When Do We Finally Drive a Stake Through the Heart of Austerity?
Austerity has never in the history of economics been a proper response to national insolvency. And yet we keep practicing it, as though Albert Einstein’s quote is meaningless: “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
And yet we continue, having learned nothing. Why do you suppose that is?
Class Warfare by a Softer Name
The short answer to that is because those who have usually run off with the national assets were never called to account. It’s class warfare by a softer name. Who can possibly complain about the common sense behind “living within one’s means?
Yet when governments demand austerity, it’s the poor who lose their healthcare to “balancing the budget.” Likewise with the strangling of schools, slashing of social benefits, evictions from public housing and a myriad of small cuts to everything that makes life livable for those in the bottom third of society.
In the current circumstance of international economic fragility, Covid-19 holds …