Austerity rhetoric demanded whole nations work, live, and save harder.

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 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

4. The austerity politics ensuing from these crises and the transformation of neoliberal rationality that such politics entail, from limitless to constrained, from freedom to sacrifice. — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos, 135 (#expands, via linked claim)

In the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis, for example, 700 billion taxpayer dollars and over five million homeowners were fed to banks “too big to fail.” Thus we are returned to the religious valence of sacrifice. In shared sacrifice for economic restoration, we sacrifice “to,” rather than “for,” and make an offering to a supreme power on which we are radically dependent, but that owes us nothing. We are called to offer life to propitiate and regenerate its life-giving capacities … but without any guarantee that the benefits of this sacrifice will redound to us. — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos, 426 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Austerity frames national crisis as requiring patriotic individual sacrifice in frugality and labor — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order: How Economists…, 803; Austerity calls for sacrifice to the economy as an unreturned offering. — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism’s…, 426; Austerity transforms neoliberal rationality from freedom toward sacrifice. — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism’s…, 135 (+3 more)

Related

• Austerity frames national crisis as requiring patriotic individual sacrifice in frugality and labor (similarity 0.93)
• Austerity was framed as a nation’s moral duty requiring harder work and savings (similarity 0.89)
• Austerity calls for sacrifice to the economy as an unreturned offering. (similarity 0.89)
• Austerity was framed by its architects as redemptive sacrifice required for recovery (similarity 0.86)
• Austerity transforms neoliberal rationality from freedom toward sacrifice. (similarity 0.85)
• Austerity-era sacrifice drops the trickle-down promise that sacrifice would benefit the poor (similarity 0.85)
• Austerity policies required sacrificing the welfare of most British citizens (similarity 0.82)
• Austerity is economically irrational yet politically rational for preserving capitalism (similarity 0.81)
• Austerity’s rhetorical self-presentation as honest thrift masks its antidemocratic purpose. (similarity 0.81)
• Austerity’s shared sacrifice redirects public rage away from banks. (similarity 0.80)
• Austerity’s architects aimed to convert wartime sacrifice into a permanent universal norm (similarity 0.80)
• Austerity began as patriotic wartime sacrifice framed as self-denial (similarity 0.80)
• Austerity politics endured because publics willingly embraced ascetic sacrifice (similarity 0.80)
• Moralistic narratives are flexibly deployed to justify diverse austerity outcomes. (similarity 0.80)
• Austerity framed economic crisis as caused by governments and workers, not capital (similarity 0.80)

Broader Connections

• Austerity frames national crisis as requiring patriotic individual sacrifice in frugality and labor #corroborates (0.93) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 803
• Austerity transforms neoliberal rationality from freedom toward sacrifice. #expands (0.85) — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos, 135
• Austerity calls for sacrifice to the economy as an unreturned offering. #corroborates (0.82) — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos, 426
• Monetary austerity was designed to moralize and discipline economic behavior toward thrift #expands (0.80) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 759