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Few democratic countries can manage their finances well. Switzerland comes to mind. But the general experience is that if the population can vote itself more mo

Few democratic countries can manage their finances well. Switzerland comes to mind. But the general experience is that if the population can vote itself more money and services at the cost of a) either someone else, or b) growing national debt, they usually will. We are well down the same road in Czechia. Europe has a very long history of banking, but at the moment when the Euro was created, most of the obliterated national currencies were weak, reflecting distrust towards their overlords. Switzerland, the country with the strongest national currency in Europe, never felt compelled to join the bloc. Historically, authoritarian countries tend to go bankrupt over war expenses, democratic countries over handouts. The British pound was strongest at the time when the country was somewhat semi-democratic, neither-nor. But that is a very unstable configuration. Pick your poison.

vladms 3y ago
What would be "well managed finances"? The objective is to improve the living, not how you manage the money. At all points in history most of people were trying to do "things at the expense of someone else" (colonialism, feudalism, etc.). Borrowing and not repaying is one of the most reasonable ways to do that - I think it's a clear improvement from killing/enslaving people, so I think it's an improvement.
- inglor_cz 3y ago
  The objective is to improve the living without worsening it in the long run. Andreas Papandreu, the king of Greek debt, is long dead, but debt that he ran up is still saddling the young Greek generation. The artificial living standard growth which resulted from his reckless borrowing helped him getting reelected several times, but the guy died in 1996 and now people who even weren't alive back then are carrying the burden of his electoral success that was bought by unsustainable spending. One of the insidious properties of national debt is that it comes at cost of people who aren't born yet. They are in no way represented in the democratic process, but they shouldn't be ignored either. We understood so much at least with regard to environment (albeit the implementation is far from perfect), we should do the same with regard to finances. Compared to death and outright enslavement, bankruptcy is better, but it is a choice between Black Death and some treatable cancer. We should strive for better.
  - leshow 3y ago
    You mention bankruptcy, it should be noted that Greece was loaded up with debt it could never hope to pay back to private French and German banks, and it was not allowed to declare itself bankrupt and restructure. Instead, they kept "extending and pretending" rather than restructure the debt. Some economists have called it a modern form of debtors prison. The Greeks also had no control over monetary policy as a result of being part of the EU currency union so they were essentially at the mercy of the banks and the EU leadership.
spiderfarmer 3y ago
There are no authoritarian countries in the bloc. So what is your point?
- inglor_cz 3y ago
  My last point (there are more of them in the comment) is that historically, authoritarian countries have gone bankrupt from other reasons than democratic countries, but democracies are prone to bankruptcies too. There is nothing about democracy that results in good management of public finances. The original article uses "Antidemocratic" as a subtly negative value judgment. One of my points was that "Democratic" management of finances has often turned sour, too.
- mantas 3y ago
  EU itself is quite an undemocratic institution. Jean-Claude Juncker and his infamous quotes about pushing through legislations is fantastic.
  - okokwhatever 3y ago
    Cant upvote your comment as much as I'd like.
  - hef19898 3y ago
    Basically every official function in the EU is either directly voted for (not the EUs fault if people don't vote) or nominated by someone democratically elected. If you don't see the difference between a truely authoritarian regime and the EU, you never paid attention in history class or current world events.
    - mantas 3y ago
      There's a lot of negotiations behind closed doors where we don't know how decisions are made. E.g. how the EC is formed. EU is run in authoritarian ways, but so far it's in, let's say, benevolent dictator mode. But same mechanism can be easily abused. And it's already abused. Just in ways that don't affect day-to-day life too much. But overall it's very bad for the society which does not feel attached to decisions of it's servants. Which is the bad thing. Democracies can easily cause a lot of harm (e.g. wars, repressions etc) too. But authocracies ruin societies for a loooong time. Wether they spilled blood or not.

vladms 3y ago

What would be "well managed finances"? The objective is to improve the living, not how you manage the money. At all points in history most of people were trying to do "things at the expense of someone else" (colonialism, feudalism, etc.). Borrowing and not repaying is one of the most reasonable ways to do that - I think it's a clear improvement from killing/enslaving people, so I think it's an improvement.

inglor_cz 3y ago
The objective is to improve the living without worsening it in the long run. Andreas Papandreu, the king of Greek debt, is long dead, but debt that he ran up is still saddling the young Greek generation. The artificial living standard growth which resulted from his reckless borrowing helped him getting reelected several times, but the guy died in 1996 and now people who even weren't alive back then are carrying the burden of his electoral success that was bought by unsustainable spending. One of the insidious properties of national debt is that it comes at cost of people who aren't born yet. They are in no way represented in the democratic process, but they shouldn't be ignored either. We understood so much at least with regard to environment (albeit the implementation is far from perfect), we should do the same with regard to finances. Compared to death and outright enslavement, bankruptcy is better, but it is a choice between Black Death and some treatable cancer. We should strive for better.
- leshow 3y ago
  You mention bankruptcy, it should be noted that Greece was loaded up with debt it could never hope to pay back to private French and German banks, and it was not allowed to declare itself bankrupt and restructure. Instead, they kept "extending and pretending" rather than restructure the debt. Some economists have called it a modern form of debtors prison. The Greeks also had no control over monetary policy as a result of being part of the EU currency union so they were essentially at the mercy of the banks and the EU leadership.

spiderfarmer 3y ago

There are no authoritarian countries in the bloc. So what is your point?

inglor_cz 3y ago
My last point (there are more of them in the comment) is that historically, authoritarian countries have gone bankrupt from other reasons than democratic countries, but democracies are prone to bankruptcies too. There is nothing about democracy that results in good management of public finances. The original article uses "Antidemocratic" as a subtly negative value judgment. One of my points was that "Democratic" management of finances has often turned sour, too.
mantas 3y ago
EU itself is quite an undemocratic institution. Jean-Claude Juncker and his infamous quotes about pushing through legislations is fantastic.
- okokwhatever 3y ago
  Cant upvote your comment as much as I'd like.
- hef19898 3y ago
  Basically every official function in the EU is either directly voted for (not the EUs fault if people don't vote) or nominated by someone democratically elected. If you don't see the difference between a truely authoritarian regime and the EU, you never paid attention in history class or current world events.
  - mantas 3y ago
    There's a lot of negotiations behind closed doors where we don't know how decisions are made. E.g. how the EC is formed. EU is run in authoritarian ways, but so far it's in, let's say, benevolent dictator mode. But same mechanism can be easily abused. And it's already abused. Just in ways that don't affect day-to-day life too much. But overall it's very bad for the society which does not feel attached to decisions of it's servants. Which is the bad thing. Democracies can easily cause a lot of harm (e.g. wars, repressions etc) too. But authocracies ruin societies for a loooong time. Wether they spilled blood or not.