By Michael Hoexter
The austerity campaign, a favorite for the last four years of politicians and financial tycoons, remains a seemingly self-contradictory and baffling phenomenon for those who know that it goes against at least 80 years of economic wisdom regarding management of the economy. The campaign draws on irrational strains and inconsistencies in our economic self-understanding to turn politicians against the welfare of society and the economy as a whole as well as against their own interests as political leaders. Austerity appears to serve the perceived short-term interests of some sectors of the wealthy and the financial industry but the long-term interests of no one.
