Assigning monetary management to a technocratic body was itself a deeply political act.

Evidence

Th e main contribution of Hawtreyan economics was to fortify the concept of monetary management (or austere management) of the market economy and to assign managerial command to a technocratic institution. As a private body, Hawtrey told us, the Bank of England was “free” to infl ict austerity without ever having to “explain,” “regret,” or “apologise.” In this sense it emerges that there was nothing more political than the technocratic mission to depoliticize. — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 1032

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines ‘Hawtreyan economics’ and its core contribution to the technocratic depoliticization of money — a key conceptual node for the book.
• XREF: Directly anticipates the modern central-bank independence literature (e.g., Alan Blinder, Paul Tucker) that still presents technocracy as apolitical. — connects to: State withdrawal from economics was itself a drastic political act disguised as technical reason — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order: How Economists…, 747; Power identifies itself by the effort spent effacing itself.

Broader Connections

• Power identifies itself by the effort spent effacing itself. #complicates (0.75)