Angrynomics. Eric Lonergan

to grow through exports, nor can they inflate their way out of trouble by bailing out their banks directly. As such, their elites appeared to have neither the vocabulary, nor the means politically, to meaningfully address these policy errors. After all, having signed up to the euro project, they can hardly then disavow it.

      Given this, the Italian, Spanish and Greek political systems can offer nothing to their populations to convincingly address their concerns, even now, when the immediate crisis is over. It is abundantly clear that the Italian unemployment problem is cyclical. It has nothing to do with changing the laws in Italy. It has to do with aggregate demand management in the eurozone. The same is true of Spain and Greece, and if you accept this, there is a major problem.

      In such a world the domestic political process becomes seen as a sham. You can have an election, but you can’t change anything. The local political elites may know this – and they may not even like it – but when you don’t have your own currency and central bank, what can they do? You can neither devalue nor inflate nor default, so you have to cut your way to prosperity, which doesn’t work. It is entirely logical under such conditions that electorates will get angry and seek alternative solutions. Indeed, you don’t even have to be in the eurozone to end up in the same situation. Look at British politics and the Remain campaign’s fear-mongering message “there is no alternative” after several years of similarly destructive policies.