Austerity, like old age crept up on us, and it is not going away without a revolution.

On the final day of August, rain falls desolately, washing away the last bits of summer.

It's Saturday, but the vibe outside, as well as my mood, is Sunday.

Labour Day long weekends produce an emotion akin to coming to terms with a divorce or break-up.

It's grief because things are ending, and the seasons coming embrace the poor with a bleak harshness. I feel short-changed by summer this year. It didn't give me the mood I desired, an idle contentment at the state of existence mine- and the world's.

Photo by Alonso Reyes on Unsplash

At least for July and August, one should be allowed to live like the grasshopper of Aesop's fable rather than an ant, who because the times are cruel ends up no better for his labours than the multilegged gadfly, that did nothing all summer long but enjoy the moments passing by.

My apartment window is open. Damp air scented by the deep-fried food sold at the concession stands of my city's Agriculture Society's Fall fair, a block north from me, wafts into the living room. The smell reminds me of all the other amusement parks I’ve been to in my life, Blackpool, Coney Island, Gorky Park and Toronto’s CNE.

This year- there is no Ferris Wheel, which I miss because it always looked forlorn as if it had a meaning so much deeper than its purpose for entertaining diversion. My city is not the same geography. But it emoted a feeling similar to how Malcolm Lowry described the Ferris Wheel in his novel Under the Volcano, which turned backwards against the shadow of two dead volcanic mountains in the distance.

Last night at the Fair, a Donnybrook broke out between different groups in attendance. The causes of the mini-riot are still to be determined.

I am sure the decades long post-industrial despair this city has experienced, along with a perpetual cost of living crisis, had its part to play.

The absence of hope combined with drink, drugs, and a pocket full of grievances- legitimate and erroneous is the best kindling to erupt a fire of raging fists.

In Britain, my other country, it is year fourteen on neoliberalism's calendar of austerity.

Keir Starmer announced this week that tough choices were to be made- to save Britain from wearing a barrel like a bankrupt stock broker after the Wall Street Crash of 1929.

It was the same old bullshit about how the previous government had decimated the treasury and spent what they didn't have.

Starmer, in the fashion of all neoliberals, pretends government spending is like household spending without pointing out that debt can be incurred without much punishment- when you are a nation and therefore immortal.

It may as well have been 2010, my father, alive, with us working on The Harry's Last Stand project. Plus ça change.

Austerity in the 21st century isn't about solving economic problems. It is a device neoliberalism uses to control wages for the ordinary worker whilst enriching the entitled through the privatisation and the delivery of public infrastructure. For our era, austerity is a wealth transfer of your hard work to the nation's 1%.

When austerity was imposed in the past, taxes for all citizens increased, and consumer goods and basic needs were rationed.

More or less, citizens assumed the burden of austerity, equal to their wealth.

The austerity of Labour's 1945-1951 government resulted in a Britain with affordable housing, free, public healthcare, free post-secondary education, the nationalising of key industries and an increase in wages for ordinary workers. Today, affordability is on ration in days of rain or economic sunshine for the state.

Unless you are a top-income earner, your life, from 1979 has been lived under some form of austerity because that was when the state began to recede into neoliberalism.

For much of it didn't seem as bleak as now because we were younger and more optimistic that destiny would bend in our favour.

I always believed I'd somehow survive and ride the tidal wave unleashed by the greed of the 1% if not to shore- a safe harbour.

Now, I live by the day and take it as a small victory if I survive a week and into the next month.

The cost of living crisis is a permanent fixture of life in Europe, Britain, North America, Australia, New Zealand and South America. Every nation has been touched by it because neoliberalism is everywhere like microplastics.

Like age, austerity has crept up on us. It's here to stay unless we change- not only- the political system but also the news media that maintains this system of inequality.

Thanks for all your continuing support. You have been great, and I am so pleased my Substack has nearly 2400 subscribers- 221 of which are paid. I am building a community here, but it is slow and arduous work.

This month I have published over 25k words here, which is a lot of words. To be honest too many words. If I wasn't so short of cash the post would be fewer but more polished. But that isn't happening anytime soon if ever. I still have a bit to cover for my rent. So, if you can and only if you can please subscribe to my Substack or use the Tip Jar. I am reducing a yearly subscription by 20% because it is a fire sale, of sorts. Take care because I know many of you are sharing the same boat with me.