As Varoufakis reasonably argues, this was not sustainable. Nor was it sensible for the debtor or the creditors, given the erosion of Greece’s economy that accompanied these measures. Better, he argued, to regard Greece as technically bankrupt, allow it to cut its losses, and start again with a serious reform process which would promise a return to economic growth with the prospect of being able to service a more reasonable debt. It was upon this analysis that Syriza was elected with the promise to face down the dread ‘troika’ (ECB, IMF, EU) in pursuit of a sustainable and humanitarian solution to the Greek crisis.

The journey we take in the book makes Kafka’s travails with bureaucracy seem trivial. Everyone Varoufakis encounters seems to agree with his analysis, but few are able to say so in public because of the multitude of different agendas to which each is beholden. So why couldn’t something be done?

By the end of the saga, we learn that what really counts in the EU is what the German chancellor and her finance minister agree ‘counts’. If that means taking a stick to small country like Greece pour encourager les autres, then so be it. The era of ‘gunboat diplomacy’ in Europe may be over, but it has merely given way to ‘fiscal waterboarding’, or coercion exercised through fiscal penalties. The effect is the same: the strong discipline the weak, and the idealism of the European project is exposed as a cynical schema for maintaining German hegemony.

Over 100,000 people gathered to protest at Syntagma Square, Athens, during the Greek financial crisis in 2011 (photograph by Kotsolis, Wikimedia Commons)

So far so sobering, not least for those of us with ‘remain’ tendencies in the Great British Brexit debate. But there are nonetheless some nagging mysteries to this tale. Firstly, Varoufakis tells us nothing at all about how it is that Greece managed to get itself into such a mess. Who is to blame for Greece racking up billions of euros of debt? And what happened to all the money?

The absence of any kind of narrative or contextual discussion is curious. Varoufakis’s book is as much a morality tale as it is contemporary critique, and yet the reader seems lacking vital evidence in order to make up his or her own mind as to where blame lies for the unfolding catastrophe. Varoufakis seems to assume that those who are impoverished deserve favour on their own terms. But the demands of a morality tale are a little more complex than that. Is this truly a tale of a people subject to the exigencies of international finance capital, or is there at least some element of contributory negligence here? One searches in vain for any kind of clue, presumably because this would spoil the sub-plot: the tale of the beastly Euro élites beating up on a small and defenceless nation, the original ‘democrats’ no less.

A second problem is the assumption that in a democracy the people have the right to vote away the inherited debts and obligations accumulated by the state in their name. The argument is repeatedly made that because Syriza was elected with a mandate to swap debt for reform there is some injustice in creditors failing to write down their assets. This is a little too convenient. Simply electing a new government with a mandate to reduce or eliminate debt does not make the debt itself any less real, even if morally or ethically we agree that writing down some of the debt is indeed the right thing to do. Nor does it mean that creditors are not within their rights to expect the new government to respect the obligations inherited from the old. If this were the case, lending would be impossible. Banks would always live in fear that a simple change of government would erase their assets leading to the collapse of the system of finance.

Yanis Varoufakis
(photograph by Rebecca Reid)These issues aside, Varoufakis’s book raises important questions about the nature of sovereignty in Europe and the emerging European project itself. Interestingly, one of the few characters who comes out of the book with any credit is Emmanuel Macron, the new French president. Macron repeatedly advises Varoufakis to stand his ground and not give way to the bullying tactics of Wolfgang Schäuble, German minister for finance. However Schäuble is himself nothing more than a Blofeld-esque nasty in the court of Chancellor Merkel. In a revealing moment, he too confesses that he agrees with Varoufakis’s analysis; but he is both ensnared by, and complicit in, the logic of German hegemony.

It is here that the rubbery idealism of Varoufakis, and perhaps Macron as well, hits the tarmac of European power politics. What becomes clear by the end of the text is that the verities of politics as described by Thrasymachus are alive and well: he (or perhaps she) who pays the piper calls the tune, and there is no piper to rival Germany on the European mainland. As long as every other European country spends more than it earns, they will be at the mercy of the political blandishments of Germany, the one major economy consistently able to pay its way in the world. Macron’s hope is that cutting public expenditure in France will see them return to surplus in the near term, and he may not be wrong. What then?

Varoufakis clings to the dream of a Europe of nations, solidarity between equals, and all the rest of it. This marks him out less as ‘the most interesting man in the world’ than the most romantic, certainly in terms of his reading of the EU’s origins and character. More likely is the consolidation of a strong Franco-German core surrounded by vassal states like Greece. Post-Brexit the latter will lack the mediating (and sceptical) presence of the United Kingdom, paving the way for the emergence of a neo-Carolingian political construct that will further strengthen the core at the cost of the periphery. If so, this text will be an important historical document marking the moment when the ideal of a Europe of ‘free and equal nations’ was finally revealed as a fig leaf hiding the emergence of a new super state.