Austerity doctrines explicitly justified suspending electoral accountability as institutional virtue

Evidence

For Mario Monti, for instance, the taming of democratic rule was perfectly in line with the functioning of a modern polity. He developed these ideas in an essay co-authored with French MEP Sylvie Goulard (On Democracy in Europe: Looking Ahead), which contains all the primary arguments he repeatedly deployed as Italy’s (unelected) head of government. In this view, democracy is inherently plagued by the risk of short-termism and electioneering. It should therefore be mitigated by shielding the deciders from “excessive” electoral pressure and enabling them to take the decisions that meet the interests of the people when these “are at variance with their inclinations,” quoting American Founding Father Alexander Hamilton. The role of institutions is thus to protect voters from their own irrationality, and to give policies a long-term scope that might safely contradict voters’ immediate needs. Austerity is the most striking example of such a logic, since it consists of sacrificing present well-being in the name of a promised brighter future, and thus requires independent institutions with the capacity to administer the bitter medicine to the patient in his own interest—even if it’s against his will. — Arthur Borriello and Anton Jäger, The Populist Moment, 115

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: A striking admission that the ‘independent institution’ ideal of depoliticized governance is openly paternalist — a sitting head of government published that protecting voters from their own irrationality is the point of institutions. Dense and paradigm-shifting on the austerity debate.
• XREF: Echoes the paternalism-vs-emancipation debate from the Gehlen-Adorno showdown in the Frankfurt School book, and echoes the critique of ‘shielding the deciders’. — connects to: The gold standard naturalized austerity by removing it from political dispute — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order: How Economists…, 1302; Economic theory gives austerity legitimacy that complements raw state coercion — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order: How Economists…, 861; Austerity politics rest on the belief that democracy cannot produce sound economic policy — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order: How Economists…, 1581 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Fascist Italy let pure-economics theorists apply austerity free of democratic constraint #exemplifies (0.82) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 53
• Austerity politics rest on the belief that democracy cannot produce sound economic policy #corroborates (0.80) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 1581
• The gold standard naturalized austerity by removing it from political dispute #expands (0.75) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 1302
• Economic theory gives austerity legitimacy that complements raw state coercion #expands (0.72) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 861