Austerity architects preemptively grasped that workers hate wage cuts more than high prices

Evidence

Blackett displayed a sharp understanding of the political issues at stake: “Falling prices,” he emphasized, “are disliked by all traders, and however much a worker as a consumer may dislike high prices, he dislikes still more reductions in wages and lack of employment” (T 176/5, part 2, fol. 50). — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 1696

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: Blackett’s insight names the core political problem austerity’s designers knowingly faced: the working class’s worst fear is direct wage reduction, which is precisely why the design had to humiliate and disarm labor rather than rely on deflation alone. It is a rare moment of the planners conceding the human cost they were engineering around.