What’s good about austerity (whatever the Greeks think)

The only question I remember from my Oxford moral philosophy paper was ‘What is integrity and is it a virtue?’ In the margins of all the politicking that follows the victory of Syriza in the Greek election, I hope someone asks: ‘What is austerity, is it a virtue, and why has it worked in the UK and Ireland but failed in Greece?’ My own definition of austerity in the context of financial crisis, when I debated it with former Greek finance minister George Papaconstantinou, was ‘a synonym for frugal, uncorrupt government supported by willing taxpayers of the sort that has been largely absent in southern Europe’, at which George got very emotional and accused me of stereotyping.

Emotion will rule in Syriza’s demands for release from debt-service penury — because the bailout terms were designed to favour creditors rather than stimulate recovery or protect the vulnerable, and because Germany’s position is forever tainted by war guilt, hence Alexis Tspiras’s first gesture as prime minister, visiting the site of a Nazi atrocity.