Dear Terence and all
as the discussion about Greece and Design methods starts taking an
interesting turn, also with the deep and thoughtful analysis by Terence,
i thought i should contribute some additional factors that perhaps take
the discussion into a different area, however this is of some interest i
believe.
The Greek crisis seems to be mainly economic (also geopolitical as
Terence argue, of course). However the real extend of the crisis at
least within Greece is social and political in my view (it is not just
the international economics and geopolitics). It is also a systemic
crisis, which should be seen even deeper than just finance. The real
problem behind the bad political management of the national funds in the
late decades lays on the hyper-structure of bureaucratic clientielism
that has been established in our later Greek history. This is a
socio-political practice based on previous "sultanism": the political
system of the Ottoman empire, which is the eastern equivalent to
feudalism (here i d like to argue with Eduardo. The Ottoman empire has
nothing to do with Greece, neither culturally, politically or socially.
it is just the next strong empire of the area in historical time, which
occupy Greece and breaks down the Hellenistic spirit and culture. Many
argue this has been broken even before, in Byzantine empire, it's
discussable. Anyway, Hellenism gets a new birth through Renaissance and
European Enlightenment...).
Bureaucratic clientielism is the system which co-exist with the official
civil democracy rules, in the shade, tending to overwrite them based on
personal relations rather than the established rules (law, constitution
etc.). this system develops corruption, paternalism and shake the roots
of democracy (and finally economy and development too). The
overvaluation of government's projects in Greece, the waste of funds and
all those economic scandals of the late decades, that put the Greek
state up to its neck nowadays and its money to specific private pockets,
are not just results of the expensive social state (which is true to a
certain extend), or the sudden (borrowed) credit wealth (also true as
Terence states). It is also and mainly a result of corruption, as much
as lack of a long plan, between politicians, the "high" civil classes,
"high" businessmen and the corporatism of certain professions'
syndicates or unions, like doctors, architects, lawyers and so on. These
professions have manage the strongest representation in political
parties and late governments and tend to serve well their professional
interests only (see "closed" professions) through the well established
political clientielism and against any sense of social justice or social
"contract". SO the question is what happened with all those funds and
the development they should raise. They were not spend by greek citizens
(not quite)! They end up into some people's pockets and they didn't fund
further development i'm afraid. For example the extra earnings
(officially, according to law) of a doctor in Greece can get
ridiculously high, even comparing to any European doctor of the same
status or position. In addition a great, unfortunately, majority of
doctors demand (unofficially and against the law) even more extra money
for their services, under the table, from their patients ("clients" they
like to call them) in order to do their duties right (surgeries etc.).
This is a habit in state hospitals called "to fakellaki" (the envelope
containing the unofficial extra money for the doctor, which is a huge
amount). The market is dominated by powerful and unofficially shaped
cartels, that manage to manipulate prices in their interest, again
supported by the bureaucratic clientielism of the politicians, who are
not strong enough to fight this establishment or perhaps they are
supported by it anyway, so they don't want to fight it. Certain big
companies or trusts get state projects under not very transparent
conditions and overestimating the costs. This "enclosed" economy,
absorbs the society's and the state's wealth, ruthlessly and also stops
development. This is a total shame for a society like Greece (as much as
every society of course), which has such a high potential for further
development. The education level and specialisation of Greek citizens is
extremely high, as much as their hard working habits and dedication.
This disgraceful demonstration of violence of some Greek citizens, we
see in the news worldwide, is not exactly a product of maniacs or
anarchists, but rather the repressed anger of systematically robbed
citizens, who are now supposed to pay the bill of the people in charge
corruption (politicians, high level businessmen, "protected"
professions, cartels etc.). The modern Greek society is not a sum of
lazy people, who are having fun under the sun as some media speak out
for their own interests, but rather hard working, educated and creative
citizens, who see their development potential, their dreams, their
creativity and hard work profit squeezed under an unfair and oppressing
political system, even being absolutely democratic indeed. The Greek
society is trapped under a clientalistic structure which doesn't let the
democratic establishment work for the good of society and economy and of
course push all citizens in its adoption as a social necessity,
eventualy.
Now apart from the current danger of bankruptcy, which has to be sold as
fast as possible, for the sake of all, the real challenge is the
structural political and social update. In the long term perhaps this
should be the focus of EU and IMF about Greece, in their demands, as
economy is not a matter of numbers but a social and political case
indeed. The challenge for Design as a paradigm or method for problem
solving, could perhaps play its role in this direction.
