Introduction

This introductory chapter sketches out some of the major debates concerning austerity, neoliberalism and work. Given the international content in this volume, austerity debates are sketched in broad strokes rather than being specific to national contexts. Austerity is viewed as a set of interwoven policies aimed at reducing public debt and expenditure, increasing consumer taxes and purportedly stimulating economic wellbeing through corporate tax cuts and support for private business. Since the 1970s, austerity policies have been closely associated with neoliberalism, a set of policies and processes that valorize the private market as the solution to all social and economic problems and seek to reduce or eliminate social entitlements and public provision (Harvey, 2007; Evans and McBride, 2017). Austerity policies are underscored by neoclassical economics assertions that cutting public budgets and reducing government debt will generate ‘confidence’ and a return to growth and prosperity during difficult economic times (Blyth, 2013, p 3).

The current wave of austerity policies stems from the aforementioned neoliberal economic consensus that pervades developed economies, albeit in an uneven way. The current iteration of austerity, rather than its ongoing presence as an integral part of neoliberalism (Pierson, 1998; Clarke, 2017), was triggered by the global financial crisis (GFC) of 2007– 08. Neoliberalism's emphasis on creating freedom of capital and lifting restrictions on international finance (Harvey, 2007) led to the financial ‘light touch’ regulation that governed the US sub-prime and other national housing markets. The financial crisis that followed the collapse of these housing markets threatened the entire global economy (Lethbridge, 2012). The initial government responses in 2008–09 were fiscal stimulus packages, which increased government borrowing and levels of debt, and simultaneously prevented deep and lasting recessions.

The second stage of crisis involved governments taking the opportunity of crisis to reduce the real and purportedly high accumulated levels of debt created by the GFC and previous decades of social spending (Mendoza, 2014; Stiglitz, 2014; Evans and McBride, 2017).