Austerity doctrine emerged as a direct response to working-class radicalism.

Evidence

Alberto Beneduce, an Italian professor of economic statistics and CEO of the National Institution of Insurance (INA)— who would go on to have a lasting career as parliamentarian, senator, and economic adviser of Mussolini’s regime— had no doubt: it was necessary to “act upon public opinion, on the psychological state of the masses, so that they would no more impede but help to reestablish the budget of the State” (Verbatim Record, Brussels 1920, 75, my italics). Beneduce gave voice to these preoccupations during the plenary discussion of September 20, 1920. Th e date is signifi cant: on that day in his own country an unprecedented class struggle was at its peak. Th e factory occupation had been going on for almost a month. Th e “psychological state of the masses” seemed rather projected toward a postcapitalist society where private ownership and wage relations were to be abolished. — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 743

Categorization

• XREF: Directly serves the reader’s stated purpose: austerity as a class weapon responding to the 1919-20 factory occupations foreshadows the 1970s Volcker shock and Thatcher-era discipline of labor. — connects to: Austerity as a rationale emerged specifically to answer revolutionary workers’ councils; Austerity originated after World War I as a counteroffensive against working-class unrest — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order: How Economists…, 28; Austerity was capitalism’s manufactured response to worker challenges — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order: How Economists…, 585 (+6 more)
• DEEPTHINKING: Crystalizes the entire thesis of the book in a single vignette: the technocratic doctrine of fiscal austerity was born and articulated precisely as a countermeasure to the threat of postcapitalist revolution on the factory floor.
• BMF: The date-stamped moment where an economic doctrine is shaped by an ongoing factory occupation evokes the interlocking of political urgency and technocratic theory — resonant with the reader’s knowledge of Milgrom’s Champagne Fairs showing institutions arising from material conditions.

Broader Connections

• Austerity was capitalism’s manufactured response to worker challenges #corroborates (0.97) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 585
• Austerity originated after World War I as a counteroffensive against working-class unrest #corroborates (0.95) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 28
• Austerity arose in response to mass political challenge to capitalism itself #corroborates (0.95) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 798
• Capitalism’s 1918-20 crisis triggered austerity as a counterrevolutionary reaction. #corroborates (0.95) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 115
• The liberal funding anxiety hardened into austerity doctrine by the 1920s #expands (0.75) — Mark Blyth, Austerity, 270
• Austerity’s core purpose is to deepen workers’ dependence on wage labor #expands (0.72) — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 145
• Monetary austerity deliberately induced recession to discipline workers. #expands (0.70) — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 154
• Austerity policies function to silence working class economic demands #expands (0.70) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 774