000			02096nam a2200229Ia 4500
001			4894
008			250217s9999 xx 000 0 und d
010			_a2013041994
020			_a9780300212778
050			_aHC79.C6S263 2014
082			_a339.47--dc23
100			_aSchui, Florian _97032
245		0	_aAusterity: The Great Failure/ _cFlorian Schui
260			_bYale University Press; _c2014
300			_a232p; _c21x13cm
520			_aEconomic consumption-History; Thriftiness-History; Saving and Investment-History; Economic Policy-History Austerity is at the center of political debates today. Its defenders praise it as a panacea that will prepare the ground for future growth and stability. Critics insist it will precipitate a vicious cycle of economic decline, possibly leading to political collapse. But the notion that abstinence from consumption brings benefits to states, societies, or individuals is hardly new. This book puts the debates of our own day in perspective by exploring the long history of austerity—a popular idea that lives on despite a track record of dismal failure. Florian Schui shows that arguments in favor of austerity were—and are today—mainly based on moral and political considerations, rather than on economic analysis. Unexpectedly, it is the critics of austerity who have framed their arguments in the language of economics. Schui finds that austerity has failed intellectually and in economic terms every time it has been attempted. He examines thinkers who have influenced our ideas about abstinence from Aristotle through such modern economic thinkers as Smith, Marx, Veblen, Weber, Hayek, and Keynes, as well as the motives behind specific twentieth-century austerity efforts. The persistence of the concept cannot be explained from an economic perspective, Schui concludes, but only from the persuasive appeal of the moral and political ideas linked to it.
546			_aEnglish
650			_aBudget cuts _97033
650			_aFiscal policy- austerity _97034
650			_aHJ8001-8899 Public Finance- Public debts _97035
942			_cBK
999			_c4894 _d4894