Interwar economic crisis was politically imposed, not merely financial

Evidence

Most economic historians of World War I and the interwar period focus on the “economic problems” facing countries because of the monetary and fi nancial outcomes of war: soaring infl ation and mounting debt had compromised countries’ creditworthiness, creating deep uncertainty and threatening capital fl ight. But looking deeper at these dynamics, it emerges that economic uncertainty was only a part of the problem. Part of what this book will explore is how economic uncertainty in these postwar countries had a political basis— indeed, how the economic and political crises were inseparable, with the former imposed by the latter. Th e postwar fi nancial crisis was a crisis of legitimacy for capital order and its social relations. — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 110

Categorization

• XREF: Challenges the conventional economic-historical framing the reader knows; dovetails with Mattei’s core thesis that austerity manufactures economic crisis as class discipline. — connects to: Wartime state intervention exposed market arrangements as political choices, not natural facts — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order: How Economists…, 34; State wartime intervention exposed the natural order of capitalism as a political choice — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 169; The 1919 crisis broke capitalism’s claimed boundary between economic and political spheres — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order: How Economists…, 110 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Postwar economic crises had a political basis and were crises of legitimacy for capital. #corroborates (0.90)
• Wartime state intervention exposed market arrangements as political choices, not natural facts #expands (0.82) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 34
• Interwar austerity deepened depressions and helped cause the Second World War #expands (0.80) — Mark Blyth, Austerity, 555
• World War I’s socialist-leaning wartime economy was deliberately reversed by capital afterward #expands (0.80) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 92
• State wartime intervention exposed the natural order of capitalism as a political choice #expands (0.78) — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 169
• The 1919 crisis broke capitalism’s claimed boundary between economic and political spheres #expands (0.75) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 110
• WWI’s state economic control revealed the economy’s inherent political nature #corroborates (0.75)