wake up every day with the sun :)
  - Fishysoup 7y ago
    Please point out to me, except for Vasilis Leventis (presumably), a party that isn't corrupt to its bones, dangerous or just plain insane. New democracy and what's left of pasok are so corrupt it's funny. KKE is ridiculous, and now we have a bunch of new fascist parties to boot. Syriza hasn't shown the quite the same levels of corruption as the other major parties, but they're just all over the place and are more like college activists who can't agree with each other than public decision makers. I know some people who stayed because they "love" their country, almost all of them do so because some uncle/cousin/godfather of theirs is in some industry and they can get work through them. Of course there are some people who stay (or come back) with the romantic idea of trying to help the situation out, and I commend that, but it's like throwing pebbles at a mountain.
afthonos 7y ago
I am Greek, but have never lived in Greece. My understanding of the situation is exactly this in terms of what happens, but very different in terms of what the causes are. Basically, Greek society is not a Western bureaucratic society; for lack of a better word, let's call it a relationship society. Some differences as I see them are: (1) Relationship societies rely on you knowing someone who can help you. Bureaucracies rely on everyone knowing the rules, and civil servants complying with them. (2) Relationship societies have an understood element of favor trading: someone you know in the office of agriculture helped you, so you help their nephew back with your position at the department of motor vehicles. Bureaucratic societies depend on this not happening in a measurable way, beyond someone being able to quickly tell you which rules you need to apply. Point (2) in particular is indistinguishable from corruption from a Western bureaucratic standpoint. But it's important to note that it's a stable way to run a society. It may not result in certain things that Western bureaucracies value, but it doesn't mean the society is rotten. My take on the issue with Greece is that it tried to enter a highly bureaucratic regime, the EU, without a viable plan to modify its culture. And so now we have an impedance mismatch. Everyone still works the old ways, because good luck changing a millenary culture. On the other hand, everyone expects things to change, and gets upset with they don't. Not least of all more bureaucratic EU countries. I don't know how accurate this model is. But it has the advantage that it doesn't separate Greeks into a weirdly incapable people that cannot coordinate or plan ahead. Prisoners of our own culture, yes, but so is everyone. Unable to operate on the plane set by Western European bureaucracy, undoubtedly (irrespective of whether we want to consider the plane a higher or a lower plane). But ultimately, it's a complicated thing to fix, because both cultures are stable, but going from one to the other requires remarkable activation energy (to further mix metaphors).
- spapas82 7y ago
  Your explanation has some basis. Actually this "relationship society" you mention is common in the middle east (Turkey, Egypt, Syria etc). The fact that Greece was under Turkish occupation for ~ 400 years (until 1830) probably has something to do with our culture not being close to Western bureocratic .
  - 7y ago
buboard 7y ago
Francis fukuyama puts greece and (mainly southern) italy as places where political development and high social trust did not emerge, hence we have a state in a state of retardation. There is also a lot of pessimism in greece about the stubbornly stagnant attitudes expressed in politics. Add to that the abysmal demographic prospects and it's easy for a certain desperation to develop. https://books.google.com/books?id=j6hzAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA97&dq=Francis+fukuyama+greece++southern)+italy+political+development&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwio06u7ssfjAhVKaJoKHckeBNEQ6AEIKTAA#v=onepage&q=Francis%20fukuyama%20greece%20%20southern)%20italy%20political%20development&f=false https://books.google.com/books?id=j6hzAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA97&dq=Fr...

