Technocrats used claims of objectivity to make austerity unopposable.
Evidence
Th e authority of the experts provided a channel to build consensus for a truth that, even if hard and painful, was “universal” and “objective,” and thus had to be swallowed. For these technocrats, austerity’s rationality was synonymous with rationality itself, because they held that the capitalist order was the only order possible. — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 666
Categorization
- SEED: Good article angle: how the ‘but science is objective’ move depoliticizes class-based policy and makes opposition look irrational — a rhetorical strategy shared by later monetarist and modern austerity advocates.
- XREF: Echoes the Depoliticization thesis in modern political economy (Burnham) and connects to contemporary austerity discourse post-2008. — connects to: The liquidationist logic makes austerity seem unavoidably necessary. — Mark Blyth, Austerity: The History of a Dangerous…, 324; Austerity experts sought to reimpose a top-down technocratic conception of knowledge — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order: How Economists…, 580; Economics legitimizes austerity claims by pretending to value-free objectivity. (+5 more)
Broader Connections
- Economics legitimizes austerity claims by pretending to value-free objectivity.
#corroborates(0.92) - Technocracy’s economic authority disarms citizens of agency to contest austerity
#expands(0.90) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 819 - Austerity masquerades as apolitical science while bending workers to capital’s will
#corroborates(0.90) - Unelected Treasury technocrats orchestrated British austerity without facing re-election
#exemplifies(0.75) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 829 - Technocratic illusion justified mass depoliticization and exclusion from decision-making.
#expands(0.75) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 2699