Since we’ve read the whole book now, I was thinking about its purpose and how successful it is in achieving its goals. As far as I can tell, Basu and Stuckler were trying to write a widely accessible book that explained why exactly austerity policies cause public health problems (and to advocate for using innovative, comprehensive public health solutions in place of austerity).
I admit I am a poor judge of “accessible,” because college alters your perception of what is “accessible” and what isn’t, but it seems like the book succeeds on that front. I found this reading much easier than most of what I have to read for school because it doesn’t rely on academic jargon or unnecessarily complicated sentences. Also, it’s a pretty short book, and we all know that size matters.
It seemed that they made a solid case against austerity, as well. I already was pretty sure austerity was a crappy way to not-solve problems, but now I understand why and can articulate it a little better. However, they stated several times that austerity proponents base their arguments on ideology rather than evidence, which is troubling because it also means that evidence doesn’t pose a significant challenge to pro-austerity arguments. Accordingly, I’m not sure how useful this book is in making pro-austerity people question their reasoning. I am again not in a position to judge that.
One feature of the book I would like to draw attention to is its omissions. There are numerous social stratifying institutions and oppressive systems that Stuckler and Basu did not discuss. Medina raised the question of immigrants in the US, for example. They also did not make connections to the prison industrial complex (think The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander that we read earlier in the semester) or to disproportionate rates of homelessness among queer and trans people. To be clear, I understand why they did not discuss these or countless other social factors: it’s way too complicated for a single book, especially an “accessible” one. (A less justifiable reason is because advocacy for certain groups of people decreases one’s perceived respectability…but I think the excessive complication factor is enough to cover all the omissions.) This is not criticism, it’s a point of information.
