March 26, 2014 <Back to Index>
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Xenophon Zolotas (Greek: Ξενοφών Ζολώτας, 26 March 1904 – 10 June 2004), was a Greek economist and served as an interim non-party Prime Minister of Greece. Born in Athens in 1904, Zolotas studied economics at the University of Athens, and later studied in Leipzig and Paris. He came from a wealthy family of goldsmiths with roots in pre-revolutionary Russia. In 1928 he became Professor of Economics at Athens University, a post he held until 1968, when he resigned in protest at the military regime which had come to power in 1967. He was a member of the Board of Directors of UNRRA in 1946 and held senior posts in the International Monetary Fund and other international organisations in 1946 and 1981. Zolotas was director of the Bank of Greece in 1944 – 1945, 1955 – 1967 (when he resigned in protest at the regime), and 1974 – 1981. He published many works on Greek and international economic topics. He was considered a moderate, a champion of fiscal conservatism and of monetary stability. He is also famous for demonstrating the contribution of Greek language to the English vocabulary by making English speeches, as he said, "using with the exception of articles and prepositions only Greek words", to foreign audiences. When the elections of November 1989 failed to give a majority to either the PASOK party of Andreas Papandreou or the New Democracy party of Constantine Mitsotakis, Zolotas, then aged 85, agreed to become Prime Minister at head of a non-party administration until fresh elections could be held. He resigned when the election of April 1990 gave Mitsotakis a narrow majority. He was a workaholic and an avid winter swimmer, making a point of swimming every morning throughout the year even into his nineties. His book Economic Growth and Declining Social Welfare advances
the idea that in modern economic growth there is an increasing output
of useless and even discomforting things, such as advertising. For that
reason modern economic growth cannot be at all considered as creating
conditions for further human happiness, a thesis quite in agreement
with ideas by authors such as Richard Easterlin or Herman Daly. Two
of his speeches in English are considered to be historic. This is
because they contained only terms of Greek origin. Here are the texts: I
always wished to address this Assembly in Greek, but realized that it
would have been indeed "Greek" to all present in this room. I found
out, however, that I could make my address in Greek which would still
be English to everybody. With your permission, Mr. Chairman, l shall do
it now, using with the exception of articles and prepositions, only
Greek words. Kyrie,
I eulogize the archons of the Panethnic Numismatic Thesaurus and the
Ecumenical Trapeza for the orthodoxy of their axioms, methods and
policies, although there is an episode of cacophony of the Trapeza with
Hellas. With enthusiasm we dialogue and synagonize at the synods of our
didymous organizations in which polymorphous economic ideas and dogmas
are analyzed and synthesized. Our critical problems such as the
numismatic plethora generate some agony and melancholy. This phenomenon
is characteristic of our epoch. But, to my thesis, we have the dynamism
to program therapeutic practices as a prophylaxis from chaos and
catastrophe. In parallel, a Panethnic unhypocritical economic synergy
and harmonization in a democratic climate is basic. I apologize for my
eccentric monologue. I emphasize my euharistia to you, Kyrie to the
eugenic and generous American Ethnos and to the organizers and
protagonists of his Amphictyony and the gastronomic symposia. Kyrie,
it is Zeus' anathema on our epoch for the dynamism of our economies and
the heresy of our economic methods and policies that we should agonize
the Scylla of numismatic plethora and the Charybdis of economic
anaemia. It is not my idiosyncrasy to be ironic or sarcastic, but my
diagnosis would be that politicians are rather cryptoplethorists.
Although they emphatically stigmatize numismatic plethora, they
energize it through their tactics and practices. Our policies have to
be based more on economic and less on political criteria. Our gnomon
has to be a metron between political, strategic and philanthropic
scopes. Political magic has always been anti - economic. In an epoch
characterized by monopolies, oligopolies, monopsonies, monopolistic
antagonism and polymorphous inelasticities, our policies have to be
more orthological. But this should not be metamorphosed into
plethorophobia, which is endemic among academic economists. Numismatic
symmetry should not hyper - antagonize economic acme. A greater
harmonization between the practices of the economic and numismatic
archons is basic. Parallel to this, we have to synchronize and
harmonize more and more our economic and numismatic policies
panethnically. These scopes are more practicable now, when the
prognostics of the political and economic barometer are halcyonic. The
history of our didymus organizations in this sphere has been didactic
and their gnostic practices will always be a tonic to the polyonymous
and idiomorphous ethnical economies. The genesis of the programmed
organization will dynamize these policies. Therefore, I sympathize,
although not without criticism on one or two themes, with the apostles
and the hierarchy of our organs in their zeal to program orthodox
economic and numismatic policies, although I have some logomachy with
them. I apologize for having tyrannized you with my Hellenic
phraseology. In my epilogue, I emphasize my eulogy to the philoxenous
autochthons of this cosmopolitan metropolis and my encomium to you,
Kyrie, and the stenographers. |