Austerity is where you coerce a huge amount of money from the population, ostensibly in order to pay for services, but then because you ran up a huge debt, you instead use that tax revenue to cover the interest payments on that debt, instead of using the revenue to pay for the services you originally promised.

Of course then the people suffer as all their food and education are cut, and the New Yorker writes articles saying "Austerity Doesn't Work."

But in fact what they should be saying is, "Coercing Money From People Is Wrong." That money never should have been coerced in the first place. Then the people would have been able to spend it however they wanted, instead of having to get all upset that a bunch of politicians and bankers blew the money (surprise, surprise.)

The people should also be ashamed of themselves to whatever degree they voted for coercion in the first place. They were bribed into doing so by promises of services -- services they didn't get -- the promise of which was enough for them to justify in their minds the robbing of their fellow man.

Well when everybody is robbing everybody, only poverty can result. The moral of the story isn't that austerity failed -- it's that we shouldn't be violating people's property rights in the first place, and we certainly shouldn't be bribing others to vote for it.