*** VIRGILE PERRET: Monnaie et citoyenneté. Les citoyens à l'épreuve de la globalisation financière. Peter Lang (1 Moosstrasse, P.O. 350, CH-2542 Pieterlen. Tel: (41-32) 3761717 - fax: 3761727 - Email: info@peterlang.com - Internet: http://www.peterlang.com ). 2015, 380 pp. €88.20. ISBN 978-3-0343-1632-3.
Virgile Perret is a specialist in the different links that exist, contrary to appearances, between currencies. This is on the understanding that is based on a definition that incorporates its transformation into "finance" through the practice of providing credit and citizenship, a theme on which he focused his doctoral thesis for which he received the social sciences and policies faculty prize at the University of Lausanne in 2013. In his book, he puts forwards a number of areas for consideration with regard to this relationship, particularly the political, symbolic, socio-economic and psychological mechanisms that enable currency to participate in the construction, maintenance and transformation of citizenship. He therefore demonstrates through his scientifically robust study and characteristically independent viewpoint that, "currency is not just the oil that lubricates the economy and trade" and that it is also, "a political and social institution that has played an important role in the construction of member states and the transformation of their sovereignty, as part of the development of macro-economic regulation and the enhancing of social cohesion between the members of political communities". All these factors and keys for understanding have, indirectly, helped shed light again on the case of the single currency and the question of public debt, particularly when the author emphasises, "the ability to participate in the affirmation of a political authority on a specific territory and the concomitant recognition of a right to the sovereign protection of members of a community". The Greeks will, no doubt, be the first to exclaim that, "through the notion of debt, the relationship between currency and citizenship" does not really provide, "a form of link between protection of people and sovereignty" in the Eurozone …
On the basis of a perspective combining elements from international political economy and regulation, the author demonstrates that the role of mediating citizenship played by the single currency does not just depend on national socio-political mechanisms but also their international counterparts active in the domestic sphere of states and affecting their ability to define their respective regimes for citizenship. The institutionalisation of the international Bretton Woods monetary system is the positive proof of this because after 1944, the currency was put at the service of, "a certain conception of the role played by the state in economic and social regulation and its capacity to defend the orientation of appropriate economic policies that met citizens' expectations in the domestic arena". This, however, contained the seeds of its downfall because under the joint pressure of the "banks and US multinational companies" and with the active support of the "British authorities that wanted to give London its pride of place again in the global financial markets" regulatory provisions of the financial world developed by Bretton Woods, "proved incapable of preventing the emergence towards the end of the 1950s, of a private transnational financial system". At the beginning of the 1970s and with the abandonment by the US of their support for the convertibility of the dollar into gold and the abolition of fixed exchange rates, the final barriers to the emergence of financial globalisation and the establishment of a "capitalist liberal order" collapsed. Suddenly, as demonstrated by Perret, "by reinforcing the power of the new private actors who lacked democratic legitimacy", such as the notation agencies and the institutional investors in particular, "whose transnational activities affect the ability of governments to define economic and social policies" financial globalisation "led to a correlated weakening in the ability of citizens to govern themselves through the exercising of their political rights". An additional paradox involves the fact that the promotion of this international financial order was mainly in response to the, "political and economic interests of Anglo and US hegemonic power" and only corresponded to the political choices of a very narrow number of countries, which once again impacted on the degree of its democratic legitimacy. The result is that now we see the emergence of a new kind of legitimised state, which the author points out depends upon a neoliberal political discourse that highlights the need for competitiveness, the reduction of social protection and individual responsibility, the privatisation of pensions being one of these consequences …
In his conclusion, Virgile Perret provides the key to interpreting the global financial crisis that has affected the world since 2008 and its social repercussions, which he argues can be interpreted, as, "transfer of risk from the financial sphere to society" because, "ultimately, it is ordinary citizens that have to pay for the consolidation of public finances, the bankruptcy of foreign states, the increase in interest rates on public debt and the national and international bank bailout plans through their private savings, cuts in public services and higher taxes". Isn't this in fact the cure currently being imposed on Greece? Michel Theys
*** ARISTOS DOXIADIS: Le fossé invisible. Les institutions et les comportements de l'économie grecque. Editions Ikaros (4 rue Voulis GR-10562 Athens. Tel: (30-210) 3225152 - fax: 3235262 - Email: info@ikarosbooks.gr). 2015, 323 pp. €14.90. ISBN 978-960-572-004-9.
