Working-class freedom demanded economic not merely political democracy after World War I
Evidence
For generations it has been believed by the working classes that the only institution which stood in the way of freedom was political in character. Th e freedom of political democracy is a magnifi cent accomplishment, but it is now realized that the slavery of industry is harsher than the slavery of the unfranchised serf. Hence the impulse of industrial freedom. Th e struggle to shake off the imposition of external wills because the instruments of production are owned by the possessors of such wills is the most remarkable phenomenon of the age” (Hodges 1920, ix- x). — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 1667
Categorization
- XREF: Connects to contemporary critiques of ‘formal’ vs ‘real’ freedom and to the reader’s austerity-as-class-weapon thesis — the demand for economic democracy that austerity was a backlash against. — connects to: Postwar suffrage, planning confidence, and national treaties empowered politics against economy — Quinn Slobodian, Globalists: The End of Empire and the…, 113; World War I’s state interventions emboldened workers to reject a return to capitalism — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order: How Economists…, 455; Austerity originated after World War I as a counteroffensive against working-class unrest — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order: How Economists…, 28 (+8 more)
Broader Connections
- Workers’ wartime indispensability empowered postwar demands to transform the economic system
#corroborates(0.85) — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 174 - Austerity originated after World War I as a counteroffensive against working-class unrest
#complicates(0.80) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 28 - Wartime state control proved economies are politically moldable
#expands(0.78) — Gary Mongiovi, Austerity Is an Antidemocratic Strategy…, 29 - State control of labor made capitalist surplus extraction explicitly political during the war
#expands(0.75) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 186 - Austerity policies function to silence working class economic demands
#complicates(0.75) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 774 - German ordoliberals’ freedom was limited to economic, not political, liberty
#contradicts(0.75) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 501 - World War I shattered working-class belief that capitalism was immovable.
#corroborates(0.72) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 112 - Early European neoliberals privileged economic over political freedom
#qualifies(0.72) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 188