Austerity politics rest on the belief that democracy cannot produce sound economic policy

Evidence

As Pantaleoni put it bluntly in 1920, economic policy making could not be “at once popular and exact.” Th e problem of political democracy was that people did not understand what was in their best interests; they had to be kept away from economic decisions for their own good. Today’s austerity politics remain grounded in a drive to shield economic governance from popular opinion— to keep the economy from getting political. — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 1581

Categorization

• XREF: Connects directly to the reader’s central thesis of austerity as class weapon from interwar Italy to the present — the anti-democratic grounding of technocratic governance. — connects to: Austerity is not a coherent doctrine but derivative of scattered state-role beliefs — Mark Blyth, Austerity: The History of a Dangerous…, 66; Popular referendum success was overridden by technocratic austerity within two months — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order: How Economists…, 1562; Austerity is economically irrational yet politically rational for preserving capitalism (+3 more)
• SEED: Seed for an essay on how economic expertise has long framed democracy and popular will as obstacles to be engineered around.

Broader Connections

• Austerity is economically irrational yet politically rational for preserving capitalism #complicates (0.80)
• Neoliberal rationality reduces the very desire for democracy #expands (0.75) — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos, 398