Why the drachma is history

A MULTITUDE of economic commentators, including many who wish Greece well, say that the only answer to the country's problems is to give up the euro and return to the drachma.

It is almost irrelevant whether these pundits are eurosceptic or pro-EU, on the left or the right, Keynesian or neo-liberal. The line is the same, especially now that Wolfgang Schauble, the German finance minister, has espoused an "orderly exit" (an oxymoron if ever I saw one) from the euro.

Turning back the clock of history is a favourite parlour game. But there is a famous German, even more famous than Mr Schauble, who foreshadowed the Greek contradiction more than 60 years ago. This was playwright Bertolt Brecht, who wrote after the communist regime brutally suppressed an East German revolt in 1953 , "Since the people cannot elect a new government, the government must elect a new people".