EDITORIAL : THE GUARDIAN, ENGLAND

         

 

In praise of … John Locke

He has become the first author to sell a million ebooks without a publishing deal

The great John Locke proposed the tabula rasa, the blank sheet on which experience writes human characters. Outside philosophy, the empty page is an image to terrify writers. One exception is a new John Locke, an American businessman who has taken to producing fiction at a rate that suggests he shares his namesake's passion for grappling with the blank sheet – although it must be admitted that this is about as far as the parallel stretches. Don't look to the new Locke for guidance on the continuity of the self or epistemological distinctions between primary and secondary qualities. He churns out ebooks that come littered with images of stockinged legs, and prose that leaves critics cold. One, Sameer Rahim in the Daily Telegraph, cited a Locke line about seductions taking place with "all the precision of the Normandy invasion" and concluded: "No self-respecting publisher would touch it." As may be, but punters not puffed by self-respect are happy to lap it up. Indeed, Locke has become the first author to sell a million ebooks without a publishing deal. He competes on price, selling novels for a $1 a throw, a cut-cost approach that may worry established authors. But like the paperback revolution between the wars, the e-publishing revolution will have to be faced. In time, it will extend both the reading and the writing of literature way beyond the reach of today's publishing world. He's no philosopher but, in this sense at least, John Locke's example could shake up the world of ideas.
 

Greece and the eurozone: Accept reality – and default

Instead of postponing the inevitable Greek default, it would be far smarter to prepare for it

Seen from Brussels, Berlin or Frankfurt, the crisis playing out in Athens this month looks almost simple, and linear in its direction. The Greek prime minister, George Papandreou, wins a confidence vote, as he did on Tuesday night. The government gets MPs to approve its package of austerity measures, set for a vote next week. Then comes the next slug of cash from the IMF and the eurozone, plus the agreement of another massive loan, worth tens of billions of euros. This isn't easy, European policymakers admit: it requires adept political management, courage, and the ability to stay the course. But the alternatives don't bear thinking about: the first-ever default by a sovereign member of the European single currency, the possible toppling of the Greek banking system and other institutions around the world in a repeat of the panic that followed the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008 – and an existential threat to the entire European project.

Right on the risks, but wrong on the policy prescription. After a month of mass demonstrations in Greece, and the near-dissolution of the government last week, this takes too little account of reality, either domestic and political or international and economic. Not only has Mr Papandreou to get parliamentary approval for €28bn of spending cuts, tax increases and privatisations, he must begin implementing this draconian programme by 3 July, in time for the next extraordinary meeting of eurozone ministers. Even in ordinary times this would be regarded as ambitious, but to do so amid the worst recession the country has seen in four decades would require a miracle of collective discipline. The new finance minister, Evangelos Venizelos, has already tried to change the plan to answer a key grievance of protesters, by dropping an increase in fuel tax and a property tax, and trying to increase Greece's notoriously leaky tax take by targeting the self-employed.

But these are small compensations to a Greek teacher who has seen her salary cut by 25%, an employee of the Piraeus port authority who suspects his company is about to be sold to the Chinese amid thousands of job losses, or a freshly minted graduate who knows they will struggle to get any kind of job. An abrupt and drastic drop in living standards has been imposed on the Greek people – ultimately to keep afloat banks across Europe that have lent recklessly. The vehement message that has come from the Greek people over the past month is that they will not stand for it – and nor should they. What in José Manuel Barroso's words is good news for the EU is terrible news for those who have to live with the consequences.

Greece's main opposition leader, Antonis Samaras, for one, is no longer buying it. His economic logic is impeccable: the imposed cuts are squeezing demand at a time when the economy is in deep recession. Indeed, it is already happening: 50,000 businesses went bankrupt last year and the economy is in its third straight year of recession. The fact that the main conservative opposition points this out, however, is a big new twist.

Economically, socially and now politically, the status quo is unsustainable. Instead of postponing the inevitable Greek default, it would be far smarter to prepare for it. Eurozone policymakers need to recapitalise Greek and other eurozone banks with major Greek exposure in return for equity stakes. They also need to reaffirm their commitment to stand behind European interbank lending, and to keep pumping money into the system. There should follow an ordered default on Greek sovereign and commercial debt, including an audit of the outstanding obligations to see if some of the debt is odious and should not be repaid at all. And there must be a sharp relaxation of the austerity plans. Let us not kid ourselves that this will be easy – but at least it will not be as impossible as achieving the kind of suicidal austerity that Greece is being forced to follow.

Olympic football: The national game

With the necessary assurances, which appear to exist, the British team ought to take part

Given the poor record of all the four home nations in recent international football tournaments, the unwary might think that the idea of fielding a one-off unified Great Britain team in the football competition at the London Olympics would be timely, popular, reasonably uncontroversial and worth a try. After all, there are plenty of precedents for such a plan.

From 1904 until 1972, a British team, made up of amateurs, competed in every Olympic football tournament – sometimes successfully (gold medal winners in 1908 and 1912) and sometimes not (Britain failed to get past the qualifying rounds after 1960) – even while England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland continued to field separate national professional teams in cups and championships, sometimes with great success. In the last London Olympics in 1948, indeed, a British team managed by Matt Busby (with Ronnie Simpson, later of Glasgow Celtic European Cup winning fame, in goal) reached the semi-finals.

What's to stop something similar happening in 2012? There are two answers: football politics and nationalist politics. Both of them ignited like bushfire this week after the British Olympic Association announced that "a historic agreement" had been struck to allow players from the four home nations to take part in a Team GB next year. Both are misguided.

The football argument is that any British team competing in 2012 risks compromising the four home associations as separate member nations within Fifa, the game's international governing body – shades of the insoluble argument over EU representation on the UN security council. That's a concern that could be taken more seriously if Fifa had not explicitly ruled it out. Fifa president Sepp Blatter said in March that the rules were clear and that there would be no sanction. Mr Blatter and the home unions may not be best buddies, but Mr Blatter is a deal maker and this deal is available to the home associations if they want it. They should want it. But, England apart, they don't.

Part of the motive here is the desire of football bureaucrats to remain big fish in small ponds. Part of it, notably in Scotland, is the nationalist political mood which bridles at anything unionist, especially on football, over which, perhaps ironically, the Scottish government is currently trying to calm sectarian tribal passions.

But the bureaucrats and the politicians have got this one wrong. With the necessary assurances, which appear to exist, the British team ought to take part. It would be a one-off. It would be fun. It would help bring the Olympics to cities around Britain and Ireland. And if Sir Alex Ferguson could be persuaded to coach the team, who knows, it might even win a medal.