Interwar austerity conferences aimed to crush postwar visions of social emancipation.

Evidence

Th e purpose was to defend capitalism from its “enemies”; the logic was to blame said enemies for national economic troubles and to enforce upon these populations the sacrifi ce of hard work and low consumption. Th e circular nature of austerity, in policy terms, guaranteed this form of coercion: fi scal, monetary, and industrial policies operated harmoniously to reestablish the economicpolitical divide, to renaturalize wage relations and private property, and fi nally to usurp peoples’ agency. Th ese outcomes ran in direct opposition to the foundations for an alternative society set forth by the Italian Ordinovista movement that we studied in chapter 4, and even in direct opposition to the British guilds of chapter 3 as well as the reconstructionist movement in chapter 2. Rescuing the structures of capital accumulation meant quashing all popular expectations for social emancipation following the sacrifi ce they underwent during the war. Th e prize of postwar reconstruction was no longer democratic control of industry, nor “a home fi t for heroes”; it was, in the words of the merchant banker R. H. Brand of Lazard Brothers, London, the “hard truth” of “labour and suff ering” (League of Nations, Brussels International Finance Conference 1920, Verbatim Record, vol. — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 663

Categorization

• XREF: Directly extends the reader’s reading purpose on austerity as class weapon — connects the Ordivinista/guild alternatives studied in earlier chapters to the technocratic blueprint constructed here. — connects to: Interwar austerity crushed class-based activism in Britain and Italy. — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order: How Economists…, 1549; Fascist austerity dismantled postwar gains and re-separated economics from politics — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism: An Intervention, 193; Capitalism’s 1918-20 crisis triggered austerity as a counterrevolutionary reaction. — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order: How Economists…, 115 (+9 more)

Broader Connections

• Interwar austerity crushed class-based activism in Britain and Italy. #expands (0.85) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 1549
• Post-WWI austerity was deployed to block moves toward economic democracy. #corroborates (0.85) — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 161
• Austerity structurally dismantled the workers’ movement and its economic alternatives #expands (0.85) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 654
• Liberal austerity and fascist repression converged in a shared coercive project #expands (0.82) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 1070
• Expert austerity framing blocked post-war moves toward economic democracy #corroborates (0.82) — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 161
• Capitalism’s 1918-20 crisis triggered austerity as a counterrevolutionary reaction. #corroborates (0.80) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 115
• Fascist austerity dismantled postwar gains and re-separated economics from politics #expands (0.78) — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 193
• Interwar conferences succeeded by subjugating labor, not by coordinating among states #qualifies (0.75)
• Interwar experts sold austerity as objective science concealing true economic facts from the people #qualifies (0.72) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 744
• Neoliberal conference networks gradually shifted elite policy thinking before crises forced action #complicates (0.72) — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 444