Austerity frames national crisis as requiring patriotic individual sacrifice in frugality and labor

Evidence

Hence, the experts forged the drastic cure of austerity: a doctrine of economy and hard work, ostensibly for the good of nations (or at least their economies). As framed, austerity was about individual sacrifi ce on the part of “patriotic” citizens who had to practice frugality in lifestyle and discipline in labor. Half a century later, in 1979, the powerful Chair of the American Federal Reserve, Paul Volcker, used the same mantra to tackle another great crisis: “the American standard of living must decline” (Rattner 1979), he announced, while supporting the government’s fi rm resolve to break strikes and delivering on a shocking dosage of dear money. — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 803

Categorization

• XREF: Direct continuity from 1920s technocratic austerity to Volcker’s 1979 monetary shock — the exact bridge to modern neoliberalism the reader is tracking. — connects to: A tiny economy’s crisis was weaponized as a metaphor for austerity — Mark Blyth, Austerity: The History of a Dangerous…, 202; Austerity politics endured because publics willingly embraced ascetic sacrifice — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities: Living with…, 113; The crisis-as-government-fault narrative was engineered to justify austerity — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 950 (+13 more)
• ADDENDUM: The ‘patriotic citizen’ + sacrifice framing directly parallels the moral-panic and sacrificial-gift logics in the ‘On Sacrifice’ article: austerity is presented as a civic sacrificial offering.

Broader Connections

• Austerity began as patriotic wartime sacrifice framed as self-denial #corroborates (0.92) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 897
• Austerity transforms neoliberal rationality from freedom toward sacrifice. #expands (0.80) — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos, 135