Ten years of running The Diplomat magazine, and following many civil and military conflicts in detail, taught me one very important lesson about political economy. Times of crisis and conflict always begin innocently enough. As tumult develops, leaders of various stripe represent the crisis as “under control”. But if whatever it is – a conflict of identity, means or ideas – involves mass movement, then it is completely uncontrollable.
When Israel and Hizbollah embarked on a border skirmish in 2006, nobody thought it would last past a day because it wasn’t in anyone’s “interest”. Instead it mushroomed into the Lebanon War, lasting over a month, costing 1,200 lives and displacing a million Lebanese in an Israeli ground invasion that culminated in a public relations disaster for Israel.
The same sense of unstoppable momentum took hold on the Middle East and North Africa last year.
The point I’m trying to make here is that once a certain point is crossed in a theatre of politcal economy, and the covenant of acceptable behaviour is violated, then outcomes that seemed impossible, self-defeating or even stupid beforehand can suddenly become the impassioned prime objective of a very large group of people.
Gauging how such movements mobilise is the stuff of far brighter and more talented intellects than I. But to me, the phenomenon of mass movement change is captured simply enough in the phrase “when the blood is up”. When the blood is up in a people, be very careful about how you think something is going to turn out.
Right now, the blood is very obviously up in Greece. In the first round of the Greek elections, a neo-Nazi party won 21 seats in the parliament. As Delusional Economics has traced better than anyone in the global media, Greece has been taking a terrible kicking for five years. That is the only thing that can explain the rise of an ideology that destroyed 10% of the Greek population in WWII. The anger in the polity must be every bit as extreme as Nazism itself.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not concerned that the extreme Right will take control in Greece. What I am concerned about is that the election result clearly shows a polity on the move. And once that happens, no matter what any impeccably dressed and impressive leader tells you about being in control, no matter how calm equity and other markets appear to be, the reality is very different. Once the blood is up, the people will want change, even for change’s sake.
With a second round of Greek elections the most likely outcome, the shift towards the extreme Left and Right in Greek politics will worsen. The seal of the accepted political economy is violated. The unimaginable has been imagined. And outcomes like nationalised banks, large scale defaults and exiting Europe are now real possibilities.
I have no idea what will happen. A new coalition might form in the next five minutes and prevent nastier outcomes for Greece and Europe. But I know a polity on the move when I see one. Don’t kid yourself, wild possibilities are now plausible. Act accordingly.
