The 2008 crisis replaced triumphalist free-market rhetoric with open-ended austerity

Evidence

Citing only the voracious demands of the market as the highest government obligation, a grim unanimity emerged among world leaders that put the famous “Washington Consensus” to shame: social spending would be dramatically slashed in order to provide bailouts to banks and other financial corporations and to pay for highly targeted and temporary economic “stimulus” measures that largely amounted to handouts and tax cuts for corporate interests. The triumphalism that had announced the ascendency of markets in the early 1990s, emblematized by Francis Fukayama’s (1993) celebratory pronouncement of the End of History, was over. Instead of a rhetoric of a “rising tide lifting all boats,” austerity is marked by a post-ideological candour, emerging from politicians both left and right: expect only precariousness, now and forever. — Max Haiven, Cultures of Financialization, 158

Categorization

• SEED: The ‘post-ideological candour’ of austerity — politicians openly promising only precariousness — is a strong angle for an essay on how crisis rhetoric shifted from promise to warning as the mode of governing.
• XREF: connects to: The 2008 TARP bank bailout is a trigger of the austerity path that followed — Mark Blyth, Austerity: The History of a Dangerous…, 618; The 2008 crisis invalidated the preceding thirty years of financial orthodoxy — Mark Blyth, Austerity: The History of a Dangerous…, 133; The 2008 crisis briefly revived Keynesian fiscal stimulus across academia and institutions — Mark Blyth, Austerity: The History of a Dangerous…, 159 (+16 more)

Broader Connections

• The 2008 crisis pushed whole nations toward bankruptcy and austerity #expands (0.85)
• Broader neoliberal shifts enabled austerity’s return to economic common sense #expands (0.80) — Mark Blyth, Austerity, 406
• The crisis-as-government-fault narrative was engineered to justify austerity #corroborates (0.80) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 950
• The 2008 crisis was expected to falsify neoliberal doctrine but did not #qualifies (0.80) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 80
• The 2008 crisis strengthened rather than weakened the political right #corroborates (0.75) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 8
• A tiny economy’s crisis was weaponized as a metaphor for austerity #expands (0.75) — Mark Blyth, Austerity, 202