THE MEANING OF AUSTERITY.

       The word "austerity" is one we are all familiar with, but what exactly does it mean. Words always solicit meaning, they are not just designs on a piece of paper or noises that fall from our mouth. Say it "AUSTERITY" and try to visualise its meaning in the context of the capitalist world we live in. The word has pain, sorrow, it is a word that stifles potential and destroys creativity. It shreds the social fabric that is essential to be human, in a capitalist economy, this is the true meaning of that rather polite and simple word "AUSTERITY".

The following is an extract from John Halloway's Of Despair and Hope:

         To the misfits of the world, to all of us who do not conform to the closing of humanity: Now, more than ever, the world looks two ways at once. One face looks towards a dark, depressing world. A world of closing doors. A closing of lives, of possibilities, of hopes. These are times of austerity. You must learn to live with reality. You must obey if you want to survive, give up your dreams. Do not expect to live by doing what you like. You will be lucky to find a job at all. Perhaps you can study, but only if your parents have money. And, even then, do not think that you can study something critical. Criticism has fled from the universities and so much the better. What is the point of criticising when we all know that the world is set in its course? There is no alternative, just the reality of the rule of money, so forget your dreams. Obey, work hard in whatever scrap of employment you can find, or else look forward to a life of hunting through garbage cans, because there will be no welfare state to protect you. Look, look at Greece and be warned! That is the impoverishment you can expect, that is what will happen to you if you do not submit, that is the punishment meted out in this school of life to naughty children, to those who hope too much, to those who want too much. This lesson of despair was learnt very well, too well, by Dimitris Christoulas, who shot himself in Sintagma Square in the centre of Athens just a few weeks ago. A 77-year old ex-pharmacist whose pension was wiped out by the austerity measures imposed by the governments of Europe, he said “I can find no other solution than to put an end to my life before I start sifting through garbage cans for my food.” This is the meaning of austerity.

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