Varoufakis stood for Parliament once. He isn't standing again. What democratic mandate does he have now? Why is he talking about Democratic accountability? He himself exemplifies the dictum, 'you can fool all of the people some of the time.

Varoufakis was a terrible finance Minister. He presided over the biggest proportionate Capital flight and collapse in recovery in recent history. Why is he pretending he understands Economics? His 'modest proposal' was foolish- incentivize the artificial inflation of GDP so as to reduce the debt ratio and push debt onto the ECB so that it can never emerge as an alternative to the Dollar.

Varoufakis must be unique in that he was a member of the Eurogroup without having read even the Wikipedia entry on that body. He alone didn't know it was an informal group and once snubbed by it, humiliated himself even further by applying to its Secretariat only to learn that he had no legal basis on which to complain.

Varoufakis is merely a windbag- a lazy one. His genius is to pick on the worst possible analogy and serve it up in Tabloid prose. China has grown very rapidly- indeed in an unprecedented manner. Europe hasn't. In 1990, India and China were neck and neck and represented a small fraction of the largest economy- that of the Eu. 25 years later, China has the largest economy in p.p.p terms, followed by the U.S, while the E.U has slipped to the third spot.

Varoufakis thinks China is somehow more democratic because it can afford to spend a portion of its accumulated surpluses to shore up its embryonic asset markets- i.e. to move towards fitting its currency for reserve status within a decade. Europe has no accumulated surpluses. Its asset markets risk being permanently marginalized by reason of political manipulation for short term ends. In real terms, this means the erosion of European living standards going forward. European voters- though ocassionally misled by foolish demagogues- can see the need for strengthening the Rule of Law, curbing agent principal hazard, having sound money on the basis of an independent ECB, and forcing delinquents to do sensible subsidiarity on penalty of not having the money to do anything at all.

European democracy works- it has pushed Varoufakis out of Parliament. Genuine Leftists can do austerity- because their own pet policies would involve something worse. It is perfectly compatible with Democracy that parochial paranoid discourse remains confined to parish pump politics. Even Greeks are expected to talk turkey when dining with the grownups. If, like Varoufakis, they persist in adolescent histrionics, they are simply snubbed and squeezed out of the political process. This is a good thing.