Humankind cannot bear very much austerity, a comment on the Greek 'no' vote, (with apologies to T.S. Eliot.)

I am not at all surprised at the 'no to further austerity' vote that was the result of Sunday's referendum in Greece.

I do not think that the collective population of a country in financial distress is very different from a single human being in the same position.

When I worked at the Citizens Advice Bureau a good proportion of our clients were people who, through no fault of their own, had got into debt.   Sometimes this was the result of profligacy, but far more often it was due to some 'life accident' such as illness, bereavement or divorce.

As a matter of course we would sit down with our distressed client and work out a personal budget for them, seeking some relief from their creditors and mapping a way towards solvency once again.

What we learned very quickly however is that people can only 'economise' for a limited period.  For a while they can manage without things that, although not absolutely essential for survival, make life worth living.  Ask them to follow a regime of personal austerity for too long however, and failure to keep to the repayment plan was the inevitable outcome.  Experience taught us in fact that five years is generally the maximum time that people can 'do without'.

The corollory to this was that if the position was too hopeless, and the time of austerity necessary unreasonably long, then bankrupcy, and the relatively clean sheet that that offered, was the better option.