Economics legitimizes austerity claims by pretending to value-free objectivity.

Evidence

Th e economic experts at the Brussels and Genoa conferences would not have envisioned themselves as subordinating the will of the majority as such. Rather, in the dissonance that is common among economists, they would have seen their reforms as grounded in an elevated understanding of how the world works. Th ese fathers of today’s mainstream economics presented austerity policies as the outcome of theory that was objective and neutral, a worldview that transcended class relations. Th eir stated urge to “tame men,” in turn, was not domination, but rather a necessity for an organized society— something above mere politics or class. Such is the manner of depoliticization: it served (and still serves) to conceal economic coercion under the guise of building consensus— in this case, as elsewhere, for the disempowerment of the many. — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 1569 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Konings (2015, 254) puts it thus: “a faith that does not idly hope for magic but assumes personal responsibility for ensuring the transformation of fictions into facts. Such austerity itself takes the form of speculation: it involves a willingness to gear the creation of new symbolic forms to the validation of past promises.” — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities, 400 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: The liquidationist logic makes austerity seem unavoidably necessary. — Mark Blyth, Austerity: The History of a Dangerous…, 324; International economists forged austerity as a deliberate antiworker project — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 194; Central bank independence is justified by expert pseudoscience. — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 375 (+15 more)

Related

• Economists depoliticized austerity by presenting class-based coercion as neutral expertise. (similarity 0.90)
• Interwar experts sold austerity as objective science concealing true economic facts from the people (similarity 0.89)
• Austerity masquerades as apolitical science while bending workers to capital’s will (similarity 0.88)
• Technocrats used claims of objectivity to make austerity unopposable. (similarity 0.87)
• International economists forged austerity as a deliberate antiworker project (similarity 0.86)
• Austerity is economically irrational yet politically rational for preserving capitalism (similarity 0.85)
• Austerity presented as neutral science actually disciplines workers for owners’ benefit. (similarity 0.84)
• Austerity experts sought to reimpose a top-down technocratic conception of knowledge (similarity 0.84)
• Economic theory gives austerity legitimacy that complements raw state coercion (similarity 0.83)
• British experts knowingly framed class-targeted austerity pain as unavoidable natural law. (similarity 0.83)
• Austerity has twin histories of intellectual pedigree and empirical record (similarity 0.82)
• Expert authority manufacturing consensus made austerity appear objectively rational (similarity 0.82)
• Austerity compelled sacrifice without criticism, making it repressive as well as antidemocratic. (similarity 0.82)
• Austere economies structurally disempower those who would protest austerity (similarity 0.82)
• Austerity structurally dismantled the workers’ movement and its economic alternatives (similarity 0.82)

Broader Connections

• Austerity masquerades as apolitical science while bending workers to capital’s will #corroborates (0.95)
• Economists depoliticized austerity by presenting class-based coercion as neutral expertise. #corroborates (0.90) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 1569
• Austerity operates as speculation that converts fiction into fact #expands (0.85) — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities, 400
• Economic theory gives austerity legitimacy that complements raw state coercion #corroborates (0.85) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 861