Austerity…

Court Painter portrait of Clara E. Mattei

The Capital Order: How Economists Invented Austerity and Paved the Way to Fascism by Clara E. Mattei, published by the University of Chicago Press. © 2022 by the University of Chicago Press.

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Excerpted from publication:

‘Austerity has been so widespread in its uptake over the last century that it has become largely undetectable: the economics of austerity, with its prescribed budgetary cuts and public moderation, is largely synonymous with today’s economics.’

‘ While austerity policies may not be identified by name, they underscore the most common tropes of contemporary politics: budget cuts (especially in welfare expenditures such as public education, health care, housing, and unemployment benefits), regressive taxation, deflation, privatizations, wage repression, and employment deregulation. Taken together, this suite of policies entrenches existing wealth and the primacy of the private sector, both of which tend to be held up as economic keys that will guide nations to better days. ‘