How does the Greek economy function? In what way is it different to other Western economies? What are the forces and practices that will enable it recover from the crisis? Aristos Doxiadis, a lecturer in social and economic sciences at Harvard and the University of London took part in European Commission pilot projects to tackle poverty in Europe and in this publication he argues that the responses to these questions cannot be found in the figures provided for the micro-economy or simplistic speeches. They can be found in what makes up families, the size of companies, the means of production, the organisation of the state, in the details of the laws and the way in which political leaders govern. These formal and informal institutions, as well as daily behaviour, have fashioned the economy that effectively collapsed in 2009 and which will shape the way in which the economy subsequently emerges. In this book, he describes and dissects the political economy in Greece, with the tools provided by the neo-institutional school. He combines everyday life with that of the macro-economy, the "people" and the "figures" provided at local and global levels. Different examples are drawn from tourism, maritime transport, agriculture, public administration and other activities. Based on these different examples, he then goes on to tackle subjects such as public deficits, unemployment and Greece's position in Europe. The words he chooses are both simple and on a human level that help to effectively describe the way in which the deformed prosperity of the new regime effectively means perspectives for a productive development based outside the country. Who is to blame? Who will save Greece and the Greeks? What are the obstacles to recovery? To all these different questions he seeks to provide responses by analysing both the poor way in which the administration functions, as well as the nepotism that exists in the Greek political system. The book also contains an extensive bibliography. (AKa)
*** NAPOLEON MARAVEYIAS: La promesse… de la croissance. Editions Papazisi (2 Nikitara, GR-10678 Athens Tel: (30-210) 3822496 - fax: 3809020 - Email: papazisi@otenet.gr - Internet: http://www.papazisi.gr ). 2015, 320 pp. €14.90. ISBN 978-960-02-3092-5.
With this book, an Athens University Professor who teaches political economy, Common Agricultural Policy and European integration economy, attempts to provide a number of responses to a series of fundamental questions posed by citizens in Greece since the beginning of the crisis. Who is to blame for this crisis? What should be done to ensure the development of the country? What are the possibilities that exist in the European context and the restrictions that this context imposes on the country? Does a solution exist outside the euro zone? Should emphasis be placed on education, particularly in view of reducing, in the long term, tax evasion? What important should we placed on the issue of poverty, which is growing in the country and what could encourage Greece to undergo change in European economic policy? What really is the future of the European Union? What are the priority areas in which to build solid foundations that are capable of overcoming the weaknesses that have been undermining the country for too long? What is the best way of improving the public institutions and political system, in view of building a modern state? How can corruption be tackled? This is a long list of questions and the author, who is also the editor of several Greek newspapers, Napoléon Maraveyias, seeks to provide the answers in his book, after having provided a chronology of the major events, particularly the nightmare of the drachma, the power exerted by the Greek diaspora and the measures planned to tackle unemployment. He also looks at the influence of the US on European economic policy, the most fundamental question, in his eyes, is whether they can find a crisis exit strategy without changing European economic policy. (AKa)
*** IONISSIOS CHIONIS: La crise grecque. L'aventure de la dette. Editions Papassotiriou (37 rue Panepistimiou, GR-10680, Athens. Tel: (30-210) 3323300 - fax: 3848254 - Email: alpap@papasotiriou.gr - Internet: http://www.papasotiriou.gr ). 2015, 170 pp. €14.90. ISBN: 978-960-491-094-6.
