I have to admit that I’m one of those who have been following the travails of the Greek government with a touch of schadenfreude. As this article in The Economist put it, how can the German government justify giving aid to Greece when Greek public sector employees get to retire earlier than German ones. Germany has for years been reforming its own welfare programme to save money while Greece has been happily pretending it could afford its bloated public sector workforce, going to the extent of fudging its statistics and outright lying to creditors about its liabilities.

It’s also worth remembering that the Haiti earthquake happened not too long ago and still needs money to rebuild. While it’s true that corruption and mismanagement played a part in the ineffectiveness of the Haitian government, exacerbating the damage caused by the quake, it’s impossible to argue that the quake was anything other than an accident that the Haitians had absolutely no control over. By contrast, an entire generation of Greeks was complicit in the decisions that led Greece into the mess that it currently finds itself in. How then is it morally justifiable to help the Greeks when there are so many other more worthwhile causes that require finite resources?

This blog post, again from The Economist, is very sympathetic towards the Greeks, but to me, they still reinforce the impression that the current problems are the result of specific choices made by the Greek government beginning in the 1980s. By successively voting for governments that continued those policies, the Greek people chose short-term wealth and growth without a care for whether or not these policies were sustainable, and so are complicit in them. Should they be saved from the results of their own choices?

Finally, shouldn’t the principles that apply to countries be equally applicable to individuals? I don’t begrudge the appeals for aid in cases where clearly the people involved have troubles that are none of their doing. Orphans come particularly to mind. But I do get annoyed when I see articles in the newspapers about how the government should be considerate towards people who have accumulated unsustainable levels of credit card debt or how richer people should contribute towards the welfare of those who have incurred responsibilities that they never had the ability to bear. Why should those who have worked hard to live within their means be punished and those have been short-sighted and irresponsible be rewarded?