Austerity has three forms that jointly transfer wealth to creditors and employers.

Evidence

While regressive taxation imposes thrift on the majority and exempts the saverinvestor minority, budget cuts indirectly do the same: public resources are diverted from the many to the saverinvestor few, in that budget cuts come with the stated priority of paying back the debt that rests in the hands of national or international creditors. Similarly, monetary austerity, meaning monetary revaluation policies (such as an increase in interest rates and reduction in money supply) directly protect creditors and increase the value of their savings. Meanwhile organized labor has its hands tied, since having less money in circulation depresses the economy and diminishes the bargaining power of the working class. Finally, industrial austerity, which takes the form of authoritarian industrial policies (layoff s of public employees, wage reductions, unionand strikebusting, etc.), further protects vertical wage relations between owners and workers, fostering wage repression in favor of the higher profi t of the few. — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 46

Categorization

• DEFINE: Introduces the tripartite definition of austerity — fiscal, monetary, industrial — as a unified mechanism, not just budget-cutting.
• SEED: This three-part framework could anchor an essay contrasting common journalistic treatments of austerity as merely ‘spending cuts’ versus the fuller trinity.
• XREF: connects to: Austerity’s three policy forms work in unison to depress wages and shift wealth upward — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order: How Economists…, 45; Austerity is state intervention that transfers resources from workers to capital — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 195; Austerity is state intervention transferring resources from the many to the few — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism: An Intervention, 195 (+10 more)

Broader Connections

• Austerity is state intervention that transfers resources from workers to capital #exemplifies (0.95) — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 195
• Austerity’s real function is permanent structural extraction from many to few #exemplifies (0.92) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 657
• Austerity is state intervention transferring resources from the many to the few #exemplifies (0.90) — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 195
• Austerity is a recurring policy suite that entrenches wealth and private primacy #exemplifies (0.90) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 21
• Fiscal and monetary austerity jointly transfer capital accumulation costs onto working classes #exemplifies (0.90) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 774
• Austerity’s three pressures function to foreclose the imagination of alternatives. #expands (0.85) — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 156
• Austerity is a counteroffensive that shifts resources from workers to investors. #exemplifies (0.85) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 1467
• Monetary and fiscal austerity reinforce each other reciprocally #expands (0.85) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 773
• Fighting inflation transfers wealth from debtors to creditors and is not value-free #qualifies (0.80) — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 339
• Austerity reduces taxes on capital while raising taxes on labor income #exemplifies (0.80) — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 146
• Austerity is voluntary deflation achieved by cutting state budgets to restore competitiveness #qualifies (0.75) — Mark Blyth, Austerity, 25