German elites view southern Europeans as inferior

Tue, 03 Jul 2012 13:49:00 +0000

Now that Greek elections are over, many are looking to Germany for a solution to the Euro’s woes. Unfortunately, the chances that Greece’s northern neighbor will assume responsibility for the financial messes of its southern partners are slim. The reason Germany continues to tout austerity rather than growth to save the Euro lies largely in Germany’s skewed view of history and of itself, which is based on two false assumptions.

First, most Germans view southern Europeans as "different" from themselves. They assume that Germany enjoys great economic power primarily because its citizens have saved and been industrious, in contrast to, say, the Greeks, Spanish, or Italians. Bailing out Greece, according to this view, would encourage it and other countries like it to continue their lazy and licentious ways. Second, Germans (and many others) view Europe’s predicament as a currency or debt crisis rather than what it truly is: a current-account and balance-of-trade problem. Germans export more to their European partners than they consume, benefiting from this asymmetrical situation even as they expect everyone else to be exporters and savers like them.

Salon.com > Cognitive Bias

German elites view southern Europeans as inferior