The Numbing Language That the Left Cannot Accept
This article was originally published by La Marea on 27 February 2024 and translated by John Collins.
How do we name things? Which words do we use, and in what context? It’s possible that some people - I’m thinking especially of economists - believe that it’s a waste of time to dwell on questions related to language. In their view, such things are undoubtedly marginal and of little importance, and they think that what really matters is to go directly to the heart of the issues: the diagnosis and the alternatives.
But it turns out that, on the contrary, it’s very necessary to focus on the terms that are habitually used in economics - and the so-called social sciences in general - and that are often taken for granted. Because these terms almost always have a purpose, which can be difficult or even annoying to uncover. In other words, language, seemingly innocuous, defines a playing field and also, in a way, the rules of the game as well as the possible explanations and alternatives. And this is no small thing.
Anti-austerity protest in Dublin, Ireland. (Photo: William Murphy from Dublin, Ireland, CC BY-SA 2.0)
The “common sense” language of austerity
There are many examples, such as “labor flexibility” or “reducing wages” or economic “rationality,” or when the people are asked to “tighten their belts.” I’m going to dwell here on the word “austerity,” which in everyday discourse is used in opposition to “waste,” as something good, a kind of virtue to be practiced. Following this statement, governments should be austere in their management of collective resources, just as families are when they manage their own budget. With that same common sense, applied to the management of public accounts, it’s assumed that income and expenses should tend to balance, that a good government shouldn’t spend more than it is able to collect, and that, in line with this statement, a central objective of economic policy should be to reduce levels of debt and public deficits.
This is a grave error precisely because the State, in order to meet the needs of its citizens and those of future generations, can and should spend more than what it takes in. On the other hand, although the “austere” family is invoked as an example of good conduct, pay attention, because the same people who raise the flag of austerity in the public sphere have defended, without blinking, an economic model based on waste, materialized in the excessive indebtedness of families and companies, a model that has been very lucrative for the elites and that brought us to the financial crash of 2008.
A conservative language coup?
“Policies of budgetary discipline promote, and are a determining factor in, the concentration of income and wealth. They penalize the most disadvantaged parts of the population by reducing the quantity and quality of public services - like health and education. Also, importantly, those who defend these policies do not open the door to collecting more from those at the top, which would be another way to clean up public accounts.”
This approach to budgetary austerity goes even deeper. Situating the argumentation within these parameters means accepting the fact that the origin of the crisis lies in supposedly wasteful public spending. Hence the urgent need to implement austerity policies, which in Europe have taken the form of the Stability and Growth Pact, whose application was suspended during the pandemic and has now returned, fundamentally intact. Another profound implication of this argument involves presupposing that the public sector is intrinsically inefficient, in contrast to private initiative, which is assumed to be efficient by definition. This is pure ideology that has nothing to do with reality, but it ends up permeating the population.
We already have the straitjacket on, and it’s very hard to get rid of it. The debate now is not about the “what” but rather about the “how”; that is, in determining the best way to achieve the undiscussable objective of economic policy: budgetary discipline.
There is no “right” or “left” in economics, only pure rationality. Conservative thinking wins by a landslide. Not only does it impose a specific form of economic policy that gives priority to the management of aggregate demand via the contraction of public spending; not only is it assumed that the key to economic growth and structural transformation lies in permanent budgetary adjustments. There is much more.
The material implications of language
Policies of budgetary discipline promote, and are a determining factor in, the concentration of income and wealth. They penalize the most disadvantaged parts of the population by reducing the quantity and quality of public services - like health and education. Also, importantly, those who defend these policies do not open the door to collecting more from those at the top, which would be another way to clean up public accounts. It is true that in recent times, there is more attention paid to the privileged position of the oligarchies, which have not stopped enriching themselves during the financial crisis and wars, but not enough is being done to reverse the fiscal privileges of those who enjoy them.
A final reflection on the scope of taking for granted the term “austerity” in reference to the strategy for governments to follow. There is a whole corporate dynamic whose objective - never stated explicitly, of course - is to enter in the spaces and activities that are currently administered publicly with State resources. I’m not only referring to the areas mentioned previously - health and education - but to everything that has to do with managing collective issues and the growing business related to technological and so-called “green” policies where huge amounts of government money are being spent. To achieve this, nothing is more beneficial than degrading the public sector and depriving it of resources and capacities.
And in the political arena, we should be aware of the deep impact of these “austerity” strategies. In reality, without euphemisms, what they are trying to do, and what they are achieving, is the growing privatization of assets and public management itself, attacking one of the fundamental pillars on which a Left policy committed to the poor and the fight against poverty would be based and which would lose legitimacy, especially when this Left adopts the discourse of austerity in fundamental ways.
Pay attention, because in this process of delegitimization, conditions are created for the entry and growing influence of the most reactionary and extreme right-wing parties.
