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Austerity and degrowth – dealing with the economic crisis and the ecological crisis together

By in Economics, Environment on .

Austerity and degrowth – dealing with the economic crisis and the ecological crisis together

This article arises from increasing frustration and irritation about the way that the debate about Greece, and in general about austerity, is framed. My frustration is not only with the policy thugs who are implementing austerity, but also, to a degree, with their critics – which includes the failure of most of the critics of growth to actually get involved in this controversy and argue their own point of view. There have been attempts, for example by Nicola Hinton of the Post Growth Institute. It seems like a tough one to argue for degrowth in the context of the Greek crisis and as an alternative to austerity – but then all the more reason to try. Otherwise a movement for degrowth will never get out of the university lecture rooms into the real world. It will never become a guide or a narrative for the future of society to be realised in practical and popular politics.

Austerity – elite terrorism against ordinary people

So let’s start by reframing the debate about austerity. When Yanis Varoufakis describes what has happened to Greece as “Fiscal Waterboarding” he is part way in the direction that I mean. His description of austerity as a form of terrorism is also right.

The purpose of austerity is to create insecurity and instill fear in the general population in order to protect the finance and banking sector from popular rage against the crimes the participants of this sector have committed against ordinary people. This rage ought to have given rise a long time ago to legal actions and desperately needed fundamental reforms to take away from bankers the right to create money, a right which they have abused at tremendous cost to ordinary people.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

 

 

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