The circumstances we have experienced in these past several years in Greece are not unprecedented. We can find such situations in many other countries as well. As examples I could quickly mention the former socialist countries, Europe's periphery countries, and countries in Latin America and Northeast Asia. However, we have also encountered these situations a number of times in Greece's past. For example, at the end of the 19th century, during the 1920s, as well as during the
Reconstruction period.have in common? It would be advisable not to refer to them as "crises," a term which in the current lexicon is extremely vague, but as "attempts at economic stabilization."
More specifically, it is very often the case that different countries, including Greece, pursue policies which are clearly and without a doubt not viable in the long-term. For example, policies based on the accumulation of large deficits, which result in an explosive increase in public debt, continue to be pursued despite the fact that there is no doubt that such deficits will have to be eliminated sooner or later. Let's take the Greek example: for Charilaos Trikoupis and Anargiros Simopoulos, former ministers of finance, Greece already found itself bankrupt as of 1882, but borrowings nonetheless continued up until 1893, whereupon the country went bankrupt.
