Yanis Varoufakis: No Time for Games in Europe
By YANIS VAROUFAKISFEB. 16, 2015 / http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/17/opinion/yanis-varoufakis-no-time-for-games-in-europe.html?smid=fb-share&_r=0
ATHENS — I am writing this piece on the
margins of a crucial negotiation with my country’s creditors — a negotiation
the result of which may mark a generation, and even prove a turning point for
Europe’s unfolding experiment with monetary union.
Game theorists analyze negotiations as if
they were split-a-pie games involving selfish players. Because I spent many
years during my previous life as an academic researching game theory, some
commentators rushed to presume that as Greece
Nothing could be further from the truth.
If anything, my game-theory background
convinced me that it would be pure folly to think of the current deliberations
between Greece
The trouble with game theory, as I used to
tell my students, is that it takes for granted the players’ motives. In poker
or blackjack this assumption is unproblematic. But in the current deliberations
between our European partners and Greece
As finance minister of a small, fiscally
stressed nation lacking its own central bank and seen by many of our partners
as a problem debtor, I am convinced that we have one option only: to shun any
temptation to treat this pivotal moment as an experiment in strategizing and,
instead, to present honestly the facts concerning Greece’s social economy,
table our proposals for regrowing Greece, explain why these are in Europe’s
interest, and reveal the red lines beyond which logic and duty prevent us from
going.
The great difference between this
government and previous Greek governments is twofold: We are determined to
clash with mighty vested interests in order to reboot Greece
I am often asked: What if the only way you
can secure funding is to cross your red lines and accept measures that you
consider to be part of the problem, rather than of its solution? Faithful to
the principle that I have no right to bluff, my answer is: The lines that we
have presented as red will not be crossed. Otherwise, they would not be truly
red, but merely a bluff.
But what if this brings your people much
pain? I am asked. Surely you must be bluffing.
The problem with this line of argument is
that it presumes, along with game theory, that we live in a tyranny of
consequences. That there are no circumstances when we must do what is right not
as a strategy but simply because it is ... right.
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Against such cynicism the new Greek
government will innovate. We shall desist, whatever the consequences, from
deals that are wrong for Greece
and wrong for Europe . The “extend and pretend”
game that began after Greece
Our government is not asking our partners
for a way out of repaying our debts. We are asking for a few months of
financial stability that will allow us to embark upon the task of reforms that
the broad Greek population can own and support, so we can bring back growth and
end our inability to pay our dues.
One may think that this retreat from game
theory is motivated by some radical-left agenda. Not so. The major influence
here is Immanuel Kant, the German philosopher who taught us that the rational
and the free escape the empire of expediency by doing what is right.
How do we know that our modest policy
agenda, which constitutes our red line, is right in Kant’s terms? We know by looking
into the eyes of the hungry in the streets of our cities or contemplating our
stressed middle class, or considering the interests of hard-working people in
every European village and city within our monetary union. After all, Europe will only regain its soul when it regains the
people’s trust by putting their interests center-stage.
Yanis Varoufakis is the finance minister of
Greece
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