From Riches to Rags or What Went Wrong in Greece

The economic and social progress Greece achieved in the early post war decades decelerated after 1974 because all institutions sustaining the effi-cient operation of democracy and free markets were deliberately and gravely eroded. Under the impetus of hard core socialists provisions introduced in the 1975 constitution, economic policies extended further in the direction of unfettered statism, thus destroying the international competitiveness of the Greek economy. Some researchers have attributed the economic decline of Greece to its entry into the EU. I look into these allegations and find that they have little or no basis on the available evidence.