The public services and the social order

One of the defining features of the Age of Austerity has been the programme of cuts in public services. As soon as the crisis began to destabilise public finances, depleted by the rescue of financial intermediaries in all the affluent countries, the knee-jerk reaction was for governments to prune expenditure on the collective infrastructure of social provision. In response, public service staff rallied in protest against redundancies, effective cuts in pay, and (in the United Kingdom as well as Greece and Ireland) raised ages for retirement and increased pensions contributions, as well as reductions in provision for citizens.