Promises, Unkept Promises

It’s easy to decide to ignore the eurozone crisis pitting Athens against everyone else over there. It’s too far away to worry about, and too complicated — it’s, uh, “all Greek to me.” But it’s not all Greek and not too far removed from our system. A financial collapse of Greece eventually would have serious repercussions in the U.S., no matter how insular we are.

We can debate the sustainability of a European confederation and a common currency, but the truth is that the world’s economic system is so entangled that it actually operates as a fat-cat zone, which is to say that the rich control j...