When policies and laws become unenforceable through extensive disobedience it is clear that a government is losing its legitimacy. ...From Antigone, to the campaigners for workers rights, pacifists, suffragettes, conscientious objectors and civil rights campaigners, disobedience is not illegality. It is the outward sign of moral conscience and of political fidelity to the principles of justice and democracy. Disobedience is both the highest moral act and a collective political event. Throughout history it has changed regimes, constitutions and laws as we are currently witnessing in Egypt.The writer is clearly Greek and writes from a liberal Greek perspective on the increasing resistance of the Greeks to obey law and official authority that has developed during the recent economic crisis.
His essay hinges very importantly on the distinction he makes between two concepts that he uses in a narrow Greek sense: paranomia and anomie. Essentially "paranomia" refers to lawlessness and "anomie" refers to the breakdown of social norms, ethics, and values. It is the latter concept which he argues justifies the present protests, civil and democratic disobedience that is now occurring in Greece. This is an interesting and quintessential argument that liberal intellectuals in general use to justify disobedience to laws and authority.
I think that these issues are much easier to understand if one examines society from a class point of view. In a class structured society a legal system is used as merely another means for the ruling class to control those classes over which it rules. In a capitalist society the ruling class are, of course, capitalists--those who own and/or control the wealth produced by the subservient class of workers.
The legal system under capitalism is a part of the whole ideological system of beliefs (indoctrination about "democracy" in schools and media, managed elections, the virtues of obedience to authority, etc.) to justify this arrangement in order to provide it with an appearance of legitimacy. Thus workers are much more likely to accept this arrangement with all it disadvantages if they believe that it is right and proper. However, if it becomes obvious to them that those of the ruling class are ignoring or flouting their own laws, or that the laws are enforced differentially according to class, anomie sets in--people no long believe in the fairness of such laws and related conduct. In other words, "the jig is up!"
If you follow this argument, it becomes clear that a fair system of justice is impossible in a class structured society.
