No growth, a loss of trust, a culture of blame, an unequal burden of austerity: it’s hardly the most tempting of cocktails. This is a dystopian world of economic and financial failure. It threatens political instability on the grandest of scales. We may no longer be engaged in twentieth-century debates about the relative benefits of the free market versus central planning. Marxist- Leninist dogma has, thankfully, disappeared from view. But we are in danger of letting a culture of blame and mistrust develop. We cannot understand why we have to make sacrifices so we search, instead, for sacrificial lambs. It’s a convenient approach, absolving ourselves from blame even as we construct a narrative to blame others. Yet if we all follow the same approach, it won’t be long before the politics of hate makes a comeback.

Indeed, it may already be with us. In Greece, it’s called Chrysi Avgi but, to the English- speaking world, it’s known as the Golden Dawn Party. Its emblem is a thinly disguised swastika. Many of its supporters are skinheads. It is setting up a blood bank for Greeks alone. It is on the extreme right of the political spectrum. It is firmly anti-immigrant. In parts of Athens, its vigilantes have replaced the police as the – unofficial – source of law enforcement, if that’s the right term. It vehemently opposes the austerity being imposed on Greece by its foreign creditors. And, in 2012, it enjoyed the support of 14 per cent of Greek voters, a dramatic increase compared with earlier years.