Europe’s political elite could have framed the Greek financial crisis as a tale of economic interdependence – you cannot have bad borrowers, after all, without careless lenders – instead of a morality tale pitting frugal, hard-working Germans against profligate, carefree Greeks. Doing so might have facilitated the sharing of the burden between debtors and creditors and prevented the emergence of the us-versus-them attitude that poisoned the relationship between Greece and the institutions of the eurozone.
本不必如此。欧洲政治精英本可以将希腊金融危机写成经济互相依存的故事——毕竟，如果贷款人足够谨慎，就不会存在坏借款人——而不是勤俭节约的德国人与铺张恣睢的希腊人相对立的道德故事。这样做也许可以促使债务人和债权人共担负担，阻止“我们与他们”的对立情绪的出现——后者正是恶化希腊与欧元区机构关系的罪魁。