I Hope “The Moral Superiority of the Germans” Isn’t Translated Into German

Merkel et al. hardly need more encouragement. But if they must read this latest howler from Tyler Cowen, let them also bear in mind:


1. The entire premise of the argument is incoherent. On the one hand, TC says he is not comparing the morality of the German people to other Europeans—that would be “false and repugnant”—but rather the “system-wide” virtues of Germany versus those of the peripherals. On the other, he judges the peripherals to be morally inferior because they wish to default on their debt obligations. But the “they” who choose to default are not systems but individuals. So, yes, this is an argument about some people being more moral than others.

2. Saving and borrowing are partly matters of choice, but also matters of circumstance. Consider, for instance, the permanent income hypothesis, which tells us that when your income rises unexpectedly you save more, and when it falls you save less—even though your preferences for saving out of permanent income remain constant. This is where the trade surpluses and deficits come in. Without adhering to any particular model of savings behavior, it is clear that Germans have had more income because of their exports (half of German income is earned in the export sector), and countries with trade deficits have, for this reason, lower incomes. Of course, net savings and the current account are two measures of the same thing.

3. Even worse is the claim that default is simply a matter of choice—that those who propose defaulting on debts are less moral than their creditors. Except for Greece, loans taken out by public and private borrowers were generally in good faith. The economic catastrophe that decimated their finances was unanticipated. You could say they engaged in poor judgment by not taking the risk of such a catastrophe into account, and you would be right, but this verdict applies equally to the lenders. It is simply foolish, for instance, to say that, if interest rates remain at their current level, Italians are “choosing” to default. At 7% they have to pay 8.5% of GDP just to roll over, and the economic shrinkage this implies would raise that share year after year. Yes, Italians have assets, but if they sell them so that the state can tax the sales and redirect the revenues to debt service, then the returns on those assets will no longer accrue to Italians, and we are back, more or less, at the same point.

4. To sum up, the injunction to honor debts is like a lot of other obligations in this world. You should provide for the needs of your children. You should return your books to the library on time. If I lend you my car, you should avoid having it damaged in a collision. If you can do these things you should. If you can’t it depends on the reasons. Throwing poor parents into prison because they don’t give enough support to their children is neither good morality nor good economics. Same with people who get sick, can’t go out, and have overdue library books. Same with someone in a borrowed car who ends up in the middle of a giant crash. If the real estate market crashes in Spain, and the government is forced to step in to prevent a financial meltdown, what is the morality or economic sanity of demanding that the people of Spain be punished and forced to undergo a generation or more of austerity?