The Janus effect

This is the continuation of the Act II blog about roots of the Greek economic debacle. 

I make no claims for the historical accuracy of the following.  I’m repeating what I was told by a well-educated colleague who was attached to a government ministry 30 years ago.   When Greece won its independence from Turkey in the early 19^th century, after 400 years of Ottoman rule, there was a sudden governmental vacuum.  In the absence of civic organizations, people had to depend on the indissoluble core unit of Greek life, the extended family.  They were the only people one was sure of being able to rely on for help.  

We saw this in action when we got here.  We needed to add some furnishings to make the apartment work better as a home-office.  I asked about the equivalent of a “Goodwill” store.  “There’s no such thing,” we were told, “you just ask the family.  Someone has what you need.”  And they did: Two lamps, a printer, a better modem, and various other items. 

[NB: This is also how the young people we see in cafes—many of them college graduates with no job—are managing to live: “They move back with Mom,” who also supplies enough money to pay Starbuck-equivalent prices.  It helps that no one cares if you sit for two or three hours on one espresso, because the waitstaff are paid reasonable wages. “Tipping” on a restaurant bill of 33.70 Euro consists of rounding up to 34.  I was going to make it 35, when my Greek friend dissuaded me: “That’s so American,” he said.]

That mind-set also affects public/civic life.  If your primary sense of safety and commitment for the last two centuries derives from the (extended) family, then of course, you do what you can to be sure they are taken care of, economically and socially.  Here’s how that plays out in reality.

Some time ago, a new government ministry was created to oversee X (I’m being intentionally vague about details).  The politician in charge of the new department was sincere, even a bit idealistic, and for a few years, made meaningful progress.  Then it was time for him to take up a new government post (the party in power regularly does “musical chairs”—but it is rare that a seat actually disappears). Before he left, he attempted to maintain the ministry’s momentum by setting up regional committees to oversee the task.  

Let’s say that would involve 100 people.  This being Greece, it was expected that 20% of those would have to be hired on a patronage basis, depending on who was in charge in the region.  No problem: 80% of the hires will have the capacity to be effective.  But then some other high-placed functionary got hold of the list of those who had been identified—on a merit-based assessment— as potential hires.  He went through, line by line, crossing out names he didn’t know and substituting names he did.  In the end, only 30% of those hired actually had the background to do the work.  Not too surprisingly, the initiative foundered soon after.  

So the Janus-effect, highly oversimplified: That which is Greeks’ saving grace—primary loyalty to the family—also has a major negative effect.