I found Part I of Stuckler and Basu’s The Body Economic: Why Austerity Kills to be clear, informative and interesting. At its core lay several important ideas that I had never heard before, and if I did, I had not properly understood them. For example, the idea that public health does not have to suffer even though the economy is suffering- if a government chooses to continue or increase spending on public health, its people will be better cared for and the economy can bounce back. What helped me understand this concept the was the authors’ distinction between personal debt and government debt. When I hear the word “debt”, I assume that the most important and effective course of action would be one that decreases spending immediately, in an effort to build up savings and avoid slipping further into debt. But the economist understands that there is a fundamental difference between government debt and personal debt, and that spending on social projects is essential in protecting the people during an economic crisis. “What the Great Depression shows us is that even the worst economic catastrophe need not cause people’s health to suffer, if politicians take the right steps to protect people’s health.”
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Apr 14
The Body Economic
David Stuckler and Sanjay Basu’s work, The Body Economic, is the latest reading that attempts to tear away the wool covering–or more accurately, enswathing—our eyes. The crux of their argument, at least according to my understanding, is the idea that by adopting strict measures of austerity during a financial crisis, the public health of the greater population is placed in harms way. Though the idea of spending and saving wisely, especially during hard times, is a deeply respected value, the fact that frugality and thriftiness are proven to work on an individual and communal level should not imply that the same practices would be effective on an administrative plane. Rather the two authors assert, quite convincingly, that “austerity” as a nationwide economic policy is not a sound practice, it is merely an ill-advised attempt at repairing an economy on the fly.
Though my opinion does not mean much, their claims seem to hold water. As far as I understand, an economy gets “fixed” when citizens are able to pour their hard-earned dollars back into the multitude of businesses, large and small, that comprise that country’s populace. If austere government policies lead to the physical debilitation of the general public, then the victims of the policies are rendered incapable of contributing to the “fixing” of the economy in any manner. Cutting-back is counterproductive.
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Apr 14
Economic Health & Human Health
David Stuckler makes a good argument about the detrimental effects of government spending cuts on public health.” When the government cuts spending, it reduces people’s income, leading to less business, more unemployment, and a vicious spiral of slowing down the economy.” The case with Kierren’s dad dying the day after being deemed “fit for work” by Cameron is an example of how budget cuts can lead to slowing down the economy. “During the late 1920s, the US super-rich—the Fords, Vanderbilts, Carnegies, and Rockefellers—were the masters of the country’s financial markets. This top 1 percent of the population held over 40 percent of America’s wealth.” Given that this time was the period right before the stock market crash and the Great Depression, having such a large wealth gap is not economically stimulating. Today’s figure of wealth inequality in the United States is completely analogous to the numbers of the late 1920s. David Stuckler writes, “As public health researchers, we were shocked and concerned at the illogic of the austerity advocates, and the hard data on its human and economic costs. We realized the impact of the Great Recession went far beyond people losing their homes and jobs. It was a full-scale assault on people’s health. At the heart of the argument was the question of what it means to be a society, and what the appropriate role of government is in protecting people.” The initial threat to health was the increased suicide rate after Black Tuesday. Similarly to the Great Recession of recent years, Stucklet finds that the suicide and fall-in traffic death rates have increased. Stuckler compares the New Deal, Shock Therapy in Russia, and the IMF programs in Asian all show how the most vulnerable members of economy feel the worse effects of austerity programs with large budget cuts, intended to improve economic health but actually hurt it while also hurting human public health.
