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Austerity
Book

Austerity

The History of a Dangerous Idea

Mark Blyth
Oxford UP, 2013

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Editorial Rating

8

Qualities

  • Comprehensive
  • Analytical
  • Scientific

Recommendation

If you think austerity measures will clean up the mess that stumbling banks left behind, Brown University professor Mark Blyth is out to change your mind. He presents the logic behind using austerity as a tool for lowering debt and recharging economies, and then blows that logic out of the water with effective arguments and historical facts. Though his argument is accessible to lay readers, he provides enough technical information to engage experts. But whether he sways you to his side or not, his quirky, witty writing style – which makes this intrinsically dry subject matter engaging – will draw you in. While always politically neutral, getAbstract recommends Blyth’s book to economists, investors, policy makers and those interested in global economics.

Take-Aways

  • Austerity is “the policy of cutting the state’s budget to promote growth.”
  • Politicians spin austerity as necessary to fight debt, but rescuing failing banks caused the debt in the first place.
  • Current events and history show that austerity, rather than prodding the economy and instilling business confidence, has the opposite effect.

About the Author

Mark Blyth is a professor of international political economy at Brown University and the author of the book Great Transformations: Economic Ideas and Institutional Change in the 20th Century.

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    P. F. 9 years ago
    The author incorrectly asserts that austerity has been sold to the masses as a means of jump-starting economies.  The premise for everything else he offers in his well-written (use of language, grammar, etc...) is therefore also false. Fact: I'm not an austerity homer who thinks it's the answer to economic ills; quite the opposite. But the spending must come from the private sector, incentivized by the government.  The reason is simple:  private sector spending is always more efficient than the government. And when it teeters on inefficient, except when the government bails them out, private enterprises fail, and are replaced by new different structures.