Part 2 of Stuckler and Basu’s The Body Economic stood out to me in part because of its emphasis on emotional themes like morality and unity. In discussing economics, politics and the affairs of countries, ideas like right and wrong are often ignored or treated as unimportant and idealistic. In a perfect world, or on an individual level, people should always behave morally. But must we, and do we, demand that same moral standard when it comes to the actions of countries as units? Stuckler and Basu would say yes, that holding countries to a high moral standard, demanding that they respect and serve their people, is an essential component to their success in all areas- economics, politics and public health. The authors’ discussions in Part 2 about the reactions of Iceland and Greece to their respective fiscal crises focus very much on the emotions of the people and the morality of their countries’ solutions. “Icelanders were now faced with a profound moral question,” Stuckler and Basu write on page 62. “To what degree if any were they as a people and as a country responsible for the malfeasance of their business class?” Thinking about their economic crisis on a moral level, it can be argued from the reading, is what saved the Icelanders from complete chaos. The people of Iceland, over ten thousand of them to be exact, understood that it was not right for them to have to shoulder the burden of austerity to bail out a tiny, reckless upper class. Their peaceful protest then encouraged the leaders of Iceland to also look at the issue in a moral fashion, and a democratic solution was reached: hold a public forum. Austerity was voted against, and the people of Iceland enjoyed a slow yet progressive move towards recovery without the pain of a health crisis.
This sense of morality and democracy among the Icelandic people came, in part, from their strong sense of unity. As the authors point out on page 72, “The people of Iceland felt that they were all experiencing the crisis together…Building a sense of community and togetherness…may have contributed to a heightened spirit of democracy in a time of crisis.” I find it fascinating that Stuckler and Basu chose to note and record the emotional and moral aspects of the fiscal crises- it really speaks to the idea that countries are made up, ultimately, of individuals.
