The Greek case shows that the economic crises and its attendant ‘recovery programmes’ within the eurozone are hitting both men and women hard, but in gender differentiated ways. They are also causing crises in the largely invisible unpaid care economy, where women bear the brunt of the unpaid work burden. According to this paper, most people in Greece face a future of declining wages and pensions, increasing taxes, and little social security support. The authors argue that there is little room to change course, at least for the next three years, except to agitate for some ‘band-aid’ measures within the framework enforced by the EU institutions and the IMF.
This paper argues that the Greek case is a warning to the other countries, especially Portugal, Italy and Spain, of the impacts of these measures that they are being pressured to undertake. It is also a call to them to not only protest against the measures being undertaken in their own countries, but also the attack on the welfare state system by stronger eurozone governments. Greece poses a warning to European politicians of a broad-based resistance against the dismantling of the welfare state. It also serves as a warning to all about the consequences of unregulated financial market players who prey on the weaknesses of the economy, both real and manufactured, and turn against governments that have managed to bail them out. The author concludes that Greece’s ‘shock therapy’ is additional proof that aggressive neoliberalism, if left uncontrolled, will drive all of us worldwide into the ground.