State control of labor made capitalist surplus extraction explicitly political during the war

Evidence

In sum, the war brought about an unprecedented degree of state control over labor. In setting the price of labor, disciplining it, and controlling its supply, the Italian and British governments had exposed the profoundly political nature of the capitalist economy. No longer was surplus extraction a matter of mere economic coercion executed by the impersonal laws of the market; exploitation was now enforced by state intervention. Th is meant that surplus extraction became explicitly political, emblematically represented by the fact that Italian workers who refused to sell their labor power would be condemned to prison or to the front. Th e basis was set for those who were living through these changes to gain awareness of the link between economic power and political power. Th e full consequences were cropping up: if economic power is political, it means there is nothing natural about economic power, and the systems by which it is distributed can be changed through struggle. — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 186

In sum, the war brought about an unprecedented degree of state control over labor. In setting the price of labor, disciplining it, and controlling its supply, the Italian and British governments had exposed the profoundly political nature of the capitalist economy. No longer was surplus extraction a matter of mere economic coercion executed by the impersonal laws of the market; exploitation was now enforced by state intervention. Th is meant that surplus extraction became explicitly political, emblematically represented by the fact that Italian workers who refused to sell their labor power would be condemned to prison or to the front. Th e basis was set for those who were living through these changes to gain awareness of the link between economic power and political power. Th e full consequences were cropping up: if economic power is political, it means there is nothing natural about economic power, and the systems by which it is distributed can be changed through struggle. As we shall see in greater detail in chapter 4, antistatism and anticapitalism went hand in hand. — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 186

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the Marxist claim that capitalism may end in barbarism and the reader’s core interest in austerity as a class weapon — state coercion of labor here foreshadows the interwar austerity apparatus. — connects to: WWI’s state economic control revealed the economy’s inherent political nature; State intervention during wartime made capitalist exploitation overtly political and vulnerable to resistance — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 173; State wartime intervention exposed the natural order of capitalism as a political choice — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 169 (+20 more)
• ADDENDUM: Feeds the ‘On Sacrifice’ framing in that wartime conscription of labor parallels the state’s coercive claim over bodies, though the more direct fit is with the reader’s austerity-as-class-weapon project.
• DEEPTHINKING: The argument that exposing economic power as political and changeable is what later austerity ideology had to erase is a dense, paradigm-level insight about why doctrine follows material crisis.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order: How Economists…, 186

Broader Connections

• State intervention made capitalist exploitation political and thereby threatened capitalism itself #expands (0.85) — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 173
• Wartime state control proved economies are politically moldable #expands (0.82) — Gary Mongiovi, Austerity Is an Antidemocratic Strategy…, 29
• State intervention to save capitalism exposed its supposedly natural order as political #contradicts (0.75) — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 169
• Trotsky framed state labour control as union-enforced military discipline #expands (0.75)