*** DIMITRIS VAGIANOS, NIKOS VETTAS, CHRISTOFOROS PISSARIDES (under the direction of): Beyond Austerity. For a new dynamic in the Greek economy. Crete University Press (100 rue N. Plastira, B.P. 1385, GR-71110 Heraklion. Tel.: (30-281) 0391097 - fax: 0391085 - E-mail: info@cup.gr - Internet http://www.cup.gr ). 2018, 816 pp., 50 €. ISBN 978-960-524-502-3
The financial crisis that began in the financial sector in 2008 and quickly spread around the world hit Greece with unexpected intensity: incomes collapsed, unemployment reached 27% of the population, half of bank loans could not be honoured… Why did this situation occur and what must be done to prevent it from happening again? Is it better to stay in the euro or to go back to the drachma? What can be done with the country's huge public debt? Can the social state become sustainable in Greece? Is it better to accept the idea that endless austerity awaits the Greeks? It is to these and many other questions that the authors of this book, who are among the most renowned economists, provide answers by discerning in turn the shortcomings that have allowed the crisis to emerge with such intensity in many sectors of the Greek economy - and, therefore, of Greek society - and what should be done in the short, medium and long term to rebuild the Greek economy and the country itself.
Divided into fifteen chapters, this book, which includes 31 authors, Greek economists active both in Greece and in major universities in Europe and America, is the most methodical attempt in recent years to identify the real weaknesses of the Greek economy and to formulate reform proposals. The chapters combine systematic empirical research with analytical models chosen without dogmatism by the authors as the most appropriate for the specific problem they address. This is therefore the work that should have been done so that Athens could negotiate better memorandums with the lenders.
Having imposed new and heavier taxes, the memoranda have thus succeeded in making a significant contribution to national income, but the experts who concocted them have not taken into account their impact on employment, inequality or growth. The authors examine how identical income results could have been achieved by using other criteria, such as reducing inequalities or offsetting the burden that certain taxes placed on the poorest. They thus take into account, in particular, tax evasion, the small size of companies and the administrative problems caused by each type of tax and benefit. They show that a system with a higher VAT rate (27% for all types), a reduction in income tax (28% and only for a quarter of households) and two types of new generic subsidies would have resulted in the same distribution of income and purchasing power, but by helping to motivate employers to offer work, employees to declare their income and, for all, increase investment and savings.
The analysis is impressive. Economists usually say that indirect taxes, such as VAT, increase inequalities while income taxes reduce them. However, the authors argue that this simple principle ceases to exist when there is tax evasion and significant administrative malfunctions. Moreover, while there is an urgent need to increase employment in organized and competitive companies, the reform suggested by the authors cannot be ignored. Another scenario put forward in these pages provides for a subsidy of €2,400 per year for all adults and €1,200 for all children, a single tax rate of 34% for all incomes while VAT would remain applicable. They show that inequalities would thus be greatly reduced, while the motivation for middle-class work would be greatly reinvigorated. The system thus created would also be simple to manage and would have great advantages over the existing system. Utopian? In the introduction, the authors deny it: “It may seem utopian to talk seriously with Greek politicians about such big changes in taxes and benefits. Let us think, however, of how much the system of pensions, property taxes and contributions has changed since 2009. It was swept away by the ideas that the experts from the European Commission and the IMF had for Greece, without any advice from Greek experts. Yet, even now, the government continues to add taxes to wealth for the sole purpose of a budget surplus. From a technical and administrative point of view, it is possible to create a simpler, fairer and more favourable development system. The authors show how. Politicians must understand this and take it into account”.
Original version in French by Thanassis Kalfas
*** GEORGIOS ARGITIS (under the direction of): The Illusion and Fraud of Greece's Economic Adjustment Programmes. Papazisi Publishing (2 Nikitara Street, GR-10678 Athens. Tel.: (30-210) 3822496 - fax: 3809020 - E-mail: papazisi@otenet.gr - Internet http://www.papazisi.gr ). 2018, 182 pp., 10,60 €. ISBN 978-960-02-339-8-8.
The economic adjustment programmes imposed on Greece have failed to bring about the transformations necessary for a sustainable exit from the debt crisis. The economic and social costs of their implementation have been significant, which has even further increased public debt. In this book coordinated by Prof. Giorgos Argitis, who teaches macroeconomic theory and international political economy at the University of Economics in Athens, five economists note that the failure of the memorandums is due to the fact that their conception was based on the fuzzy ideas of a dominant thought characterized by a lack of realism. Their design and implementation, these experts explain, did not take into account the basic institutional and structural characteristics of the Greek economy, requiring instead that Greece adapt to the vision of the world they embody. This, they said, could only be done through a combination of deception and illusion. The culture of communication was the mechanism of political manipulation of public opinion used to convince that memoranda were the only way to get the country out of the crisis. (AKa)
*** JOTTE MULDER: Social Legitimacy in the Internal Market. Hart Publishing (Kemp House, Chawley Park, Cumnor Hill, Oxford, OX2 9PH, UK. Tel.: (44-1865) 517530 - fax: 510710 - E-mail: mail@hartpub.co.uk - Internet: http://www.hartpub.co.uk ). Collection "Modern Studies in European Law". 2018, 288 pp., 80 €. ISBN 978-1-50991-453-1.
“The Union has always been a fundamentally social project. It represents more than a single market, more than money, more than the euro”, said European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker in Göteborg at the end of 2017. This summit, the first in twenty years to be devoted to social Europe, the poor relation of European integration, remained highly symbolic. However, this would be the key to citizens' disenchantment with the Union, sometimes perceived as an ultraliberal steamroller of social progress. In this context, Jotte Mulder raises a question that is crucial for the survival of the Union: “How can the objectives of the internal market that focus on economic rights and a commitment to social diversity both be pursued without one necessarily trumping the other?” The Professor of the Europa Institute of the Utrecht University observes that it is often the Court of Justice that has the difficult task of reconciling this diversity with the objectives of European integration, its decisions often criticising its commercial bias, even though it stems from the legal structure of the internal market. Stressing that austerity measures have fuelled the idea that Europe is dismantling social rights within Member States, the author notes that there is a crisis of social legitimacy in the rules on free movement, competition and state aid. As the economic and social spheres - supposedly separated and relegated respectively to European integration and the autonomy of the Twenty-Eight - intermingle and come under tension, this book proposes ways to arbitrate this conflict, as it “conceives the market and the social as communicating vessels”. This mediation must take place at Union level, in that the European economies are interconnected and engaged in a process of financial market integration. From the analysis of the Court of Justice's reflections, spread over several chapters, it emerges that the Court, without losing sight of the objectives of the internal market, has applied in an inconsistent manner a mixture of three evaluation principles to achieve the enhancement of a divergent social context: “substantive efficiency, margins of appreciation and good governance standards”. Thus, the aim of this study is to prove that the internal market can become “the platform of a societal dialogue” and to allow for “the structural inclusion of this social purpose within the European legal space by developing a common shared language” around these three logics, within a dialogue of “mutual responsiveness”. (MU)