Austerity was designed to reverse workers’ revolutionary wartime and postwar gains

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. — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 654

Categorization

• DEFINE: Establishes the claim that austerity is an active counter-revolutionary project, not a neutral fiscal technique.
• XREF: Connects to Mattei’s overall thesis that austerity is a class weapon, aligning with other accounts of austerity-as-political-project (Blyth, Streeck). — connects to: Labour historians retroactively minimized how close postwar Britain came to revolution — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order: How Economists…, 339; Austerity’s chief purpose was to depoliticize the economy after war dissolved that boundary. — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order: How Economists…, 648; Austerity directly reversed wartime gains in workers’ wages and bargaining power — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order: How Economists…, 80 (+15 more)

Broader Connections

• Austerity directly reversed wartime gains in workers’ wages and bargaining power #corroborates (0.95) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 80
• Austerity was designed to force working-class abstinence after wartime sacrifice faded #expands (0.90) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 909
• Austerity reversed postwar labor income gains in both Italy and Britain by 1929 #exemplifies (0.88) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 1486
• Austerity originated after World War I as a counteroffensive against working-class unrest #expands (0.85) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 28
• Austerity was capitalism’s manufactured response to worker challenges #corroborates (0.85) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 585
• Fascist austerity dismantled postwar gains and re-separated economics from politics #exemplifies (0.85) — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 193
• Austerity as a rationale emerged specifically to answer revolutionary workers’ councils #expands (0.82)
• Monetary austerity deliberately induced recession to discipline workers. #expands (0.82) — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 154
• Austerity structurally dismantled the workers’ movement and its economic alternatives #expands (0.80) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 654
• Austerity’s core purpose is to deepen workers’ dependence on wage labor #expands (0.80) — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 145
• Austerity needed economic theory to justify unpopular cutbacks after World War I #expands (0.78) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 874
• Austerity began as patriotic wartime sacrifice framed as self-denial #qualifies (0.75) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 897
• Interwar austerity deepened depressions and helped cause the Second World War #expands (0.72) — Mark Blyth, Austerity, 555