I spend my summers on the beautiful and verdant Aegean
island of Samos and naturally my mind strays to the ancient gods. “Naturally”,
because Samos was allegedly the birthplace of and became the centre of the cult
of Hera, wife (and sister!) of Zeus and a scheming lady, patron of women and
marriage. Her last ancient Temple here (The Heraion) was enormous, about three
times the size of the Parthenon in Athens, and pilgrims flocked to adore her with
their votive offerings from far flung Egypt, Armenia, Africa and Mesopotamia.
But where is Hera now? Her temple is a mass of stumps and broken foundations,
her puissance disregarded.
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| Hera and Zeus by Carracci |
The ancient world was imbued by a sense of mutual
toleration. In a famous passage Gibbon reflects: Such was the mild spirit of Antiquity, that the nations were less
attentive to the difference than to the resemblance of their religious worship.
The Greek, the Roman, and the Barbarian, as they met before their respective
altars, easily persuaded themselves that, under various names and with various
ceremonies, they adored the same deities. The elegant mythology of Homer gave a
beautiful and almost a regular form to the polytheism of the ancient world.
Alas, this mild spirit of Antiquity was to be swept away by
the exclusive demands of monotheistic religions. Trouble was brewing early with
the Israelites being warned by a grumpy Jehovah not to “go a-whoring after
false gods” or they risked breaking their special Covenant: “For I am a Jealous
God”, he thundered unattractively. Much worse was to come, with Europe and the
Americas beholden to the Christian God for some 1,600 years. What superstitions
were preserved, what crimes were committed in that God’s name! Introspective
but disputatious Orthodoxy gave way to aggressive and assertive Catholicism and
fractured into gloomy and puritanical Protestantism. A dismal procession
indeed!
Luckily the Church lost out when the Renaissance revived the
ancient wisdoms; when the Enlightenment taught us to think rationally and
examine evidence; when the March of Science unravelled many natural mysteries
and explained a myriad of conundrums. Modern man was freed from fear and
ignorance.
But was he? Mankind is a congenital enthusiast for Causes
and became enmeshed in a sticky spiders’ web of politico-economic “-isms” -
Absolutism, Radicalism, Chartism, Imperialism, Socialism, Nationalism, Fascism,
Communism, Capitalism. Each “-ism” had a sub-set of policies associated with
the Cause. These policies were theoretically capable of rational appraisal, of
modification, of adjustment, even of abandonment. But the True Believer in the
Cause was reluctant to ditch any associated policy; thus a Communist decries
any criticism of the notion of “exploitation”; the Capitalist defends the
Sanctity of the Market with the same fanaticism that the Papist once extended
to the Real Presence at the Eucharist.
All of which brings me to the Cause of European Unity and
the policy of Austerity. European Unity has many noble merits (although the UK
does not remotely fit in) and maybe one day there will be a peaceful and strong
United States of Europe. But it is not a perfect construct: the common currency
distorts the national economies: racial contempt for the Mediterranean peoples
is rampant: its government is statist and unenterprising.
The policy of Austerity has all the trappings of a religious
tenet with Schaeuble as its austere Pope and our George Osborne as a
semi-detached acolyte. Its flavour is a toxic compound, made up of elements of
the Protestant work ethic (Merkel is the daughter of a Lutheran pastor) and an
extreme embracing of neoliberal economics from the United States. The stated
aim of Austerity is to promote growth by closing the deficit gap between
government spending and its revenues by cutting state spending and raising
taxes. Austerity is not recommended for struggling economies as it is
deflationary and is likely to worsen the crucial ratio between government
borrowings and GDP. It was not just maverick Greek Finance Minister Yanis
Varoufakis who protested – his analysis is supported by leading academics Paul
Krugman, Joseph Stiglitz and historically by Maynard Keynes. Austerity has not
worked for admittedly errant Greece, but Europe ignored the evidence and imposed
its doctrine with rigid fervour, “ritually humiliating” Greece, partly for
ideological reasons, with perhaps ominous consequences. The other European “red
line” is Debt Write-off, which Greece certainly needs, as the IMF and the rest
of the world clearly understand, but Europe refuses to discuss.
Austerity is just one in an armoury of economic policies, to
be assessed, perhaps implemented and carefully monitored. It is perilous to
raise it to a dogma and invite equally extreme counter-measures. 21st
century statesmen need to dodge such false gods, exercise their duties
honestly, avoid populism and simply “to grow up”.
SMD
26.07.15
Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2015
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