Crisis point: Demonstrators protest cuts announced by the Government in Malaga last week in an echo of the Greek crisisNightmare Vision For Europe As EU Chief Warns 'Democracy Could Disappear' In Greece, Spain And Portugal -- The Daily Mail
* EU begin emergency billion-pound bailout of Spain
* Countries in debt may fall to dictators, EC chief warns
* 'Apocalyptic' vision as some states run out of money
Democracy could ‘collapse’ in Greece, Spain and Portugal unless urgent action is taken to tackle the debt crisis, the head of the European Commission has warned.
In an extraordinary briefing to trade union chiefs last week, Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso set out an ‘apocalyptic’ vision in which crisis-hit countries in southern Europe could fall victim to military coups or popular uprisings as interest rates soar and public services collapse because their governments run out of money.
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My Comment: Europe's financial crisis reminds me of what happened to Argentina in the 20th century. In the early 1900s, Argentina was one of the world's wealthiest nations .... but with Peron's election and rise to power .... coupled with massive government economic intervention and public spending .... the country became subsequently broke, economically in turmoil, and politically impotent. The result was social unrest, followed by military coups and military juntas. Chile's experience with Allende is another example of how government mismanagement of money and the economy can lead to social and political unrest, followed by brutal military juntas.
Can such a sequence of events lead to military and dictatorial governments in Europe? If history is any indication, not being under a military or dictatorial government has been the exception .... and not the rule in much of Europe. If the situation gets worse, I predict that the people will be demanding that the military become involved to bring some form of stability and order to a chaotic and unstable situation .... but if history is any indication, military governments are not very good at governing, and I predict that this will be the case if some parts of Europe should find themselves in this situation.
1 comment:
I very much doubt the Spanish Army and its CiC --king Juan Carlos I; and they _do_ take him seriously [*]-- would agree to that, in the very unlikely event you could convince enough people to even try it. Should someone try, I think he'd get crushed: neither the military wants to go that way nor are Spaniards as... unarmed as folklore on European weapons control would have it.
Predictions on EU economic collapse have gone hatter. There's a foundation of truth, but this is ridiculous.
Ferran, BCN
[*] Two cores universal across armed forces, as far as I've seen: they're intimately defined by their task as wardens of the Constitution and they follow the king. I'm not sure how things would play out if these two were at different sides, but in this case? No way.
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