No sacrifices without hope

In a recent interview, French President François Hollande made the crucial, but often forgotten, point that there are limits to the level of sacrifice that can be demanded of the citizens of southern Europe’s financially distressed countries. To avoid turning Greece, Portugal, and Spain into collective “correctional houses,” Hollande reasoned, people need hope beyond the ever-receding horizon of spending cuts and austerity measures.

Even the most rudimentary understanding of psychology supports Hollande’s assessment. Negative reinforcement and delayed gratification are unlikely to achieve their goals unless there is a perceived light at the end of the tunnel – a future reward for today’s sacrifices.

Public pessimism in southern Europe is largely attributable to the absence of such a reward. As declining consumer confidence and household purchasing power deepen the recession, projections of when the crisis will end are repeatedly pushed back, and those bearing the brunt of austerity are losing hope.

Throughout history, the concept of sacrifice has merged theology and economics. In the ancient world, people made often-bloody offeringsto divinities, whom they believed would reward them with, say, good harvests or protection from evil. Christianity, with its belief that God (or the Son of God) sacrificed Himself to expiate humanity’s sins, inverted the traditional economy of sacrifice. In this case, divine suffering serves as an exemplar of the selflesshumility with which earthly misfortunes should be endured.

Churchill gave Britons something to look forward to

Despite secularization, the belief that rewards, or achievements, require sacrifice has become an integral part of European cultural consciousness. The idea of a “social contract” – which arose during the Enlightenment in orderto address, without resort to divine right, the legitimacy of the state’s authority over its citizens – rests on the premise that individuals surrender a certain degree of personal liberty in order to secure peace and prosperity for all.

As a result, political leaders have often asked citizens to sacrifice personal freedoms and comforts in the name of secularized spiritual entities, such as the nation or the state – and citizens have eagerly obliged. In his first speech to the House of Commons as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Winston Churchill inspired hope in a beleaguered nation when he famously declared that he – and thus Britain – had “nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat.”

Given such countless precedents, it may be surprising that the rhetoric of sacrifice under the banner of austerity has proven so ineffective in Europe’s current crisis. Some observers blame declining levels of commitment to anything that transcends the individual, including the political system.

But resistance to austerity in southern Europe is not rooted in general hostility toward sacrifice. Rather, Europeans have come to believe that their leaders are demanding sacrifices that do not advance their interests. Churchill gave Britons something to look forward to: victory. Without a clear end that justifies it, sacrifice becomes meaningless.

Europe’s leaders must imbue their citizens with renewed hope

Prosperity was supposed to legitimize the European Union. After the period of rapid economic growth ended, Europe’s leaders came to rely, instead, on the threat of an evil that is greater than austerity: further destabilization of debtor countries, leading to default, expulsion from the eurozone, and economic, social, and political collapse.

But the rhetoric of fear is losing sway, because the “new deal” taking shape across southern Europe offers morerepression and less protection, thus violating the social contract’s fundamental tenets. Indeed, while European citizens are being asked to sacrifice their standard of living – and even their livelihoods – for the sake of the “national economy,” transnational corporations are thriving.

The conditions imposed by the “troika” – the European Commission, the European Central Bank, and the International Monetary Fund – amount to an indefinite delay in addressing the needs of those asked to sacrifice and in repairing tattered social safety nets. Yet national governments continue to implement policies that exacerbate injustice. For example, Portugal’s 2013 budget reduces the number of tax brackets from eight to five – a move that will devastate the middle class.

Sacrifice used to involve ransoming the body – its pleasures, basic needs, and even vitality – for the sake of the spirit. While the discourse of sacrifice persists, the logic that has shored it up for millennia has been abandoned. Europe’s leaders must imbue their citizens with renewed hope. The legitimacy of “post-national” Europe – based on the EU’s obligation, enshrined in the Lisbon Treaty, to promote “the well-being of its people” – is at stake.