Greek Referendum

Everyone seems to be surprised, angered, struck dumb, by the decision to hold a referendum in Greece. I am personally a believer in representative government. I think it achieves the aims described by Richard Price (1723-1791) in that it will “collect into it most of the knowledge and experience of the community, and at the same time carry it into execution with most dispatch and vigour”¹. So long as the elected representatives are free men, freely chosen by the whole community, are elected for short terms and can be held to account by the electors Price thinks this is the best way to arrange for the will of the people to be carried out. To which I would add that it avoids the worst effects of short-sighted and emotive or uninformed responses to events. But in the case of the Greek decision I can appreciate the argument for a referendum as well.

Excuse me quoting Price, but I am doing some work on him at the moment and am familiar with, as well as in admiration of, his writings. Price warned that “Civil governors see themselves not as servants but as masters”². And so, it seems do foreign Politicians, Bankers and Captains of Industry who all object to consulting the Greek people and putting the deal at risk. Their fear or assumption appears to be that these people will reject the deal reached by their betters for reasons of short-sighted self interest. They don't want austerity and they don't want to pay taxes.

Price also wrote that “All civil governors are trustees for the people governed, and when they abuse their trust they forfeit their authority”³. The possible abuse of trust in question here is falsely representing the state of the Greek economy in order to join the ECU and get the benefit of Community handouts. Another possible abuse of trust is the actions of those whose mismanagement of the economy got Greece, and indeed the rest of Europe, into this state to start with. And in that event another of Price's sayings comes to mind. “Without all doubt, it is the choice of the people that makes civil governors. The people are the spring of all civil power and they have a right to modify it as they please.”⁴

A Greek commentator on the BBC this evening said something to the effect that the Greek people were not the ones who lied about the economy to get into the ECU and the Greek people are the ones who are being asked to pay for it. Everything I know about Price's thoughts on civil government indicates that he would have had the utmost sympathy with their objection to being ridden over by their political and financial masters.

Price wrote: “I am very sensible that civil government, as it actually exists in the world, by no means answers to the account I have given of it. Instead of being an institution for guarding the weak against the strong, we find an institution which makes the strong yet stronger and gives them a systematical power of oppressing. Instead of promoting virtue and restraining vice, establishing liberty, and protecting alike all peaceable persons in the enjoyment of their civil and religious rights, we see a savage despotism, under its name, laying waste the earth, unreasonably elevating some and depressing others and trampling upon every human right.”⁵ I cannot help but feel that the Greek people are the ones who are paying for the misuse of power by others, and would be an excellent example of the situation that Price had in mind 200 years ago.

Just maybe George Papandreou had in mind that “Civil government is an expedient for collecting the wisdom and force of a community or confederacy in order to preserve its peace and liberty against every hostile invasion, whether from within or from without.”⁶ Maybe he thought that it was right to collect the wisdom and force of the Greek people, faced as they are with such an awful prospect, that he is their servant, not their master so he should get their authority, and maybe he also thinks that when the case is put before them they will act honourably and with responsibility and support his deal and as a result bring some social and political peace to the ravaged nation.

Notes:
1. Two Tracts, in Price Political Writings, Ed D.O.Thomas 1991, p80
2. Op cit p89
3. A Fast Sermon in Thomas Op cit p106
4. Two Tracts Op cit p88
5. Two Tracts Op cit p89
6. On the Importance of the American Revolution in Thomas Op cit p122