ABSTRACT
There are many possible conclusions to be drawn from the ongoing financial crisis in Greece, Spain and well beyond. Depending on individual and national perspective, highly contrasting remedies to alleviate the situation are imaginable. Regardless of one's position on the political spectrum, however, and irrespective of geographical location, there seem to be seven related points that are of pressing interest to all concerned. One major challenge involves thinking about a form of steering that relies neither on stopgap elite interventions nor on a naturalised political foundation based on presumed popular homogeneity that is somehow fragmented and thereby undermined by foreign or subversive elements. According to the understanding of the relation between freedom and authority implicit in the ideas of many modern political thinkers, there exists a mediated unity between individual citizens, the laws they collectively make–which in turn govern them as individuals—and a state empowered to adjudicate eventual conflicts between private interests and the public good or General Will.
