Markos N. Dragoumis

Markos Dragoumis was born in Athens in 1926 and studied Medicine. As a student, he became involved in the student movement, joined the Left, and was exiled for a year to Agios Efstratios. In 1958, he was elected as a Member of Parliament for EDA but resigned immediately after his election in favor of Stamatis Mercouris, who was then collaborating with EDA and was the father of Melina Mercouri. He engaged in human rights, the peace movement, and journalism, writing for the newspapers "Avgi" and "Dimokratiki Allagi." In 1966, he went to England to study the British healthcare system. Before he could complete his dissertation, the Greek military junta took power, forcing him to abandon his studies and join the anti-dictatorship struggle as a member of PAM and the anti-dictatorship committee of Greeks in London. However, in 1970, following the events in Poland, he left the Left, convinced that existing socialism was incapable of "improvement," producing misery and lack of freedom. His most significant written work is "The Path to Liberalism." He was formerly a columnist for "Oikonomikos Tachydromos" and, in recent years, has been a regular contributor to the English-language newspaper "Athens News."