Greece, Debt and Democracy: A Theological Reflection
Luke Bretherton ABC Religion and Ethics 7 Jul 2015 Regimes of indebtedness do not simply create objective conditions of oppression; they also forge subjective conditions of domination by inducing feelings of shame, guilt and inferiority. Credit: AFP The drama of Greece and the Euro is an ancient one. It harks back to the origins of democracy, which was born in Athens out of a struggle against debt bondage. Writing some two hundred years after the reforms that laid the foundations of democracy in Athens, Aristotle sees the demand for an amnesty of debts and an ending of debt-slavery as central to the origins of democracy. For Aristotle, politics was a means through which the common institutions of self-government preserved the sense of community necessary to subordinate the power of money to the pursuit of the common good. In the light of the recent referendum, it seems the people of Greece share Aristotle's view of things. Aristotle r...