The problem with the economy is that there is not an experimental area in which we can verify the results of policies that we are planning to implement. Therefore, the main characteristics of different economic stabilisation programmes launched to respond to the Greek debt crisis is the huge uncertainty that prevails with regard to their ultimate financial and social results. According to Dionissios Chionis, Associate Professor at the Department of International Economic Relations at the Democratic University of Thrace, the Memorandum and other medicines administered to the Greek patient are some of the most important that have occurred in the country's recent financial history and it would be reasonable to take into account the consequences of these choices on the short and more long-term economic and social development of the country. No one appeared to see the crisis coming and we were therefore unable to tackle it with appropriate political decisions, which is why Greek society has been overwhelmed by preconceived ideas and stereotypes over recent years.. Dionissios Chionis believes that the debate is currently ongoing in Greece and Europe on how the crisis should be tackled and it is still true that in certain quarters questions are very openly being asked about whether budgetary austerity is the only way of improving things and creating a constructive dialogue on the subject of the appropriate combination of policies to implement. In his view, alternative policies should be envisaged in order to tackle the crisis in which the European Union because the latter does not really have a political choice, it is an imperative from which it cannot escape. In any case, nothing good can be reaped from a system that does not assess the application of the measures applied and the questions that these provoke. (AKa)
*** SOPHOKLIS MOUSOULOS: Dans le sanctuaire de la crise économique à Chypre. Editions Kostas Epiphaniou (B.P. 22451 Cy-1521 Nicosia, Cyprus. Tel: (357) 22679058 - fax: 22675511 - Email: costas.epiphaniou@cytanet.com.cy). 2015, 308 pp. €16.32. ISBN 978-9963-704-66-8.
In this book, the Cypriot economist, Sophocle Mousoulos describes and analyses the data relating to the Cypriot economy and the way in which this has led to an unprecedented crisis, with devastating effects on Cypriot society. He demonstrates how the structure of the Cypriot economy has been shaped since the creation of the Republic. He believes that it is based on a blatant form of nepotism within local political culture, which has led to an overweight and privileged public sector, an uncontrolled banking sector, with accompanying superpowers, scandalous practices and poor investments. He argues that this has ultimately resulted in a banking system that has lost billions of euros. The serious errors committed by the government of the former President of the Christofias Republic, the inability to resolve the economic crisis, governmental waste, the collapse of the People's Bank, the signing of the Troika's Memorandum, the multiple and short lived recoveries, the rise in poverty and the investigations carried out to punish the guilty parties are some of the subjects tackled by the author. The latter seeks to explain that he wrote this book to compel the country's political leaders to assume responsibility for their actions and the fact that these and their speeches will not, at least on this occasion, be forgotten. (AKa)
*** HASAN GÜRAK: Economic Growth and Development. Theories, Criticisms and an Alternative Growth Model. Peter Lang (see address attached). 2015, 258 pp. €59.95. ISBN 978-3-631-66072-0.
This book is exclusively targeted at those who have enough knowledge of the economy to decode the appropriate mathematical formulas. This Turkish specialist in heterodox economics explains the process involving the different economic theories and models relating to the dominant neoclassical ideology prevailing in economics. He believes that these are false scientific theories because in reality they are based on nothing less than, "unrealistic and utopian hypotheses". In this publication, he compares them with new and alternative theories that are able to supplant the "parabola" of policies that have led to the world condemning 80% of its population to living on or below the absolute poverty line. (PBo)
*** JANUSZ KUDLA, KONRAD WALCZYK, ROBERT KRUSZEWSKI, KATARZYNA KOPCZEWSKA, AGATA KOCIA: Modeling Fiscal Policy in the European Union. Peter Lang (see address attached). « Polish Studies in Economics » series, No. 5. 2015, 139 pp. €34.95. ISBN 978-3-631-65830-7.
This book is impenetrable for those who do not master the language of economists or share their love for mathematical formulas. It stems from an ongoing debate over the past few years in the Union with regard to tax harmonisation within the Union. This debate has become even more acute over recent years, given the debt crises that have occurred. The authors of this book are all academic specialists working in Warsaw and in this publication they seek to devise a number of analytical economic models that will allow for the assessment of the repercussions from the different forms of fiscal integration in the short and medium term. In conclusion, they formulate a number of political recommendations for European decision-makers. (PBo)