Crashed: How a Decade of Financial Crises Changed the World

by Adam Tooze

By the spring of 2011 austerity was biting deep into the social fabric of Europe. Spending cuts and tax increases were slashing demand and squeezing economic activity. Across the eurozone, 10 percent of the workforce were unemployed. But unemployment for those between the ages of fifteen and twenty-four was 20 percent. And on the troubled periphery, the numbers were numbing in scale. In Ireland general unemployment reached 15 percent and youth unemployment 30 percent, in Greece 14 percent and 37 percent, respectively. In Spain 20 percent of all adults and 44 percent of young people were unemployed by the summer of 2011. Half a generation had their launch out of education and into working life aborted. Nevertheless, the demand for further austerity was unrelenting. After Ireland and Greece had subordinated themselves to troika programs, on March 23, 2011, Portugal’s prime minster, José Sócrates, resigned after failing to gain support for budget cuts. A week later, on April 2, Spain’s social democratic prime minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, announced that he would not run for reelection and would prioritize stabilizing Spain’s finances. On April 7 Portugal became the third country to place itself under a troika program.9