How is this possible? In the last decade or so, companies in the United States, France, Denmark and elsewhere flouted the feta ruling and invested in their own food-science research and manufacturing equipment. They subsequently turned the salty, crumbly cheese into spreadable, grillable, fat-free and shelf-stable forms. In Italy and Spain, small olive-oil producers merged into globally competitive conglomerates and replaced presses with more efficient centrifugal technology. The two countries now provide nearly all the world’s supply. And the Greeks, despite their numerous inherent advantages, remain in the least profitable part of the supply chain, exporting raw materials at slim margins. (...)
Consulting firms are constantly issuing utopian national-economic strategies. What makes the McKinsey plan stand out is that it feels plausible. The greatest returns may come from investing in things the Greeks already know how to do — no matter how distressed or unloved they have become. This could have a significant impact. Greece is a small country with 11 million people and 5 million workers. Reasonable success in a few sectors could create decent jobs and more tax revenue. Greece could start to grow again.
The biggest challenge to this plan involves confronting a more distressing aspect of the Greek economy. It’s hard to believe now, but Greece outpaced the average European growth rate for much of the last 60 years. Its farmers turned bombed-out fields into modestly productive farms. The government rapidly shifted parts of the country from an agrarian economy into an industrial one that developed specialties in construction materials — concrete, aluminum, rebar — and generic drugs. Greece also benefited greatly from the rapid growth in global trade. Greece is now responsible for the largest shipping fleet in the world. No other nation besides Japan even comes close.
Yet Greece still joined the euro zone as the second-poorest country in Western Europe. That’s because the Greek economic miracle came during some disastrous governance from both left-leaning leaders and an anticommunist dictatorship. As often happens with unstable governments, a winner-take-all system developed in which new officials and private-sector cronies tried to capture as much money as they could during their time in office. Nikos Ventouris, an economist at Greece’s independent Foundation for Economic and Industrial Research, told me that during these postwar decades, the incentive structure went upside down. Business leaders learned that they could make a whole lot more money a lot more quickly through contracts with a “friend” in the government (who wasn’t particular about things like skewed labels) than by trying to compete globally.
by Adam Davidson, NY Times | Read more:
Illustration by Peter Oumanski
