THE GREEK PUBLIC DEBT CRISIS AS THE WEAKEST LINK IN THE EUROPEAN ECONOMIC AND MONETARY UNION: CAUSES AND SOCIAL CONSEQUENCES
Name: ALVARO LAINE MENENDEZ
Publication date: 26/02/2025
Examining board:
Name |
Role |
|---|---|
| DANIEL PEREIRA SAMPAIO | Examinador Interno |
| ELAINE ROSSETTI BEHRING | Examinador Externo |
| GUSTAVO MOURA DE CAVALCANTI MELLO | Examinador Interno |
| MAURICIO DE SOUZA SABADINI | Presidente |
| XABIER ARRIZABALO MONTORO | Examinador Externo |
Summary: The general objective of this thesis is the analysis of the meaning, the role and the economic and social effects of debt in a modern capitalist economy, for which we use the case study of the Greek public debt crisis that has been fully unleashed since 2010. Based on the theoretical and methodological framework of Marxist theory, an interpretation of the functioning of the credit system and its development, always linked to the dynamics of the profitability of capital, is developed. After outlining the best way to do this, the causes of the Greek crisis are addressed and the answer given to the question of its rationality is analysed. The central hypothesis put forward to carry out the analysis of this objective is that the Greek public debt crisis that fully exploded in 2010 represents, as a paradigmatic case of the accentuation of the contradictions inherent to capitalist accumulation and expressed in the financial sphere, a case of a flight forward that cannot achieve a true and definitive solution in the framework on which it is erected. The analysis of the case study on the basis of the theoretical and methodological framework reveals the existence of different explanatory levels of the Greek debt crisis, from which we can identify a structural level that connects its form of manifestation –in the financial sphere– with the profitability of capital and the laws that are specific to it. This, in turn, in our view reflects the dynamic of the credit system itself under capitalist conditions of production. In this way, it becomes clear that it is incompatible to reach a real solution to problems of debt crisis such as the Greek one without breaking with the structure on which it is based.
