Alesina’s IMF playbook explicitly deploys austerity to discipline workers

Evidence

In 2010, Alesina and his colleague Silvia Ardagna, chief European economist at Barclays, offered the same exact playbook as their fascist predecessors. They proposed supply-side reforms to deal with the European financial crisis, emphasizing the close link between fiscal austerity and industrial austerity as a way to discipline workers and increase investments. Cuts in social programs lead to reductions in public jobs and public wages, putting increased pressure on workers in the private sphere. In both cases, “the wage demanded by unions for private sector workers decreases, increasing profits, investments, and competitiveness.” — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 231

Categorization

• XREF: Crucial for the reader’s cross-case reconstruction: Alesina’s ‘same exact playbook as their fascist predecessors’ ties the Italy case to Mattei’s core class-discipline thesis. Directly connects to the reader’s interest in Italy as one of the four economists’ national cases. — connects to: IMF austerity economists reused the fascist playbook of labor discipline — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 231