Austere economies structurally disempower those who would protest austerity

Evidence

But if this book highlights one thing, it’s that the perpetuation of austerity to this day should not be reduced to a matter of irrationality or bad economic theory from the experts who run economies. Austerity is a tool to maintain capitalist social relations of production— to maintain class. In an austere capital order, popular protests may arise, but the protesters face a political landscape that structurally disempowers them: it’s hard to protest capitalist austerity when you have to depend on capitalism to survive. — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 1541

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s broader reading on austerity-as-class-weapon across interwar and modern contexts; also echoes the structural-disempowerment dynamics seen in economic coercion literature. — connects to: Austerity structurally dismantled the workers’ movement and its economic alternatives — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order: How Economists…, 654; Austerity policies function to silence working class economic demands — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order: How Economists…, 774; Technocracy’s economic authority disarms citizens of agency to contest austerity — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order: How Economists…, 819 (+7 more)
• SEED: Angles toward an essay on how dependency-on-capitalism-for-survival is the unremarked mechanism that makes austerity politically self-enforcing, beyond any election loss.

Broader Connections

• Austerity regimes aim to break organized labor #expands (0.80) — Gary Mongiovi, Austerity Is an Antidemocratic Strategy…, 83
• Monetary austerity deliberately induced recession to discipline workers. #expands (0.75) — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 154
• Austerity transforms neoliberal rationality from freedom toward sacrifice. #expands (0.72) — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos, 135