Austerity

The History of a Dangerous Idea

By: Mark Blyth

Narrated by: Fred Stella

Governments today in both Europe and the United States have succeeded in casting government spending as reckless wastefulness that has made the economy worse. In contrast, they have advanced a policy of draconian budget cuts - austerity - to solve the financial crisis. We are told that we have all lived beyond our means and now need to tighten our belts. This view conveniently forgets where all that debt came from. Not from an orgy of government spending, but as the direct result of bailing out, recapitalizing, and adding liquidity to the broken banking system. Through these actions private debt was rechristened as government debt while those responsible for generating it walked away scot free, placing the blame on the state, and the burden on the taxpayer. That burden now takes the form of a global turn to austerity, the policy of reducing domestic wages and prices to restore competitiveness and balance the budget.

The problem, according to political economist Mark Blyth, is that austerity is a very dangerous idea. First of all, it doesn't work. As the past four years and countless historical examples from the last 100 years show, while it makes sense for any one state to try and cut its way to growth, it simply cannot work when all states try it simultaneously: all we do is shrink the economy. In the worst case, austerity policies worsened the Great Depression and created the conditions for seizures of power by the forces responsible for the Second World War: the Nazis and the Japanese military establishment. As Blyth amply demonstrates, the arguments for austerity are tenuous and the evidence thin. Rather than expanding growth and opportunity, the repeated revival of this dead economic idea has almost always led to low growth along with increases in wealth and income inequality. Austerity demolishes the conventional wisdom, marshaling an army of facts to demand that we recognize austerity for what it is, and what it costs us.

©2013 Oxford University Press (P)2014 Audible Inc.

A good overview

This can get a little hard to follow if you're not up on the last few decades of EU monetary kerfuffles, but the book isn't setting out to be an intro to international monetary policy. I thought his arguments were well laid out and supported with real world case studies, though I'm predisposed to agree with his conclusions. The writing style is accessible and not too dry, and the narrator is pleasant.

good read boring at times.

lots of information, found it hard to absorb all of it will listen to again.

Much needed perspective

I studied business administration and finance in college. While I was there I had a hard time understanding a lot of classical economic ideas.
This book among others like “Debt 5000 the 1st years” really put things into perspective for me.

The focus on austerity is timely and a great frame work to understand other economic ideas of our age.

There’s a lot of misunderstanding about classical economics. This is one of few books that helps people outside of the field to navigate the tricky political oceans.

Biting Rhetoric; Short on Answers

I learned about this book from my mother, who heard an interview with the author on NPR.

Blyth grew up in Scotland, and is a professor of political economy at Brown. Oxford University Press published this title in 2012.

You may have heard of the concept if you’ve been following current events in Europe. In short, austerity is the curtailment of government spending, often resulting in large cuts to the welfare state and other social expenditures. It is often justified by the aim of reducing government debt, although this claim is almost always fraudulent in practice (if not in intention).

As the subtitle suggests (“The History of a Dangerous Idea”), austerity isn’t just uncomfortable, but could be blamed (indirectly), for such inhumane incidents as World War II. Blyth meticulously tracks the history of austerity globally, going back to the roots of the concept with Adam Smith and John Locke, tracing it’s evolution over the past century, and then offering a current-day analysis. If anything, his refutation of research done over the past thirty years in support of austerity is too rigorous, verging on obsessive.

Ultimately, this book is an economic text, and you should be prepared for technical literature (although there isn’t any math in the book) if you’re considering picking up this book.

One refrain in the book is that austerity is an ideology too compelling to be dispelled by a century of misery, destruction, and abject failure. Although Blyth repeatedly admits the inability of facts to have any impact to discredit austerity, he blunders on with a relentlessly fact-based rhetoric throughout the text. The book leaves two vital questions unanswered:

1. If austerity fails to accomplish its stated aims so consistency, what affords it such credence?
2. What ideology of superior ethic and utility has the temerity to unseat austerity?

In the book, Blyth valiantly strives to unpack some of the underlying fundamentals that drive a healthy economy. Such a feat is not to be scoffed at; few academics or economists make it this far, tending to fumble about with mechanisms rather than getting to the pattern level. It is a question that has been driving much of my inquiry for many years now. He does so by illustrating relatively simple maxims, rather than getting into the complex metaphysics underlying the social technology we call money (also a fascinating arena, but less approachable).

Where is the inquisitive reader to go from here? I’m looking forward to reading histories of Japan and China, as well as Yanis Varoufakis’ two most recent books. Unfortunately, I have yet to encounter a paradigm that encompasses ecological economics while preserving a high quality of living. Currently, the faster our economy churns, the more destruction is borne. And yet, depressions more commonly result in fascist dictatorships than socialist anarchies. How we bridge economic and ecological health is one of the existential mandates of our times, and the more I learn, the further I realize we are from a pragmatic solution. Regenerative economics continues to be elusive.

Every politician needs to read this book

Any additional comments?

This book explains the history of economic austerity and how it has never worked and why it will never work. The author uses in-depth and sometimes complicated economic rationale to explain why but I think that is what lends so much legitimacy to his argument. I will admit it is not for the feeble minded but it is also not so complicated that the average concerned person can’t understand.

He gives the reader a complete analysis of why public spending cuts never lead to economic growth and typically fuel rising debt instead of lowering it. He further details how the global financial crisis is really a private crisis of the banking sector and not a problem of public spending run amok. It is glaringly obvious that governments have allowed the finance industry to needlessly gamble and in many cases, have been forced to bail them out with public money.

This book allowed me to finally understand the real reasons behind the European debt crisis and how much of it extends from several structural flaws in the Euro. I have read a number of books on the 2008/2009 financial crisis and I would say this is the best one yet. This really brought everything together for me as it really gets to the "why" behind a lot of the problems we see today.

I like his analysis of Iceland at the end and I wish he had written much more on the topic. My only complaint is that the author quotes a number of economic theorists and sometimes it is hard to determine if he is still talking about their opinion or his own.

Every politician should read this book and understand how cuts to public spending almost never produce the desired economic growth.

Great ideas, terrible voice over talent

Mark Blyth essentially gives these ideas away for free in his numerous YouTube videos on the subject. I had hoped for more content that isn't part of his numerous recorded lectures - this was disappointing in that respect. Also, having watched a number of these videos, Blyth has a distinctive rhythm and tone to his speech, and that comes across in his writing as well. Unfortunately, the narrator, Fred Stella, seems to be doing his best to imitate a machine trying to imitate human speech. He takes an already dense subject and makes it almost unlistenable. Just search for Mark Blyth on YouTube and watch the top five results. You'll get all the same information and hear it in Blyth's inimitable Glaswegian.

Fundamental info for me

Fundamental info for me with many examples and explanations. Despite books like this, right wing governments in my country (Czechia) does this aproach again and again.

wonderful

Mark Blyth is the man! his wonderful expliantion makes it easy for regular people to understand complicated subjects and enjoy doing so.

Great explanation of the concept

Both the written and the audibook versions are great. It goes into great detail as to why economically austerity is not a good idea, and why country sized economies cannot be run like a household budget. The author does a great job of building up on concepts and showing how the idea of austerity can hinder, not help an economy.

Instant classic

A review of the 2008 financial crisis, historical economic theory, and the story of austerity.