I would highly recommend anyone with the time and bandwidth to check out this superb documentary on the subject of austerity from the vantage point of the Greek people.

From Richard Dienst, the author of The Bonds of Debt:

Mixing the pragmatic with the implacable, such attitudes—bedrock demands for social provision, terrible feelings of betrayal, and enduring outrage at the cruelty of contemporary capitalism—are animating new coalitions of the indebted around the world. It is not clear whether any political body within Greece will be able to promise a “sustainable” scheme of universal welfare, just as it is unclear whether any collective audience or addressee will be able to judge the economic crimes of recent history. In any case the events in Greece this week have not resolved the basic contradiction facing all of us between showing obedience to the dictates of the financial markets and taking responsibility for the common good. If anything, we have seen how far a government will go—eviscerating the public sector, levying punishing taxes across the board, selling off state assets, not to mention crushing dissent—to appear creditworthy to banks and bondholders. We have also seen how far indebted people will have to go—if long months of rational arguments, mass protests, and street confrontations aren’t enough, what would be?—to change an unsustainable, illegitimate, and immoral system.

- Richard Dienst