State wartime economic control exposed production relations as politically contestable.

Evidence

Most importantly, the British and Italian states’ command over the two pillars of capitalist accumulation— private ownership of the means of production and wage relations— had the fundamental eff ect of politicizing their economies. Indeed, it exposed how relations of production could be a terrain of political contestation, thus prone to social change. Th e British and Italian workers were in the best position to grasp the full meaning of such an unprecedented turn of events. Th eir governments had tightened the exploitative grip on the workers; but unlike the grip of the invisible hand, the state’s chokehold was visible and could thus be subverted. — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 216

Categorization

• XREF: The ‘visible vs. invisible hand’ contrast anticipates how the postwar austerity turn sought to restore the impersonal market as the disciplining force — ties to later chapters and to Polanyi’s double movement. — connects to: State intervention during wartime made capitalist exploitation overtly political and vulnerable to resistance — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 173; Wartime state control proved economies are politically moldable — Gary Mongiovi, Austerity Is an Antidemocratic Strategy…, 29; Wartime state intervention exposed market arrangements as political choices, not natural facts — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order: How Economists…, 34 (+7 more)
• DEEPTHINKING: The insight that state intervention politicizes production relations (making the exploitative grip visible and therefore subvertible, unlike the market’s invisible hand) is the theoretical hinge of the book — why capital would want to roll back the state. Dense and paradigm-shaping.

Broader Connections

• Wartime state control proved economies are politically moldable #expands (0.95) — Gary Mongiovi, Austerity Is an Antidemocratic Strategy…, 29
• World War I proved production relations could be deliberately changed #expands (0.90) — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 174
• WWI’s state economic control revealed the economy’s inherent political nature #corroborates (0.90)
• Wartime state intervention exposed market arrangements as political choices, not natural facts #expands (0.85) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 34
• State wartime intervention exposed the natural order of capitalism as a political choice #expands (0.85) — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 169
• Government wartime economic policy revealed state as instrument of class domination #expands (0.80) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 204
• State control of labor made capitalist surplus extraction explicitly political during the war #expands (0.80) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 186
• State intervention made capitalist exploitation political and thereby threatened capitalism itself #expands (0.80) — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 173