Ancient Greeks were saying: "Ouden kako amiges kalou" ... in free
translation this means: nothing bad comes without something good in
it.... I like to keep this optimism of my ancestors, when i see the
dramatic decrease of salaries and the strict demands of EU and IMF, or
even the national humiliation internationally (manipulation of
statistics and lies of Greek governments to our EU partners, humiliating
or even racistic comments about Greece on respectful media etc.), But if
this can come with an update of the political habits, the opening of the
economy and a better function for the democratic ethics (that, again,
are extremely strong in Greece apart of these Ottoman-generating, in my
opinion, stubs as i describe), then today's hard condition might even
worth the price on a long term.
Nevertheless, the design of a novel Greek economy, is not bad at all if
it can be a European Design project, as far as this takes into account
all relevant factors in addition to finance.
best regards
Michail
PS
there is an extensive bibliography, both in Greek and English on modern
Greek politics and society, analysing these issues to a broader extend.
>>> Terence Love <[log in to unmask]> 05/06/10 5:17 AM >>>
Dear David,
Solving the Greek situation is a design problem the Greek government is
facing. Perhaps more interesting is to look at design issues and methods
of
the design situation.
Here's an outline sketch of the design situation as I understand it (and
most of this comes from Stratfor. I recommend a subscription - less
than a
daily newspaper). The design analysis is only at the order of one
feedback
loop.
The fundamentals of the Greek design situation are geopolitical.
EU wants to become a bigger trading block and the US wants Europe to
extend
across towards Russia to reduce Russia's geopolitical buffer zone (which
it
needs for territorial integrity.
Greece is and has been economically problematic for many decades.
Greece's
government wants to stay in power and have an easy life by placating its
people. For that (which included the best quality social security
arrangements in Europe) the Greek government needs lots of cash and the
economy doesvery cheap credit on a large scale. Greek gave false financial figures
to
give Europe the illusion that it was more credit worthy to enable it to
join the EU to get access to cheap cash (mainly German). The Greek
government continued to provide 'adjusted' financial figures. It appears
the
approach worked something like an institutionalised Ponzi scheme where
new
borrowings pay for interest on previous borrowings.
The Greek populace enjoyed and got used to the benefits of the country
being funded from abroad rather than from the 'sweat of the brow of its
population'. To many of the Greek population this obviously has not
been
apparent.
The situation is less obvious in times of increasing wealth. The
approach
fails in times of economic pressure. The failure occurs both because it
becomes harder ( now much harder) to rent money and the benefits of it
are
less - yet the previously borrowed capital and interest must still be
paid.
In essence Greek financial future is dependent on people with money
feeling
trusting enough to lend it to the Greek government on the basis that
they
will get some profit back.
As a design problem, there are three obvious solution paths: 1)
Massively
reduce the amount the Greek government spends; Change the value of the
Greek
currency; 2) find someone with a different reason to lend Greece the
money
than simply profit on interest. The second and third are what form the
interesting parts of this design problem.
Reducing the amount that the Greek government spends directly affects
those
who have benefited and who have got use to being benefited by the Greek
government's aims in keeping in power and keeping the population happy.
This
is now coming back to bite in spades. The Greek government, however,
still
wants to remain in power. Reducing cash flow to beneficiaries can only
go
so far before the government is rejected. Civil disturbance is a normal
part
of this process.
Greece is not able to change the value of its currency. It is locked
into
the Euro. As an aside, UK banks and economy are in a similar mess. The
UK
would be in Greece's position, except, it can devalue its currency,
which is
what it is doing informally. This has minimal civil disturbance effects
because people see the same salaries and pay cheques going into their
banks.
The change in value of the currency, however, means that prices will
creep
up as exchange rates affect new products coming through the supply
chains.
It will be most likely to be first noticed in food because the UK
imports
over half of its food. Back to Greece, Greece could secede from the EU.
This would be seriously embarrassing for the EU and indicate that the EU
as
an economic union it is not financially strong enough to protect its
members. In effect the EU's credit rating would fall. From the Greek
side,
secession from the EU would lose Greece the protection of the EU and its
access to 'cheaper than it could be' credit as well as lose the military
security support of the EU. Instead, as a design strategy Greece can
leverage the problems that it is giving the EU to gain future benefits
from
the EU in a sort of polite game of blackmail.
