Against Austerity
Austerity is anti- humanist.
It takes money and wealth as the starting point rather than people.
It celebrates usury, credit and the rich.
It erodes human value; and soon becomes insensitive to the widespread suffering of human beings that it generates.
Austerity invariably fails – making for more hardship and inequality.
The argument of trickle down economics is now known to be false.
It is shocking to see that both the Conservatives and the Labour Party will base their policies on this flawed argument (Labour’s policy looks less severe but it is still based on it).
Here is some of the writing that make a little of the case against it.
Mark Blyth Austerity: The History of a Dangerous Idea (2013) Oxford University Press.
Blyth is Professor of International Political Economy at Brown University and author of Great Transformations: Economic Ideas and Institutional Change in the Twentieth Century. This book provides a history of its failures from which governments have failed to learn.
Maybe see his video at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQuHSQXxsjM
See also:
Mary O’Hara Austerity Bites: A Journey into the Sharp End of the Cuts in the UK (2014) Policy Press
If you need first hand accounts of what it is like to be at the reciving end of this cruel, dehumanizing policy, read this.
Kerry –Ann Mendolza — Austerity: The Abolition of ther Zombe State and the Rise of Zombie Economics
Written in a snappy fashion, it gives evidence of how each area of human social life is being destyoted for ordinary people in the UK. It does not leave a lot of room for hope! A quick but horrifying read.
With thanks to David Schneider
From inside, many economists also now dispute the austerity argument. See
Paul Krugman : The Austerity Delusion; in The Guardian, April 29th 2015.
http://www.theguardian.com/business/ng-interactive/2015/apr/29/the-austerity-delusion
“Myths of austerity” http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/02/opinion/02krugman.html
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/?_r=0
As well as his book: Paul Krugman End this Depression Now (2013)
See also:
Joseph Stiglitz The Stiglitiz Report (2011)