Austerity’s rhetorical self-presentation as honest thrift masks its antidemocratic purpose.

Evidence

Part of what makes austerity so eff ective as a set of policies is that it packages itself in the language of honest, hardscrabble economics. … In this way, austerity must be understood for what it is and remains: an antidemocratic reaction to threats of bottomup social change. — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 40

Categorization

• SEED: Article angle: why the most class-weaponizing policies always arrive dressed as moral virtue — a rhetoric-tracking essay on austerity’s packaging.
• XREF: connects to: Monetary austerity was designed to moralize and discipline economic behavior toward thrift — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order: How Economists…, 759; Austerity transforms neoliberal rationality from freedom toward sacrifice. — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism’s…, 135; Austerity self-perpetuates by generating consent for privatizing governments — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 235 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Austerity self-perpetuates by generating consent for privatizing governments #expands (0.75) — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 235
• Monetary austerity was designed to moralize and discipline economic behavior toward thrift #expands (0.72) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 759
• Austerity transforms neoliberal rationality from freedom toward sacrifice. #expands (0.72) — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos, 135
• Austerity compelled sacrifice without criticism, making it repressive as well as antidemocratic. #expands (0.72) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 1024