The Austerian Mask Slips

[phantom power]

It's always, always, always about killing social programs.

Simon Wren-Lewis looks at France, and finds that it is engaging in a lot of fiscal austerity — far more than makes sense given the macroeconomic situation. He notes, however, that France has eliminated its structural primary deficit mainly by raising taxes rather than by cutting spending.

And Olli Rehn — who should be praising the French for their fiscal responsibility, their willingness to defy textbook macroeconomics in favor of the austerity gospel — is furious, declaring that fiscal restraint must come through spending cuts.

As Wren-Lewis notes, Rehn is very clearly overstepping his bounds here: France is a sovereign nation, with a duly elected government — and is not, by the way, seeking any kind of special aid from the Commission. So he has no business whatsoever telling the French how big their government should be.

But the larger point here, surely, is that Rehn has let the mask slip. It’s not about fiscal responsibility; it never was. It was always about using hyperbole about the dangers of debt to dismantle the welfare state. How dare the French take the alleged worries about the deficit literally, while declining to remake their society along neoliberal lines?

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/09/03/the-austerian-mask-slips/

[Hestia]

1. This needs to be read by the P*I*G*S countries and take their sovereignty back like France

Well, who never seems to have lost the sense of it; I guess it comes from being a centuries old culture.

[haele]

2. Of course. The Austerity solution is always about letting the community fend for itself.

Social Darwinism; one needs to negotiate one's survival via the highest bidder method.
Everything has a cost. If you have enough money to buy your own freedom to move and live as you like, that's great.

If you don't, then you put yourself on the market until someone takes enough mercy on you to buy you whatever standard of living they think your labor is worth to them.

And if no one who is wealthy enough wants to buy you, you can just go away. You have no value.

That's the "Free Market" - which is all good, even if it has to resort to Austerity when things don't meet the expected Status Quo.
The Free Market promotes personal responsibility, strong people, strong character, etc, etc, etc...

Now, if the State gets involved because there is a concern about those who have "no value", or wants to set regulations so that one single entity doesn't collect all the resources available under their control, why, that's Communism, of course. And Communism is Evil, promotes laziness, softness, corruption of our vital body fluids...

There is no in-between when looking at it from the economic Lords in their Corporate Throne Rooms - it's either the Free Market, or Communism.

Haele