The Politics of Austerity: How Cuts, Control, and “Sound Economics” Shape Our Lives

Name: The Politics of Austerity: How Cuts, Control, and “Sound Economics” Shape Our Lives
Start: 2026-03-20T12:00:00+00:00
Location: The Out of the Blue Drill Hall

Schedule

Fri, 20 Mar, 2026 at 12:00 pm

UTC+00:00

Location

The Out of the Blue Drill Hall | Edinburgh, SC

Austerity is often sold as a matter of “living within our means” — a set of tough but necessary choices to balance the books. But as this session will explore, austerity is not an economic necessity; it’s a political choice. And it reaches far beyond welfare cuts. We’ll look at the three faces of austerity: fiscal (reduced public spending and social security), industrial (low wages, insecure jobs, and deindustrialisation that benefits global profits), and monetary (high interest rates and debt repayments that enrich the already wealthy). Together, these form a system designed to discipline workers, protect financial interests, and centralise power.
Using a heterodox lens, Political Economist William Thomson, will present an overview and then chair a session unpacking how institutions like the OBR, central banks, and “fiscal rules” cloak political decisions in the language of technocracy — as if economics were a natural law, rather than a human made system.
From the post-2008 crisis to today’s energy and housing struggles, austerity has persisted under the illusion of necessity, while fuelling inequality and resentment. This session asks us to see austerity for what it really is: not belt-tightening, but a deliberate restructuring of the economy — one that too often paves the way for authoritarian politics. Professor John T Harvey and Emma Holten, Author of "Deficit: How Feminist Economics Can Change Our World", join the panel.