(AP photo)
A study of the history of philosophy teaches us that a critical difference between the Judeo-Christian narrative and the thinkers of Ancient Greece relates to the perception of time. In the Judeo-Christian tradition, time has a direction, it moves toward an end - be that the arrival of the Messiah, or the Day of Reckoning. A secularized version of that approach gave rise to Karl Marx's contention that Communism is the end of history. For Ancient Greek philosophers, time elapses differently: It evolves in cycles. Like the sun, which rises every day after the night, life is a perpetual beginning. For Plato, even souls return - they reincarnate.
This view of time as a cycle appears to be at work in the new, hard-left government of Greece. It, too, operates in cycles.
The administration devoted its first week to unnerving Greece's official lenders, namely those represented in the so-called troika: the European Commission, the European Central Bank, and the International Monetary Fund.
In consonance with the electoral promises made by his hard-left party, Syriza, new Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras announced he would reverse spending cuts, roll back privatizations, raise the minimum wage to pre-crisis levels, and dismantle labor-market reforms. These announcements would essentially take back what Greece had committed to do in exchange for the €240 billion ($271 billion) rescue package granted by the troika.
Add to this the fact that Tsipras called for an amputation of Greece's sovereign debt, and you have a cocktail of policy initiatives made to unnerve the country's creditors.
Given the latter's negative reaction, Tsipras and his finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis, changed tack during their second week in power. They used less confrontational language toward creditors and paid separate visits to several European capitals to round up support for a partial cancellation of Greece's sovereign debt and an overhaul of the bailout program that the preceding government reached with the troika.
The charm offensive didn't live up to expectations. True, the government backtracked somewhat on debt cancellation; but its new proposals fell short of what creditors could accept.
Tsipras' dim new stance led the ECB to announce that, given the refusal of Greek authorities to continue to implement the policy measures agreed upon in return for the bailout, the ECB could no longer accept Greek government bonds as collateral for its lending to Greek banks. The specter of Greece leaving the eurozone (Grexit) has increased considerably as a result of the ECB's move.
Once back in Athens, Tsipras and his finance minister could have taken some time to digest the lessons of their unsuccessful trip to European capitals and to prepare a negotiable package of propositions to present at the meeting of eurozone finance ministers on Feb. 11.
Luckily, there is room for a new deal between the Greek government and its creditors. Several eurozone officials have hinted at the possibility of lengthening maturities and reducing interest payments, but only in return for the implementation of structural reforms. A proposal of this nature has reportedly been on the table since November 2012.
Yet the Greek government didn't use its third week to elaborate on the modalities of a mutually acceptable agreement. Quite the contrary: It returned to the aggressive rhetoric of its first week.
In a speech to parliament on Feb. 8, Tsipras again lambasted his country's creditors; further reversed structural reforms and government-spending restraint; and rejected an extension of the bailout agreement. That extension is the creditors' precondition for negotiating a new agreement.
In case these moves were not enough to jeopardize the chances of an agreement, Tsipras took care to announce that he would seek World War II reparations from Germany.
Had Tsipras wished to derail a breakthrough, he wouldn't have delivered a different speech. Small wonder that the Feb. 11 meeting ended in deadlock.
The problem is, vituperating against creditors and scapegoating Germany will hardly improve Greece's standing. Opposition to Tsipras' intransigent position comes not only from Germany and other official creditors, but also, and perhaps mainly, from the governments of debt-ridden countries on Europe's periphery.
Those governments have in fact nothing to gain from helping Tsipras revamp Greece's rescue program as he sees fit. That would give the anti-austerity parties of their countries the opportunity to accuse the present authorities of not being as bold and successful as Syriza.
Tsipras would be well advised not to think that EU members are ready to pay any price for preventing Grexit. A Greek departure might even serve their interests: It would prove to Europe's electorates that voting for populist, anti-austerity parties carries risks and costs.
The eurozone today is better positioned to cope with Grexit than it was in 2008, or in 2009-2010 when the Greek crisis began. Today, a default by Greece would not shake the stability of the European banking system: European as well as American banks have considerably reduced their exposure to that country.
As for Greece's official creditors, they would surely have to write off what Greece owes them. But they stand to lose still more if they keep funding the Greek government without Tsipras' commitment to implement the supply-side reforms that would enable the country to eventually be solvent again.
Should Greece default and leave the eurozone, it will have a hard time getting the financing it needs. Government bonds will fall further, into junk credit category, and the interest rates applied to those bonds will rise to smothering levels. Not an inspiring scenario, to say the least.
Tsipras' empathy with Russian President Vladimir Putin would be of little comfort. Indeed, with a Russian economy in recession, and with Russia's foreign-exchange reserves dwindling by the day, any assistance that Putin provides to Greece would be cosmetic, ephemeral, or both.
Tsipras' seesaw is understandable. For the Greek prime minister faces an existential dilemma, similar to that faced by Hamlet: whether it is better to remain the hard-left maverick who won an election but threatens to take his country down the road to perdition, or to put aside unachievable electoral promises and become the seasoned statesman who will set Greece on the path to growth and prosperity.
For the sake of Greece and the eurozone, it is to be hoped that Tsipras will make his decision during an even-numbered week of his cycles of prevarications.
