International economists forged austerity as a deliberate antiworker project

Evidence

This counteroffensive based on austerity policies still affects our lives today. The first international economics conferences in Brussels (1920) and Genoa (1922) were hotbeds for developing an antiworker project that was both intelligent and ruthless. The experts in economics and finance gathered to forge the code of austerity and deceive the public into believing that any alternative to the capital order was impossible. At a time when wartime collectivism had challenged the efficiency of the market in mediating production and distribution, these economists had to stand firm and unite in defending its idealization. Just when class conflict seemed to reach a point of no return, they denied its very existence by reverting to “classless” economic models that quietly subordinated workers. They did not mince words. Citizens who expected a reward for their wartime sacrifices had to think again: the “prize” of reconstruction would not be democratic control of industry or a new and advanced welfare system but, as the British investment banker R. H. Brand put it, the “hard truth” of “labour and suffering.” — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 194

Categorization

• XREF: The claim that ‘classless’ economic models quietly subordinate workers connects to critiques of mainstream economics as ideology; also directly extends the reader’s foundational austerity reading. — connects to: IMF austerity economists reused the fascist playbook of labor discipline — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 231; Austerity structurally dismantled the workers’ movement and its economic alternatives — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order: How Economists…, 654; Economists depoliticized austerity by presenting class-based coercion as neutral expertise. — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order: How Economists…, 1569 (+14 more)

Broader Connections

• Economists depoliticized austerity by presenting class-based coercion as neutral expertise. #expands (0.88) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 1569
• IMF austerity economists reused the fascist playbook of labor discipline #expands (0.85) — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 231
• Austerity masquerades as apolitical science while bending workers to capital’s will #expands (0.85)
• Economics legitimizes austerity claims by pretending to value-free objectivity. #expands (0.85)
• Austerity structurally dismantled the workers’ movement and its economic alternatives #expands (0.82) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 654
• Austerity’s core purpose is to deepen workers’ dependence on wage labor #expands (0.82) — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 145
• Austerity regimes aim to break organized labor #corroborates (0.82) — Gary Mongiovi, Austerity Is an Antidemocratic Strategy…, 83
• Interwar experts sold austerity as objective science concealing true economic facts from the people #expands (0.80) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 744
• Monetary austerity deliberately induced recession to discipline workers. #expands (0.80) — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 154
• Austerity was capitalism’s manufactured response to worker challenges #expands (0.80) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 585
• Austerity originated after World War I as a counteroffensive against working-class unrest #expands (0.78) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 28
• Austerity economists read inflation as a threat to capitalist subordination #expands (0.75) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 784