Debtocracy ( Chreokratía) is a 2011 left-wing documentary film by Katerina Kitidi and Aris Chatzistefanou. The documentary examines the causes of the Greek debt crisis in 2010 and advocates for the default of "odious debt".
The documentary has been distributed online under a Creative Commons BY-SA 3.0 license since 6 April 2011, and the production said that it has no interest in any kind of commercial exploitation of the project. The documentary is available in Greek and English and is subtitled in French, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese. According to The Nation, half a million people watched the film in the first five days of its release.
The film was followed by a Greek-language book with the same title.
Name
The production team coined the word "debtocracy" (Greek "Χρεοκρατία"), defining it as the condition by which Greece found itself trapped in its debt. The term is derived from the words "χρέος" (debt) and the Greek "κράτος" (power, rule -ocracy). The title implies that the Greek government has been functioning mainly under the interests of the financial debt (at points superseding or even replacing the principles of Democracy and the Constitution of Greece), and therefore the debt has been elevated as a de facto form of government by itself.
Content summary
The documentary opens with the statements of Greek Prime Ministers, starting with the dictator Georgios Papadopoulos and Dominique Strauss-Kahn, managing director of the International Monetary Fund, and ending with some of the most prominent figures in Greek politics since the metapolitefsi: Andreas Papandreou, Konstantinos Mitsotakis, Kostas Simitis, Kostas Karamanlis and the then Prime Minister George Papandreou. The focus then shifts to the prelude to the recent global economic crisis and its origins in the 1970s. Interviews with prominent figures of the global philosophical and economic scene argue that the euro is non-viable and contributed to the worsening of the finances of Greece due to a systematic loss of competitiveness in the markets by the PIGS.
The documentary traces the roots of the Greek debt back to the revolution of 1821 and the British loans that were issued. The documentary criticises the notion that the Greek population, since it enjoyed the country's prosperity produced by past loans, is now accountable as a whole for the debts. Debtocracy argues Greek politicians encouraged too much borrowing and corruption. The documentary praises Ecuador's decision to unilaterally default on part of its sovereign debt, on grounds of social justice. The solution suggested for the Greek crisis is the formation of a committee for the analysis of the debt in a similar way that Ecuador did. If the analysis proves all or part of the debt to be odious the people should not have to pay for it and therefore it should be erased, the film argues.
Production and participation
The production team of Debtocracy have said that the producers are all those individuals that donated money in order to finance the project. Interviewees include: David Harvey, geographer and social theorist Hugo Arias, president of the debt analysis committee of Ecuador Samir Amin, economist Eric Toussaint, political scientist and spokesperson of the Committee for the Abolition of Illegitimate Debt Gérard Duménil Costas Lapavitsas, economist Alain Badiou, philosopher Manolis Glezos, member of the Greek Resistance and left-wing politician Avi Lewis, journalist and film director Sahra Wagenknecht
Critical response
The documentary has received mixed reviews, both for its use of economics and its political intention as a film, both by Greek and international media.
The documentary depicted scenes where Argentinian and Ecuadorian politicians had to evacuate the besieged parliaments by means of a helicopter. Iconic images and references to helicopters were adopted by the Aganaktismenoi movement who surrounded the Greek Parliament in 2011.
Critics of the film make four main points: Accusation of propaganda The film is suspected to be only a part of a marxist propaganda False comparison of Greece with Argentina and Ecuador The film argues that Argentina and Ecuador were right to default but the comparison has been described as incorrect. Lack of opposing point of views Only people in favor of a Greek default were questioned No alternative propositions Only a cancellation of the Greek debt is invoked. Nothing about the competitiveness of the Greek economy.
Writing for the British newspaper The Guardian, Aditya Chakrabortty said the movie's criticism of the euro was "compelling" and, despite its low budget, called the documentary "the best film of Marxian economic analysis yet produced".