Κοινωνικό κεφάλαιο και συλλογική δράση: Επιπτώσεις σε οικονομικές δομές, επιδόσεις και μεταρρυθμίσεις: Η ελληνική εμπειρία

Abstract

This article approaches the question of Greek economic structures, performance and reform by employing the concepts of social capital and Olsonian’ collective action. It argues that the traditional values and associated clientelistic modes of political interaction which prevailed roughly until the end of the 1960s explain to a large degree an overblown sector of self-employed individuals, the small size of essentially family based firms, the low trust in formal institutions (and the market), and the productive involvement of the state aiming at overcoming the limits of small size and fragmentation. After the 1960s, traditional values and vertical clientelistic networks combined with the rational action of organized interests (and politicians) to add pressure to state finances, resulting in an impressive accumulation of debt and the dispersion of rent-seeking activities. Today this structure, established with the concurrence of the factors identified above, encounters a changing economic environment, demanding its adaptation to the objective constraints of open markets and competition.