Evolution Of A Queen

“ Etymologically, “austerity” is a dispiriting word, descending from an Old French term for harshness and cruelty — and ultimately, perhaps unsurprisingly, from a Greek word describing bitterness so brutal it dries out the very tongue, on its way to breaking the heart. Economically, austerity — which the Germans, among others, are intent on forcing upon their southern brethren — can sound like a good idea, but might actually exacerbate the conditions it ostensibly ameliorates. One day, we might look back on cuts in public services and infrastructure during a downturn with the same disbelief with which today’s doctors recall the medieval medicine of deliberately cutting and bleeding the sick. And yet austerity, the beautiful word alone, is simply irresistible. It feels decadent and vulgar to ask one’s government, or oneself, not to be austere. Why? To start, there’s a hint of ethical propriety: it feels righteous to contemplate tightening the belt, cutting the fat, putting the house in order (especially when it’s someone else’s belt, fat and house). Although the management of an economy is entirely different from the kitchen-table budgeting to which it is reductively compared, it feels vaguely virtuous to imagine avoiding borrowing and lending altogether — even as our current system of capital depends on those very practices.