Austerity structurally dismantled the workers’ movement and its economic alternatives

Evidence

Austerity— both in its material form as a coercive policy and in its theoretical form as a consensusbuilding set of theories— repudiated the workers’ revolutionary wartime and postwar gains, especially those of the Ordinovista movement. Th e group’s practical and theoretical alternatives were the gravest enemy to the capitalist system, an enemy that originators of the austerity doctrine were determined to defeat. In fact, and as we shall further explore in the second half of the book, austerity smashes the Ordinovista methodological/institutional foundations. Austerity a) renaturalizes the capitalist pillars of private property and wage relations; b) denies the political and economic agency of workers; c) vindicates the priority of topdown economic science; and d) reasserts the divide between the economic and the political. — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 654

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines austerity itself as a dual material and theoretical counter-revolution against worker gains.
• XREF: connects to: Works councils failed to dominate as workers’ representatives by the late 1950s — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 2072; A tiny economy’s crisis was weaponized as a metaphor for austerity — Mark Blyth, Austerity: The History of a Dangerous…, 202; Broader neoliberal shifts enabled austerity’s return to economic common sense — Mark Blyth, Austerity: The History of a Dangerous…, 406 (+36 more)

Broader Connections

• Austerity regimes aim to break organized labor #exemplifies (0.90) — Gary Mongiovi, Austerity Is an Antidemocratic Strategy…, 83
• Austere economies structurally disempower those who would protest austerity #expands (0.85) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 1541
• Austerity policies function to silence working class economic demands #exemplifies (0.85) — 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 framed economic crisis as caused by governments and workers, not capital #expands (0.80) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 783
• Austerity is a counteroffensive that shifts resources from workers to investors. #qualifies (0.80) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 1467
• Monetary austerity deliberately induced recession to discipline workers. #expands (0.75) — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 154
• Austerity masquerades as apolitical science while bending workers to capital’s will #expands (0.75)
• Austerity is state intervention transferring resources from the many to the few #qualifies (0.70) — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 195
• Austerity persists as an ideology that resists empirical refutation #complicates (0.70) — Mark Blyth, Austerity, 613