Austerity’s three pressures function to foreclose the imagination of alternatives.

Evidence

This is the austerity trinity of fiscal, monetary, and industrial pressures. They have little to do with technicalities like balancing the budget and much to do with maintaining a society of few winners and many losers, increasingly isolated and trapped in material conditions that prevent them from carving out time and space to imagine a different social model. — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 156

Categorization

• DEFINE: Names the ‘austerity trinity’ — fiscal, monetary, industrial — as the book’s core analytic frame.
• XREF: Directly feeds her ‘invisible order’ thesis from the reading purpose: austerity keeps the capital order appearing as natural fact rather than political choice. — connects to: Austerity is voluntary deflation achieved by cutting state budgets to restore competitiveness — Mark Blyth, Austerity: The History of a Dangerous…, 25; Austerity structurally dismantled the workers’ movement and its economic alternatives — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order: How Economists…, 654; Austerity has three forms that jointly transfer wealth to creditors and employers. — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order: How Economists…, 46 (+3 more)