Let’s talk about money. Imagine that the currency your government has adopted is one over which it has absolutely no control. Will it trust remote, unelected technocrats, who do control it, not to lend capriciously against worthless collateral? On projects that, even on a cursory evaluation, will never return a profit? Can unprincipled functionaries be trusted to preserve its purchasing power? For how long would you expect such a currency to survive?

As I write, the Greek tragedy now on stage is convulsed in political wrangling, with the no vote winning a referendum carrying existential implications. Since potential consequences are pure speculation, we can at least ask how this crisis became inevitable.