Austerity
‘Give us austerity and we’ll turn to fascism.’
Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism by Yanis Varoufakis
(9/24/2023) the Guardian
The IMF (International Monetary Fund) and what they
did to countries in the Global South—which is, of course, exactly
the same thing bankers are starting to do at home now—is just
a modern version of this old story. That is, creditors and
governments saying you’re having a financial crisis, you owe
money, obviously you must pay your debts. There’s no question
of forgiving debts. Therefore, people are going to have to stop
eating so much. The money has to be extracted from the most
vulnerable members of society. Lives are destroyed; millions of
people die. People would never dream of supporting such a policy
until you say, “Well, they have to pay their
debts.”[16] David
Graeber (from wikipedia)
In responding to austerity, ever more people find
their way to a critical understanding of capitalism...
That system brought the 2007/2008 crisis. It then delivered trillions
in government bailouts to fund its survival. And now austerity serves
to shift the costs of crisis and bailouts onto the general public.
Austerity is today's hot issue not only because it affects practically
everyone, but also because it touches the foundations of economy and
society. Richard
D Wolff
AMY GOODMAN: What do you think we need to change?
MANFRED
MAX-NEEF: Oh, almost everything. We are simply,
dramatically stupid. We act systematically against the evidences we
have. We know everything that should not be done. There’s
nobody that doesn’t know that. Particularly the big
politicians know exactly what should not be done. Yet they do it.
After what happened since October 2008, I mean, elementally, you
would think what? That now they’re going to change. I mean,
they see that the model is not working. The model is even
poisonous, you know? Dramatically poisonous. And what is the
result, and what happened in the last meeting of the European
Union? They are more fundamentalist now than before. So, the only
thing you know that you can be sure of, that the next crisis is
coming, and it will be twice as much as this one. And for that one,
there won’t be enough money anymore. So that will be it. And
that is the consequence of systematical human stupidity.
(from
Democracy Now: 9/22/2010)
Republican austerity chokes public spending for infrastructure, education, healthcare and will ultimately further weaken the economy.
It is now obvious that we have neglected infrastructure until it is rapidly becoming unsafe, we are ignoring climate damage, putting a generation of
students into heavy debt, degrading higher education, and privatizing many parts of the economy for the enrichment of an
irresponsible elite. Although the 'middle class' is sinking, right wing media convinces them that Republicans are helping them when the opposite is true.
FDR realized that an insecure people is prone to Fascism, and he proposed a Second Bill of Rights to guard against it.
The Constitutions of Germany and Japan incorporated the Second Bill of Rights and they are proving to be more stable. The US,
unfortunately, did not.
Links
Mythfighter
US Uncut
About the Concord Coalition.
Video
We're Not Broke
Bibliography
Austerity: The History of a Dangerous Idea: Mark Blyth (review)
The Alchemists: Three Central Bankers and a World on Fire: Neil
Irwin
The Great Deformation: The Corruption of Capitalism in America: by
David A. Stockman
End
This Depression Now: Paul Krugman
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