Austerity needed economic theory to justify unpopular cutbacks after World War I

Evidence

In sum, Hawtreyan economics spread far and wide, becoming embedded in the worldview of the most commanding minds of the leading technocratic institutions that implemented austerity aft er World War I. In a moment when budget cuts and dear money policies had lost their veneer as “natural” policies and faced harsh public backlash, they required economic theory to justify them. Th eir grounding in economic theory came through the personalities at the levers of power. Th is was the true novelty of austerity— a project that was at once theoryand policymaking, at once an ideological, material, and personal process. — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 874

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the ‘true novelty of austerity’ — that it fused theory with policy and personal power.
• ADDENDUM: Connects to the reader’s austerity-as-class-weapon framing: the theory-legitimation function is a core mechanism of using austerity as a class weapon.
• XREF: connects to: Austerity lacks an actual theory and is only a default sensibility in liberal economics — Mark Blyth, Austerity: The History of a Dangerous…, 264; Keynesianism displaced austerity because it explained normal times, not just slumps — Mark Blyth, Austerity: The History of a Dangerous…, 340; Austerity originated after World War I as a counteroffensive against working-class unrest — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order: How Economists…, 28 (+7 more)