The third part of the design situation is even more interesting.
Mainland Europe is dominated by Germany and France. Germany is
geopolitically insecure because of its location between France and
Russia.
Germany's natural protection strategy is imperial expansion. Germany is
both
the strongest economic nation in Europe and the financial cornerstone of
Europe. Over the last 60 years, the US has guaranteed German security;
in
return Germany has foregone its expansion strategy and has funded Europe
whilst not controlling Europe.
Recently, American security guarantees for Germany have become less
secure
and America has been sending adverse economic signals (e.g. the Opel
affair
in which the US supported a sort of double cross of Germany by GM) .
Simultaneously, Russia is both twisting Germany's arm (control of aparallel, Germany appears to have reached a change of emotional position
becoming unhappy to fund and bail out Europe's financial problems. At
the
same time, the other EU countries banks are going though their financial
own
crises. This means they are unwilling to bail out Greece.
Together, this places Germany in a key position politically,
economically
and geo-politically and with potential to change the game.
Germany is poised to take over the EU and control of Europe.
This is THE interesting design situation for all of Europe's members.
How does each of Europe's countries' governments design their own
geo-political strategies to enable them to make the best of this
situation
both now and for the future? In this, Greece is a side show.
For what it is worth, design methods developed by myself and colleagues
in
Perth indicate that an effective strategy for many nations might be
selective disruption that increases the variety that Germany and other
potentially controlling powers have to deal with. Expect riots ,
threats
and increase in social tensions.
All of these, however, are part of larger design strategies relating to
control of oceans, future markets and territory. Expect a wide variety
of
external participants to be involved in the European action including
US,
Russia, China, Iran and Turkey. Geo-political design strategies must and
will incorporate them.
Now is the really interesting part. The above design analysis appears to
say
a lot and is mentally stimulating and accessible. It gives something for
us
to think about and gives the illusion that we understand the situation.
Worse, it gives the illusion that we understand the situation enough to
design intervention.
In reality, as a design approach it is useless. It’s a basis for amateur
guessing rather than professional design.
In reality, the geopolitical situation has multiple feedback loops. A
professional design approach would be to model the situation using
system
dynamics or similar and then observe which factors have more or less
effect
and how the effects of strategic interventions play out.
Multi-feedback loop design methods using system dynamics are now well
tested
by the US and other players in Iraq and Afghanistan. The problem, as a
design process, is using system dynamics whilst managing very short
term
high leverage events (e.g. deaths of leaders, small window actionable
intelligence). Similar situations occur in any complex multi-loop design
situation. The US has recently included Design as part of Field Manual
5.0
Operations Process for Battle Command. Here in Australia, Commanders
are
thinking through implications. My reading over the last week has
suggested
there is more to think about on this. The developments should soon start
to
filter through to design research, design education and design practice
.
Just two penneth from oz,
Best wishes,
Terry
____________________
Dr. Terence Love, FDRS, AMIMechE, PMACM
School of Design and Art
Director Design-focused Research Group, Design Out Crime Research Group
Researcher, Digital Ecosystems and Business Intelligence Institute
Associate, Planning and Transport Research Centre
Curtin University, PO Box U1987, Perth, Western Australia 6845
Mob: 0434 975 848, Fax +61(0)8 9305 7629, [log in to unmask]
Visiting Professor, Member of Scientific Council
UNIDCOM/ IADE, Lisbon, Portugal
Honorary Fellow, Institute of Entrepreneurship and Enterprise
Development
Management School, Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK
____________________
-----Original Message-----
From: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and
related
research in Design [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of David
Sless
Sent: Thursday, 6 May 2010 8:36 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Greece
Clive and all
On 06/05/2010, at 10:14 AM, Clive Dilnot wrote:
> … Mark Edwards is undoubtedly technically correct in his observation
> regarding the appropriateness of airing thoughts on Greek social
unrest
> in the hallowed spaces of the PhD design liLove's preoccupation with the large scale. Nonetheless, this should not
preclude it from consideration. I would have thought the Greek situation
could be considered a candidate for inclusion as a large scale design
problem.
Over to you Terry (BTW, I think he is away from his desk for a few days,
so
we might have to wait a little while for Terry to solve the 'Greek
problem')
David
--
blog: www.communication.org.au/dsblog
web: http://www.communication.org.au
Professor David Sless BA MSc FRSA
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