If you’re like me, you’ve watched the situation that’s developing in Greece with mounting horror. I’m not talking about the riots, of course. I’m talking about the threat to the whole concept of the welfare state of which Greece was the bright, shining exemplar.
The Greeks, who have contributed so much to Western Civilization, had, over the last few decades, made another enormous contribution to our culture: the gradual banishment of labor from daily life. As columnist Mark Steyn reports, Greeks in the public sector (and that’s a lot of Greeks) work, on average, only seven months a year. They retire in their fifties, whereupon they start receiving 14 monthly pension payments per year. That’s my kind of math and Greece was definitely my kind of place.
Admit it, it was your kind of place, too.
Please don’t pretend you actually enjoy getting up on cold winter mornings and trudging off to the office. Don’t tell me you enjoy being told what to do. And don’t insist you actually look forward to spending the day with people you don’t particularly like and who, in all likelihood, don’t care all that much for you, either.
Greece had managed to put work in its proper place—way, way down on every Greek’s To-Do List. Which is where it should be. The laws of physics state that all matter seeks it lowest energy state. We humans are no exception to this rule. Sloth is the natural state of man. And woman.
Call it the Law of Lethargy. As any boss, drill sergeant—and certainly my grammar school nuns—could tell you, lazy is our default mode.
It is this law of nature that is now under assault in Greece. It seems this particular tide of history has met the sea wall of “sustainability.” But don’t despair my fellow sluggards. I don’t believe the current situation will represent a deathblow to Greece’s noble project. The Greeks know the rest of Europe isn’t really serious about forcing them to change their indolent ways. If the EU were really serious, they would have sent in my grammar school nuns.
Tom O’Connor is a writer in Bloomfield, Michigan who, after penning this article, needed to take a nap.