State withdrawal from economics was itself a drastic political act disguised as technical reason

Evidence

In fact, the state— in its role as eliminator of expenditures— was a fundamental precondition to reconstruct the material (and ideological) conditions necessary for the divide between the economic and the political domains to regain its hold. Clearly the very withdrawal of the state from the realm of economic interventions was a drastic and heft y political decision, but it was nonetheless justifi ed as apolitical and economically necessary— a process guided by technical reason, thus fundamentally uncontroversial. — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 747

Categorization

• XREF: The paradox — the state’s withdrawal being itself a political intervention — connects to the reader’s foundational understanding of austerity-as-class-weapon and later neoliberalism’s depoliticization rhetoric. — connects to: State retreat forced all economic classes into direct financial participation — Max Haiven, Cultures of Financialization, 160; Assigning monetary management to a technocratic body was itself a deeply political act. — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order: How Economists…, 1032; A coup enabled economists to capture a whole state’s economic machinery — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 1576

Broader Connections

• Assigning monetary management to a technocratic body was itself a deeply political act. #corroborates (0.85) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 1032