Postwar financial officials elevated balanced budgets to a universal moral principle

Evidence

16 In the words of Brand, vice president of the fi nancial committee in Brussels, “revenue should at least be suffi cient to meet all ordinary recurring expenditure, including interest and sinking fund on debt” (Brussels 1920, vol. 2, 19). Lord Chalmers went so far as to speak of a “universal” and “imperative” principle: individuals “must pay their way” (ibid., 25). — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 1683

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to modern austerity discourse framing balanced budgets as moral imperative, the same rhetorical move this reader studies in contemporary neoliberalism. — connects to: Interwar international institutions framed balanced budgets as a truth citizens needed coercion to accept — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order: How Economists…, 723; Interwar elites framed fiscal contraction as the individual duty of recovery — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order: How Economists…, 821; Finance is promoted to the poor as a moral rather than merely economic good — Max Haiven, Cultures of Financialization, 161 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Monetary austerity was designed to moralize and discipline economic behavior toward thrift #expands (0.85) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 759
• Finance is promoted to the poor as a moral rather than merely economic good #expands (0.80) — Max Haiven, Cultures of Financialization, 161
• Postwar IMF Keynesianism concealed classical liberal assumptions derived from 1920s Treasury logic #corroborates (0.72) — Mark Blyth, Austerity, 443