How cuts can kill

With the effects of austerity continuing to be felt on an international scale, more research is being carried out the impact this is having on the lives of working and middle class people. Cambridge economist and researcher David Stuckler has produced the results of his research in a book, The Body Economic.

In the book, Stuckler concentrates his research on the current crisis in Europe and North America, as well as drawing on previous economic slumps such as the Great Depression in the 1930s and Russia’s post-Stalinist transformation.

Stuckler’s research reveals that since austerity programmes were began, more than ten thousand additional suicides and up to a million extra cases of depression have been recorded across the two continents. The message he sends here is that ‘recessions can hurt, but austerity kills’.

Greece (see picture) is offered up as the most pertinent example of the results of a brutal neo-liberal austerity package. Where suicide rates were one of the lowest in Europe, it has exploded in Greece by 60% since the beginning of the crisis.

Infection by HIV infection has doubled where cuts to the supply of clean needles, surgical gloves and basic equipment has fallen, with the health service slashed by 40%. Youth unemployment has hit 64% on average while 150,000 civil service jobs, as demanded by the ‘Troika’ are set to go this year. Homelessness is up by one quarter, with some of them formerly middle class.

Desperation in Greece has found a worrying outlet through the rise in the usage of the deadly shisha drug, or ‘cocaine of the poor’. At less than a pint of beer , the €2-per-hit – frequently mixed with battery acid, engine oil or shampoo – is a cheap alternative to crystal meth. It is an ‘austerity drug’. As two users commented to The Guardian: “It burns your insides, makes you aggressive and ensures you go totally mad. But it is cheap and easy to get”.

“It is a killer, but it also makes you want to kill. You can kill without understanding that you have done it. It is spreading faster than death. A lot of users have died”

Keynesianism

While desperate sections of the Greek working and middle class turn to an ‘austerity drug’, Stuckler suggests the ‘medicine of growth’ as an alternative to that favoured by the ‘junkies of austerity’ in the Troika.

He uses the example of Iceland and Sweden as an alternative, emphasising Keynesian policies of stimulating the economy by means of limited investment. Iceland, which had a debt of 800% GDP, devalued its currency to 77% then 50%, increasing tourism and fish exports. Foreclosures were ended, housing debts were suspended and a stimulus package enabled.

Growth is over 4%. Stuckler points out that as a result of these policies, there has not been a dramatic social collapse like that of Greece, or even Britain. However, structural problems remain; household debt is 200% of income, and wages have stagnated or decreased. Similarly, in the USA, despite a stimulus package which will cost $878 billion over a decade, five million Americans have lost access to healthcare due to job losses. Indeed, as the recent riots in Sweden have shown, stimulus or emphasis on welfare on a capitalist basis does not guarantee immunity from the economic headwinds currently blowing.

This intense pressure is mirrored in Britain, which, unlike Greece, is not in outright depression, but is operating in ‘slow motion, suffering a prolonged economic stagnation. Homelessness is up 10% since 2011 to 53,450 households, and families confined to temporary bed and breakfast is up year on year.

A silent death toll continues to rise. Studies into the effects of the cuts to Employment Support Allowance have found that on average, thirty-two people die every week as a result of worsened ill-health or suicide, in the period after or during the assessment by private health company ATOS.

A second wave of suicides has risen in areas worst affected by the crisis. A recent tragic example is that of Stephanie Bottrill, a victim of the bedroom tax’. Unable to cope with the £20-per-week cut and struggling with ill-health, she decided she couldn’t ‘afford to live anymore ‘and took her own life. Stephanie’s suicide note to her family read: “Don’t blame yourself for me ending my life. The only people to blame are the government”.

Socialist Alternative

“Investing in programme that protect the nation’s health is not only the right thing to do, it can help spur economic recovery.”

Stuckler call for a programme of limited investment which would provide a degree of amelioration for those worst hit by the crisis.

However, Keynesian measures are not a long-term solution to deep structural problems of capitalism which exist: mass unemployment, growing inequality and huge levels of debt.

Only a socialist programme, which can harness the massive resources and potential which exist under capitalism, can solve the uncertain future facing working and middle class people on an international scale.