Austerity experts sought to reimpose a top-down technocratic conception of knowledge

Evidence

Its emancipatory potential rested on the four main foundations explored above: the abolition of the fetish of “economic necessity”; the centrality of workers’ agency (theoretical, economic, and political); the connection between theory and practice; and the connection between the political and economic domains. Th ese foundations broke away from any topdown and technocratic conception of knowledge— a conception of knowledge that the austerity experts would indefatigably strive to reestablish. — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 580

Categorization

• XREF: The four foundations directly foreshadow and are defined against the austerity worldview developed in the book’s later chapters; connects to the reader’s stated goal of tracing austerity as class weapon. — connects to: Technocratic ideology’s core is erasing the practice-technology distinction. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 2702; Interwar experts sold austerity as objective science concealing true economic facts from the people — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order: How Economists…, 744; Austerity masquerades as apolitical science while bending workers to capital’s will (+6 more)
• DEFINE: Encodes the key antithetical frame: workers’ self-knowledge vs. technocratic expert knowledge.

Broader Connections

• Interwar experts sold austerity as objective science concealing true economic facts from the people #exemplifies (0.92) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 744
• Economists depoliticized austerity by presenting class-based coercion as neutral expertise. #exemplifies (0.90) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 1569
• British experts knowingly framed class-targeted austerity pain as unavoidable natural law. #exemplifies (0.90) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 1030
• Technocrats used claims of objectivity to make austerity unopposable. #exemplifies (0.88) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 666
• Austerity masquerades as apolitical science while bending workers to capital’s will #exemplifies (0.85)