Civil Society and Corruption
American journalist Michael Lewis has pointed out that modern Greek culture lacks any tradition of volunteerism and altruism and is afflicted by extraordinarily high levels of selfishness and corruption, which culminated in the present Greek government-debt crisis. Commentators both within and without Greece have attributed this critical flaw in Greek culture to the Ottoman Empire's brutal mismanagement of Ottoman Greece, in which individual survival became more important than societal stability, tax resistance became a form of patriotism, and property and commercial tax systems were left in shambles, thereby making it impossible for Greece to create an functional civil society or an efficient modern state.
Read more about this topic: Greek Architecture
Famous quotes containing the words civil, society and/or corruption:
“The right to vote, or equal civil rights, may be good demands, but true emancipation begins neither at the polls nor in courts. It begins in woman’s soul.”
—Emma Goldman (1869–1940)
“The product of the artist has become less important than the fact of the artist. We wish to absorb this person. We wish to devour someone who has experienced the tragic. In our society this person is much more important than anything he might create.”
—David Mamet (b. 1947)
“Blest paper-credit! last and best supply!
That lends corruption lighter wings to fly!”
—Alexander Pope (1688–1744)