In the context of a late-developing, export-led economy that needs to force savings to catch up the British, this makes perfect sense: Erst Sparen—Dann Kaufen. But just as we saw in chapter 3, it rather spectacularly ignores the fact that for someone to be running an export surplus, someone else must be running a deficit. We cannot all run surpluses and save. Someone has to spend so that there is demand for these exports. Thus, a fallacy of composition of a different type rears its head again; and this is where the transfer of these austerity-based principles into the EU's constitutional framework and in Germany's policy response to the crisis, really shows up. If Germany's focus on rules, obligations, a strong monetary authority, a weak parliament, and no spending to compensate for busts sounds familiar, it should. It's the basic design of the EU. Germany's response to the crisis, and the crisis itself, both spring from the same ordoliberal instruction sheet.

Mark Blyth, Austerity, loc. 374