Austria’s contradiction resolves once capitalism is understood as prioritizing class war over growth

Evidence

Austerity might seem counterproductive. These contractionary measures tend to suppress growth rather than stimulate it. How is it possible that the IMF proposes it again and again as the only solution? Everything makes sense if we abandon the belief that the global capitalist economy works for the good of all. Our economic system requires and thus prioritizes this one-sided class war. — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 348

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: The central provocation — austerity’s self-defeating economics only makes sense when the system’s real goal is class discipline, not prosperity — is the book’s load-bearing argument.
• XREF: connects to: Vienna’s cultural flowering emerged from the crisis of a weak liberal bourgeoisie — Alex Callinicos, Against Postmodernism: A Marxist…, 206