The most interesting historical example of a prolonged austerity cure can be found in nineteenth-century Britain. As noted in Chapter 3, it would have taken a century of primary surpluses (of 2–3 points of GDP from 1815 to 1914) to rid the country of the enormous public debt left over from the Napoleonic wars. Over the course of this period, British taxpayers spent more on interest on the debt than on education. The choice to do so was no doubt in the interest of government bondholders but unlikely to have been in the general interest of the British people. It may be that the setback to
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