Fishysoup 7y ago

Greek here, agree with pretty much everything you said. Just wanted to point out that everyone running for public office is corrupt so that doesn't really give you any choices. Everyone who can leave the country does so. The people staying behind are those too poor to leave, and those profiting from the crisis (like those dentists that make 100 euro per appointment, have >20 appointments a day, and declare an annual income of 12000 euro a year).

spapas82 7y ago
I think you are generalizing a bit too much here! Not everybody that's running for public office is corrupt; there are some people that have good intentions. Of course they aren't able to do much good because the system is corrupt and anybody not going with the flow will be ostracized, but that doesn't change the fact that they did have good intentions. Also, not everybody leaves the country, and definitely not everybody stays back profites from the crisis! I know a lot of people that stay here and try to do the best they can because they love and like their country. Actually in my case very few of my friends and colleagues have left (i.e from my friends in university it's something like 10% of the people that left and most of them left before the crisis started to do PhDs is US Universities). After all as others have pointed out it is one of the most beautiful places in the world and after you live some years here you can tolerate many things (like slopy or corrupted officials) to wake up every day with the sun :)
- Fishysoup 7y ago
  Please point out to me, except for Vasilis Leventis (presumably), a party that isn't corrupt to its bones, dangerous or just plain insane. New democracy and what's left of pasok are so corrupt it's funny. KKE is ridiculous, and now we have a bunch of new fascist parties to boot. Syriza hasn't shown the quite the same levels of corruption as the other major parties, but they're just all over the place and are more like college activists who can't agree with each other than public decision makers. I know some people who stayed because they "love" their country, almost all of them do so because some uncle/cousin/godfather of theirs is in some industry and they can get work through them. Of course there are some people who stay (or come back) with the romantic idea of trying to help the situation out, and I commend that, but it's like throwing pebbles at a mountain.

afthonos 7y ago

I am Greek, but have never lived in Greece. My understanding of the situation is exactly this in terms of what happens, but very different in terms of what the causes are. Basically, Greek society is not a Western bureaucratic society; for lack of a better word, let's call it a relationship society. Some differences as I see them are: (1) Relationship societies rely on you knowing someone who can help you. Bureaucracies rely on everyone knowing the rules, and civil servants complying with them. (2) Relationship societies have an understood element of favor trading: someone you know in the office of agriculture helped you, so you help their nephew back with your position at the department of motor vehicles. Bureaucratic societies depend on this not happening in a measurable way, beyond someone being able to quickly tell you which rules you need to apply. Point (2) in particular is indistinguishable from corruption from a Western bureaucratic standpoint. But it's important to note that it's a stable way to run a society. It may not result in certain things that Western bureaucracies value, but it doesn't mean the society is rotten. My take on the issue with Greece is that it tried to enter a highly bureaucratic regime, the EU, without a viable plan to modify its culture. And so now we have an impedance mismatch. Everyone still works the old ways, because good luck changing a millenary culture. On the other hand, everyone expects things to change, and gets upset with they don't. Not least of all more bureaucratic EU countries. I don't know how accurate this model is. But it has the advantage that it doesn't separate Greeks into a weirdly incapable people that cannot coordinate or plan ahead. Prisoners of our own culture, yes, but so is everyone. Unable to operate on the plane set by Western European bureaucracy, undoubtedly (irrespective of whether we want to consider the plane a higher or a lower plane). But ultimately, it's a complicated thing to fix, because both cultures are stable, but going from one to the other requires remarkable activation energy (to further mix metaphors).

spapas82 7y ago
Your explanation has some basis. Actually this "relationship society" you mention is common in the middle east (Turkey, Egypt, Syria etc). The fact that Greece was under Turkish occupation for ~ 400 years (until 1830) probably has something to do with our culture not being close to Western bureocratic .
- 7y ago

buboard 7y ago

Francis fukuyama puts greece and (mainly southern) italy as places where political development and high social trust did not emerge, hence we have a state in a state of retardation. There is also a lot of pessimism in greece about the stubbornly stagnant attitudes expressed in politics. Add to that the abysmal demographic prospects and it's easy for a certain desperation to develop. https://books.google.com/books?id=j6hzAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA97&dq=Francis+fukuyama+greece++southern)+italy+political+development&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwio06u7ssfjAhVKaJoKHckeBNEQ6AEIKTAA#v=onepage&q=Francis%20fukuyama%20greece%20%20southern)%20italy%20political%20development&f=false https://books.google.com/books?id=j6hzAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA97&dq=Fr...