Good morning, Quartz readers!
“Either you give in to ultimatums or you opt for democracy.” With that, Greek prime minister Alexis Tsipras encouraged citizens to pass judgment on the country’s latest bailout deal in a referendum this weekend. There’s just one snag: The offer has expired and Greece’s lenders say it is no longer valid.
That makes the prime minister’s high-minded appeal to democracy ring hollow. After all, nobody is quite sure what they’re voting on. In the meantime, the referendum gambit has cut Athens loose from its rescue program, forcing it to default on the IMF and close banks to conserve cash.
Some things are too important to be left to voters. At least, that’s what Joschka Fischer, Germany’s former foreign minister, told a room of eurocrats (and this reporter) earlier this week. Few of the most important decisions in his country’s post-war history would have won a majority if put to a vote, he said. Why should Ireland’s pesky habit of rejecting EU treaty changes to rebuke the local government overturn the will of the entire bloc? And California is hardly the best-run state in the US because it relies so heavily on direct democracy—quite the opposite.
Mix in money, and things get trickier still. Bo Lundgren, the architect of Sweden’s much admired bank bailout program in the early 1990s, says that voters would have never approved of his government’s moves if they asked for it. Former US treasury secretary Tim Geithner offered a similar analysis of his efforts to clean up the country’s subprime mess: “You have to do things that are going to be fundamentally impossible to explain to people.”
In short, those who earn the people’s mandate should know when to lead and when to follow. Tsipras has punted a tough decision to his people, when history suggests that it requires brave, proactive, and potentially unpopular leadership. Too little democracy is a bad thing, of course, but so is too much of it.—Jason Karaian
Five things on Quartz we especially liked
A reminder that daughters matter. The obsession with sons in India is having a real impact on the nation’s male-to-female ratio, as mothers selectively abort daughters. Following prime minister Narendra Modi’s #SelfieWithDaughter campaign on Twitter, Madhura Karnik interviews her own parents about why they stopped having children after she was born.
Chinese students are also part-time traders. One in three Chinese university students are active participants on the nation’s volatile stock market. Zheping Huang investigates the source of their capital, and how they learn to trade. Many are teaching each other—but novice investors are also being blamed for recent market downturns.
Why we should watch the Women’s World Cup. “Every four years the very legitimacy of women’s athletics goes on trial, again,” writes Meredith Bennett-Smith of the oft-ignored Women’s World Cup, which culminates July 5 with USA v. Japan. ”With the exception of maybe tennis and a handful of Olympic events, we have not achieved gender parity in professional sports.”
Drink (tea) to your health. Forget milk—a new study finds that tea is good for bone health, especially for older women. The flavonoids in plants and herbs mimic estrogen, Deena Shanker reports, which the female body produces less and less after menopause.
Donna Karan was a godsend to American women. This week, Donna Karan announced that she was leaving her post as chief designer at her company, but her legacy will live on. Jenni Avins explains how Karan’s bodysuits and other designs transformed women’s executive wardrobes forever.
Five things elsewhere that made us smarter
Life on Rikers Island, as explained by its inhabitants. Nearly 10,000 people are imprisoned in Rikers Island prison in New York. In a joint project by New York Magazine and the Marshall Project, inmates, officers and visitors recount the details of prison life, from phone etiquette to legendary escapes.
How McDonald’s wooed a generation in China. McDonald’s restaurants are popular around the world, but not always for the same reasons. Lucky Peach’s Ryan Healey examines how the US fast-food chain targeted China’s lonely only-children, and appealed to parents by positioning itself as a place of scholarship.
Behind the scenes at the US Supreme Court. Texas senator Ted Cruz draws back the curtain on the United States Supreme Court, with an account of his time working for Chief Justice Rehnquist for Politico. Anecdotes include Justice Scalia’s jokes, Souter’s frugality and watching pornography with Sandra Day O’Connor.
Demonizing Russia is a mistake. Europe is wrong to alienate Russia, writes French former defense minister Jean Pierre Chevènment for Le Monde diplomatique. The United States has exported an old Cold War mentality to the EU, he says, but cynicism toward Russian prime minister Putin won’t secure peace for Ukraine.
The story of the American Girl. Every nineties girl knew Molly, Samantha and Kirsten of the American Girl Doll collection, and now Racked’s Julia Rubin tells the story of their creation, tracing the growth of one woman’s direct-order catalogue company into a $700 million business by the time Mattel bought it in 1998. Now the American Girl empire includes huge stores and cafes, a YouTube community, and of course, plenty of plastic dolls.
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