The spoils system

Has the Greek government heard anything about the upgraded role of the state in the countries of advanced capitalism, or has it tightly secured its ideological blinders to protect itself from such an eventuality? Does it suspect, perhaps, how necessary the radical reconstruction of the state is, so that it can play its role in the modern era, or has it run out of libertarian ideologies of past decades about the night-watchman state? Or does it think it has accomplished a historic task by introducing a series of apps that make life easier for the citizens but do nothing to touch the cobweb-strewn structures and clientelistic functions of the state?

The idea introduced by renowned economist Mariana Mazzucato, professor in the economics of innovation and public value at University College London, of the entrepreneurial state is now an applied and widespread practice in...