Would Greece have been better off today had it been in the Soviet sphere during the Cold War?

Nah, it wouldn't. Putting aside the economic questions, there are the territorial ones - interwar Communism had a huge thing for harming and dismantling the "winners" of Versailles, Trianon and the post-war order in general (Czechoslovakia represented a partial exception). And many similar ideas were flirted with during WW2 and the Greek civil war. So Communist Greece could end up losing large chunks of territory in Thrace and Macedonia, possibly even Epirus.
 
Nobody who ever lived under Communist rule would never ask such question.

I'm not arguing that Greece would have been better off during Communist rule. My suggestion is that at least Greece wouldn't have dug itself into the huge hole it did in OTL, and due to its economic potential, it could reasonably be expected to be up there with countries like Poland and Hungary that used to be Communist and are now economically ahead of Greece. Had successive Greek governments not racked up enormous levels of debt so the electorate could enjoy the good life on borrowed time, but rather had focused on steady economic development (which is likely what would have happened after decades of Communist rule), Greece might have been better off today.
 
Had successive Greek governments not racked up enormous levels of debt so the electorate could enjoy the good life on borrowed time, but rather had focused on steady economic development (which is likely what would have happened after decades of Communist rule), Greece might have been better off today.

Hmmm, what exactly constitutes "steady economic development"? And why would it have inevitably happened after decades of Communist rule? Greece's problem is corruption and clientelism, and I don't see these having disappeared at all in Bulgaria, Romania, or other post-communist Balkan countries. Even after Greece having lost a third and more of its GDP in the worst recession on record since 2010 (I won't go into who is responsible for the utterly infamous handling of the Greek debt crisis, suffice to say much of the blame lies outside Greece), it is still much better off than these countries as well. Even leftists in Greece agree that, tragic though the civil war and the subsequent period of right-wing rule, culminating in the dictatorship of 1967-74, were, the country is better off for the communists having lost.

Moreover, the argument in this thread is based on false assumptions. Greece had a notoriously weak state apparatus, but it required a combination of factors during the 2000s to reach the 2010 crisis. Even as late as the early 2000s, Greece might have avoided the problems it faces today, if the Karamanlis government that came into power in 2004 with a promise to clean house had actually done so. However it faces too many entrenched interests, and Karamanlis himself was a rather passive figure, allowing his party to actually ramp up clientelism another notch. Also, under another government it might simply have defaulted in 2010 and the whole mess could be over by now (at least for Greece, the repercussions for the Eurozone are another matter). If you want to change the basic structure of Greek society and economy in order to have a more efficient state apparatus, you need to go all the way back to the 19th century.
 
Politically, I would also see the Greek royal family pulling a Chiang Kaishek and setting up a government in exile in , say, Cyprus and claiming to be the one and only true Greece and broadcasting propaganda to the Greek mainland and vice versa. Comments?
 
I'm not arguing that Greece would have been better off during Communist rule. My suggestion is that at least Greece wouldn't have dug itself into the huge hole it did in OTL, and due to its economic potential, it could reasonably be expected to be up there with countries like Poland and Hungary that used to be Communist and are now economically ahead of Greece. Had successive Greek governments not racked up enormous levels of debt so the electorate could enjoy the good life on borrowed time, but rather had focused on steady economic development (which is likely what would have happened after decades of Communist rule), Greece might have been better off today.

A) They are not better Off than Greece

B) All Communist countries were also highly indebted or at least proportionally to their economy
 
A) They are not better Off than Greece

B) All Communist countries were also highly indebted or at least proportionally to their economy
Well as far as I know Czechoslovakia wasn't in debt after commies ended. Well except lost 40 years they took from nations of Czechoslovakia.
 
Well as far as I know Czechoslovakia wasn't in debt after commies ended. Well except lost 40 years they took from nations of Czechoslovakia.


IIRC Yugoslavia and Poland were indebted. So much that allmost all at the time considered Yugoslavia as too indebted country.

