The inhuman economy

The Inhuman Economy unravels the public health effects of choosing between fiscal austerity policies and state stimulus in the economy.

Much is said about the severe economic and social impacts of financial crises, but their disastrous effects on human health continue to be ignored and, therefore, exacerbated by the adoption of indiscriminate austerity measures and the reduction of social programs during times when people need them most. While economic policies cannot be directly blamed for the diseases that affect a country's population, they undoubtedly act as underlying factors, determining which groups of people are exposed to the greatest health risks.

In this provocative book, public health experts David Stuckler and Sanjay Basu gather data that show how government policy becomes a matter of life and death during recessionary times. Historical case studies—ranging from 1930s America, through Russia and Indonesia in the 1990s, to more recent periods in Greece, Great Britain, Spain, and the United States—reveal that many countries have turned their economic crises into veritable epidemics, ruining or extinguishing thousands of lives while misguidedly trying to balance budgets and shore up financial markets, resulting in a grim array of human tragedies, from suicides to HIV infections.

However, during the Great Depression, deaths in the US fell, and recently Iceland, Norway, and Japan have been happier and healthier than before, proving that public welfare need not be sacrificed for fiscal health.

Filled with shocking and counterintuitive revelations and bold policy recommendations, The Inhuman Economy offers an alternative to austerity that will prevent widespread suffering, both now and in the future.

Excerpt from the introduction: “When we think about the economic body, we seek to understand how government budgets and economic choices affect life and death, resilience, and risk in entire populations around the world. [...] Economic forces determine who is most likely to get drunk, contract tuberculosis in a homeless shelter, or sink into depression. These forces can affect not only risk but also protection, determining who is most likely to get social support, keep a roof over their head, or bounce back from a bad patch in life. This is why even a small change in public budgets can have large—and possibly unintended—effects on the economic body, for better or for worse. [...]

If austerity experiments had been guided by the same rigorous standards adopted in clinical trials, they would have been discontinued long ago by a medical ethics board. The side effects of austerity treatments have been severe and often lethal. The benefits of the treatment have not been realized.