I remember reading that Dwight Eisenhower had a saying: Don’t try to make other people’s decisions for them, and don’t let other people make your decisions for you. The last five years of the Greece-EU crisis has demonstrated the wisdom of this saying.

Since the crisis started, the European Central Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the European Commission (backed by most of the EU’s governments) have been trying to force Greece to reform its public institutions and liberalize its markets. Greece’s government has been trying to save as much of its clientelist state as possible, where certain segments of the market are protected from competition, certain groups get generous early retirements, and the civil service exists to provide votes for politicians rather than services – and all this while maintaining membership in the euro and trying to extract resources from the rest of Europe.

The results of these conflicting priorities have been endless frustration for Northern Europe’s governments and a horribly persistent depression in Greece. The reason the process keeps failing is that each side keeps trying to make the other side’s decisions for them.

The ECB, IMF, and European Commission, have been trying to get Greece to align its institutions with those of Northern Europe using a combination of carrots (bailouts) and sticks (reducing liquidity to the Greek banking system). The flaw in this approach is that the structure, extent, and effectiveness of the Greece’s institutions are the responsibility of the Greek public and the Greek political class. If Greeks want a burdensome pension system and a corrupt civil service, that is up to them.

On the other hand, Greece is trying to maintain its clientelist government with outside money. From a Greek perspective, all talk of primary surpluses are nonsense. The Greek economy had returned to very slow economic growth by the second half of 2014, but the uncertainly caused by the new Syriza-led Greek government’s negotiating strategy sent the economy back into recession – and that was before the shuttering of the Greek banks. The measure of the Greek government resistance to reform is that it was willing to provoke a new economic downturn (on top of an earlier Great Depression-sized economic collapse) in order to preserve the clientelist state.

Greek politicians are going to try milk the rest of Europe for money (calling it “solidarity” and “investment” ). They will continue to reward their clients whenever possible. When the crisis hit, Greece’s government chose to impose horizontal wage cuts on the civil service rather reform the institutions. Alexis Tsipras did not invent loudly complaining about foreign pressure while trying to use foreign money for his own purposes. Greek politicians have been playing that game for a long time.

The rest of Europe should stop playing along and should build their Greek policy around respect for Greek sovereignty. Greeks should have whatever kind of government they want – and Greeks should be responsible for the resulting costs and living standards.

Greece needs its own currency that can, over time, devalue against the currencies of other countries whose policies allow for more productive economies. Greece needs a real central bank that can act as a proper lender of last resort for Greece’s banks.

There will be losses for everybody in accepting Greece’s sovereignty. The lenders will finally have to admit that they are not going to get most of their money back from Greece, and will have to accept that Greek public policy is Greek business. Greek depositors, civil servants, and retirees will have their savings, wages, and pensions reduced as euros are replaced by depreciated drachmas. Then the Greeks, unburdened of both external debt and hope of foreign subsidy, will be able to build whatever kind of government they want and can afford.