David Stuckler and Sanjay Basu in their work, Body Economics, bring glaring examples of how austerity as a governmental practice is terrible for the economy and lives of citizens, thus bad for the country as a whole. First, we see an interesting set of statistics of how the great depression affected mortality rates in a few ways. Overall mortality rates declined despite increases in suicide rates. The reason for this is that there were less automobile accidents (the leading cause of death) and that people were healthier because they stopped consuming alcohol due to the prohibition, and walked more because they couldn’t afford gasoline for their cars, etc. These statistics also seem to be consistent in today’s Great Recession. The most important part of the history of the Depression is to see how the government reacted to it. Under Hoover’s austerity plan, the country ended up with the Ford Hunger March, which disastrously turned into a massacre. Under Roosevelt, the New Deal simply worked. It was a plan of the government funding jobs thus stimulating the economy. It was a plan of providing funds to those who needed it. Less hunger meant better health. This New Deal policy is stark contrast to the post-communist mortality crisis. The rapid transition from communism to capitalism had led to a major population decrease in men. Factories shutting down led to increased rates in suicides, homicides, and alcohol poisoning. Stress and anxiety led to alcohol abuse, then resulting in suicide and homicide and increased rates of alcohol related diseases. When Russia tried to slow down alcohol abuse, the men drank more lethal alternatives. This data and data we’ve seen with the IMF treated Southeast Asia is clear in proving that austerity kills. The question becomes why doe people still think austerity works? How can cutting healthcare improve the lives of its citizens? It simply doesn’t. How can sucking out funds from the economy improve the economy? It just doesn’t.
04/11
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Apr 14
Why Austerity Kills
In the reading for today, The Body Economic: Why Austerity Kills, I was fascinated and moved by a few different concepts. I have always, politically, had the same inkling that welfare is directly necessary for the health of our society. However, I didn’t realize the extent to which this was the case. This article woke me up in a certain way. I knew that many people became overwhelmingly depressed when faced with joblessness or lack of economy. Yet the rates on suicide following a change in economic activity was by all means terrifying. If we can visibly see this correlation, it seems necessary to me (and humane) to bring about the New Deal’s of this generation in order to give hope and peace to those who are struggling. And it seems very possible that through these actions, we’d see a bottom down revitalizing effect. People who were previously on welfare or unemployment could hopefully be presented with new job opportunities.
These steps towards a working America would clearly lower the suicide rate and provide citizens with a sense of meaning and personal choice.
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Apr 14
The Body Economic (Part 1)
In The Body Economic, David Stuckler and Sanjay Basu do a great job showing the connection between bad economic conditions, government policies and public health. Besides for suicides rising in bad times, I would never think that public health would be so correlated with the economy. The graphs on page 9, one showing state income per capita from 1927 to 1937 and the other showing trends in death rates from 1927 to 1937, surprise me, as to how similar they are, more or less rising and falling in the same time periods. But what I found important was that the authors not only explained why a bad economy could lead to less-deaths, but also made it a point to address all the other variables that could have led to the death rates declining as well. Stuckler and Basu look to see if the falling death rate is consistent with previous trends. They even say, “During the Great Depression, most of the changes in death rates apparently weren’t being caused by the economic downturn itself.” However, due to the epidemiological transition, less people died from infectious diseases like pneumonia, but more from non-infectious ones. The depression also correlates with less road deaths because less people are driving, and it also hit around the time of prohibition. There are always so many different factors to account for in scientific research, and I’m glad the authors account for them. Additionally, as they do, it’s great to draw parallels between the Great Depression and more recent economic problems, because this will surely aid us in getting to the roots of the problems and fixing them.
