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🪵 The Threshold

Political parties lose the capacity to reward supporters once austerity removes material incentives

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tagsja-picks, factual_claims, singleton, xref, category/factual-claims

3 min read

Political parties lose the capacity to reward supporters once austerity removes material incentives

Evidence

In its pomp, neoliberalism used hope as well as fear, as part of a doublebind strategy which battered organised labour while seducing individual workers with the promises of consumer durables, satellite TV, job security… all these riches provided you comply with capital… provided, that is to say, you give up the possibility of Red Plenty… Since 2010, it’s become clear that the (flatpack) cupboard is bare: there are no more bribes, only threats. — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1969 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Drawing on separate work on the composition of governments and policy making, Alesina assures the assembled finance ministers that if they go in this direction and start to cut budgets in the middle of a recession, not only will it make things better, it will not cost them their jobs. In fact, the public will reward them for their boldness since cutting the welfare state is neither unfair nor avoidable. Cutting is fair since “the rhetoric about the immense social cost of fiscal adjustment is blown out of proportion and is often used strategically by certain groups, not necessarily the most disadvantaged, to protect themselves.” And it’s unavoidable because the welfare state and its transfers are too big not to touch and are precisely what need to be cut to make growth return and reduce the debt. — Mark Blyth, Austerity, 476 (#complicates, via linked claim)

But if this book highlights one thing, it’s that the perpetuation of austerity to this day should not be reduced to a matter of irrationality or bad economic theory from the experts who run economies. Austerity is a tool to maintain capitalist social relations of production— to maintain class. In an austere capital order, popular protests may arise, but the protesters face a political landscape that structurally disempowers them: it’s hard to protest capitalist austerity when you have to depend on capitalism to survive. — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 1541 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

  • XREF: connects to: Austere economies structurally disempower those who would protest austerity — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order: How Economists…, 1541; Austerity advocates claimed voters reward politicians who cut welfare in recessions — Mark Blyth, Austerity: The History of a Dangerous…, 476; Post-2010 austerity has stripped neoliberalism of its positive incentives, leaving only coercion — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 1969 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

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