The spoils system
Has the Greek government heard anything about the upgraded role of the state in the countries of advanced capitalism, or has it tightly secured its ideological blinders to protect itself from such an eventuality? Does it suspect, perhaps, how necessary the radical reconstruction of the state is, so that it can play its role in the modern era, or has it run out of libertarian ideologies of past decades about the night-watchman state? Or does it think it has accomplished a historic task by introducing a series of apps that make life easier for the citizens but do nothing to touch the cobweb-strewn structures and clientelistic functions of the state?
The idea introduced by renowned economist Mariana Mazzucato, professor in the economics of innovation and public value at University College London, of the entrepreneurial state is now an applied and widespread practice in developed countries – including some in Europe.
Our state is a mess. Its reform was the great expectation of the second four-year term of Costas Simitis – it proved false. Its reconstruction was the promise of the subsequent Kostas Karamanlis government – not only did it prove false but it spilled over into an incredible fiscal binge that threw the country off track. Today we still have a bureaucratic, clientelistic state, susceptible to wiretapping, unable to protect its citizens, hostile to meritocracy and accountability. Why? Basically because it is not a “normal” state but the spoils of the winner of each election.
A few days ago, we heard a minister praising the private sector for ridding citizens of the problems the state causes to taxpayers, by taking over organizations and state-owned businesses that are being privatized.
Firstly, in this ministerial rush, it was forgotten that many of these privatizations are in fact a change of state hands: Telecommunications provider OTE was sold to a company whose main shareholder is the German state. National railway operator Hellenic Train was not bought by a private company but by the Italian state railway company Trenitalia. Greece’s 14 regional airports are not managed by a private entity but by a company whose main shareholder is the German state of Hesse. The port of Piraeus was handed over to COSCO, a Chinese state-owned conglomerate, and so forth. It cannot be a cause of pride that the Greek state suffers crushing defeats by foreign countries, on its own soil.
Secondly, one would expect that the government, seeing the state of the public administration it has been managing for almost six years, would, if nothing else, feel sad, and that, as it makes (cheap) promises for other things, it would also make one more: to reform the state, to change everything so that we can finally have a state worth talking about, capable of responding to the complex and difficult tasks of our time. We were therefore very surprised to hear, a few days ago, a minister voluntarily declaring that the state is incapable of even maintaining and collecting tolls for a road.
The fact that no one feels obliged to explain the eternal decline of the state is an important issue. The most serious question is the following: How can a country move forward with such a state?
