Austerity’s deeper purpose is taming class conflict, not balancing budgets.
Evidence
First, austerity policies cannot be reduced to mere fi scal or monetary policies from central government institutions. Industrial policies, public and private, that create favorable conditions for profi t and discipline workers are central to austerity as well. Indeed, as the book will show, our experts’ fi xation on debt repayment, balanced budgets, foreign exchanges, and infl ation reveals a more fundamental purpose: taming class confl ict, which is essential for the continued reproduction of capitalism. — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 47
Categorization
- XREF: This echoes the reader’s framing of austerity as a ‘class weapon’ and connects to Miliband and other structural-Marxist accounts of the state. — connects to: Austerity is an effective class-structure instrument, not an economic error — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism: An Intervention, 142; Austerity is structural to capitalism, not a 1970s neoliberal aberration. — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism: An Intervention, 162; Austerity policies function to silence working class economic demands — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order: How Economists…, 774 (+7 more)
- DEEPTHINKING: The inversion of stated purpose (debt repayment) versus underlying function (class discipline) is a dense, paradigm-shifting claim about how to read all economic-policy discourse.
Broader Connections
- Austerity is a counteroffensive that shifts resources from workers to investors.
#expands(0.92) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 1467 - Austerity policies function to silence working class economic demands
#expands(0.90) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 774 - Austerity is an effective class-structure instrument, not an economic error
#corroborates(0.85) — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 142 - Austerity’s core purpose is to deepen workers’ dependence on wage labor
#expands(0.85) — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 145 - Austerity operates as capitalism’s counteroffensive against democratically empowered labor.
#corroborates(0.85) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 1547 - Austerity framed economic crisis as caused by governments and workers, not capital
#expands(0.80) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 783 - Austerity originated after World War I as a counteroffensive against working-class unrest
#expands(0.78) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 28 - Austerity is structural to capitalism, not a 1970s neoliberal aberration.
#corroborates(0.72) — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 162 - Economists depoliticized austerity by presenting class-based coercion as neutral expertise.
#qualifies(0.72) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 1569