The Body Economic: Why Austerity Kills

241 Pages·2013·1.049 MB·English

by  David Stuckler, Sanjay Basu

W H Y
A U S T E R I T Y
K I L L S
RECESSIONS, BUDGET BATTLES, AND THE POLITICS OF LIFE AND DEATH
DAVID STUCKLER, MPH, PhD
SANJAY BASU, MD, PhD
THE BODY ECONOMIC

THE
BODY
ECONOMIC
Why Austerity Kills
Recessions, Bud get Battles,
and the Politics of Life and Death
DAVID STUCKLER
SANJAY BASU
A Member of the Perseus Books Group
New York
Copyright © 2013 by David Stuckler and Sanjay Basu
Published by Basic Books,
A Member of the Perseus Books Group
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ISBN: 978- 0- 465- 06398- 7 (hardcover)
ISBN: 978- 0- 465- 06397- 0 (e-book)
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Politics is nothing but medicine on a grand scale.
Rudolph Virchow, 1848

CONTENTS
Preface ix
Introduction xvii
PART I HISTORY
Chapter 1 Tempering the Great Depression 3
Chapter 2 Th e Post- Communist Mortality Crisis 21
Chapter 3 From Miracle to Mirage 41
PART II THE GREAT RECESSION
Chapter 4 God Bless Iceland 57
Chapter 5 Greek Tragedy 77
PART III RESILIENCE
Chapter 6 To Care or Not to Care 97
Chapter 7 Returning to Work 109
Chapter 8 A Plague on All Your Houses 123
Conclusion: Healing the Body Economic 139
Notes 147
Research Publications 201
Ac know ledg ments 205
Index 209

PREFACE
Th ank you for participating in this clinical trial. You might not recall signing
up for it, but you w ere enrolled in December 2007, at the start of the Great
Recession. Th is experiment was not governed by the rules of informed con-
sent or medical safety. Your treatment was not administered by doctors or
nurses. It was directed by politicians, economists, and ministers of fi nance.
During this study, you were assigned, along with billions of others around
the world, to one of two major experimental treatments: austerity or stimulus.
Austerity is medicine intended to reduce symptoms of debts and defi cits, and
to cure recessions. It cuts government spending on healthcare coverage, as-
sistance to the unemployed, and housing support. At the start of the trial, its
potential side-eff ects were not well understood.
When the austerity experiment began, your prognosis was grim and un-
certain. Th e US housing market bubble burst in 2007, battering economies
across the world. Some politicians, such as British Prime Minister David
Cameron, decided to pursue austerity to reduce defi cits. Elsewhere in Eur ope,
the International Monetary Fund and the Eu ro pe an Central Bank pres-
sured governments in Greece, Spain, and Italy to experiment with austerity:
cutting billions of dollars from social programs. If you received an experi-
mental dose of austerity, you might have noticed some serious changes to your
world.
Meanwhile, other politicians chose to invest in health and social safety net
programs. If you w ere in the stimulus group—t hat is, if you are currently
living in Sweden, Iceland, or Denmark—y our community was massively af-
fected by unemployment and the recession, but was largely spared from aus-
terity. Instead, stimulus funds w ere used to bolster health and social safety
nets during the recession. If you lived in a stimulus country, you may not have
ix