Polish foreign debt in convertible currencies doubled in the 1980s. It grew from about US$ 20bn in 1980 to more than US$ 41bn at the end of 1988, and this in spite of repayments which amounted to about US$ 20bn over this period. It must be stressed that this was possible owing to a sustained trade balance surplus between 1982 and 1989 as well as to the positive transfer balance. At the same time however, the positive trade balance exerted an inflationary pressure. In 1990, it will be negative again, or at least the government's economic programme assumes so. Apart from the dollar debt, Poland's debt expressed in transfer roubles grew considerably in the last decade. At the beginning of 1990 it was Rb 5.6bn. This debt is almost entirely with the Soviet Union.

http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.822.5141&rep=rep1&type=pdf

From the mid-1970s the Polish government embarked upon a strategy of economic development, through using credits from western banks to fund investment projects and raise living standards. Boosted by the flow of petrodollars, western banks were offering pro-western countries in the third world, and relatively autonomous governments in Central-Eastern Europe (CEE) (e.g. Poland and Romania), cheap loans. Although it was envisioned that these loans would help Poland to modernise its industrial sector and produce high quality consumer goods, the credits tended to be spent on supporting old industries, increasing salaries and importing raw materials and products from the west. This brought a partial increase in economic growth, but also resulted in the balance of trade deficit shifting from a surplus of 451.2m zloty in 1971 to a deficit of 8.9m zloty in 1975, with foreign debt growing from $1.2bn to $7.6bn during the same period.
...
Between 1982 and 1989 Poland only paid an average of 20-30% of its required debt repayments. Poland’s indebtedness had made it increasingly dependent upon western banks and financial institutions. In 1986 Poland joined the IMF and was required to introduce a series of structural reforms in order find resources to pay its debt.

http://www.cadtm.org/IMG/pdf/public_debt-2.pdf

Yugoslavia took on a number of International Monetary Fund (IMF) loans and subsequently fell into heavy debt. By 1981, it had incurred $18.9 billion in foreign debt.[29] However, Yugoslavia’s main concern was unemployment. In 1980 the unemployment rate was at 13,8%,[28] not counting around 1 million workers employed abroad.[31] Deteriorating living conditions during the 1980s caused the Yugoslavian unemployment rate to reach 17 percent, while another 20 percent were underemployed. 60% of the unemployed were under the age of 25.[16] By 1988 emigrant remittances to Yugoslavia totalled over $4.5 billion (USD), and by 1989 remittances were $6.2 billion (USD), which amounted to over 19% of the world's total.[35][36] In 1988 Yugoslavia owed $21 billion to Western countries.[37]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Econo...f_Yugoslavia#Collapse_of_the_Yugoslav_economy
 
IIRC Yugoslavia and Poland were indebted. So much that allmost all at the time considered Yugoslavia as too indebted country.
I do not disagree with you! You can add Romania and Hungary and Bulgaria even if Romania till 1989 managed almost pay off its debt but for what price.

Actually Czechoslovakia had some foreign debt but it was considered minimal.

Heavily dependent on foreign trade, the country nevertheless had one of the Eastern Bloc's smallest international debts to non-communist countries


Special attention was to be given to the machine-building and electronics industries, the chemical and metallurgical industries, construction of nuclear power plants and expansion of the natural gas network, and environment-related projects. The plan called for exports to grow at a higher rate than the national income. The government did not plan any substantial borrowing in hard currency, concentrating instead on paying off its relatively modest (US$2 billion) debt to the West.

According to this
https://books.google.com/books?id=I...page&q=Czechoslovak foreign debt 1989&f=false

Czechoslovak foreign debt in 1989 was higher then 2.2 billions but not considered extensive.
 
Nah, it wouldn't. Putting aside the economic questions, there are the territorial ones - interwar Communism had a huge thing for harming and dismantling the "winners" of Versailles, Trianon and the post-war order in general (Czechoslovakia represented a partial exception). And many similar ideas were flirted with during WW2 and the Greek civil war. So Communist Greece could end up losing large chunks of territory in Thrace and Macedonia, possibly even Epirus.
This would require Yugoslavia to actually be a Soviet ally. Except Thrace, the Soviets would not reward Bulgaria with Greek territory if Greece is in the Soviet sphere.
 

RousseauX

Donor
I'm not arguing that Greece would have been better off during Communist rule. My suggestion is that at least Greece wouldn't have dug itself into the huge hole it did in OTL, and due to its economic potential, it could reasonably be expected to be up there with countries like Poland and Hungary that used to be Communist and are now economically ahead of Greece. Had successive Greek governments not racked up enormous levels of debt so the electorate could enjoy the good life on borrowed time, but rather had focused on steady economic development (which is likely what would have happened after decades of Communist rule), Greece might have been better off today.
Hungary's GDP per capita is like 60% of Greece's and Poland isn't on the Euro

Greece wouldn't be in the position they are in now if they don't have the Euro

Poland/Romania might be almost Greek level screwed if they got on the Euro too
 

RousseauX

Donor
basically I think the question is less "how well does shock therapy work for Greece" as it is "does a Communist Greece butterflies Greek entrance into Eurozone in 1999"
 
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