Screen LibraryThe capital order : how economists invented austerity and paved the way to fascism /
"For more than a century, governments facing financial crisis have resorted to the economic policies of austerity-cuts to wages, fiscal spending, and public benefits-as a means to regain solvency. While these policies have been successful in appeasing creditors, they've had devastating eff...
Saved in:
| Main Authors: | |
|---|---|
| Published: |
The University of Chicago Press,
|
| Publisher Address: | Chicago, IL : |
| Publication Dates: | 2022. |
| Literature type: | Book |
| Language: | English |
| Subjects: | |
| Summary: |
"For more than a century, governments facing financial crisis have resorted to the economic policies of austerity-cuts to wages, fiscal spending, and public benefits-as a means to regain solvency. While these policies have been successful in appeasing creditors, they've had devastating effects on social and economic welfare in countries all over the world. Today, as austerity remains a favored policy among troubled states, an important question remains: what if solvency was never really the goal? In Capital Order, political economist Clara E. Mattei traces the intellectual origins of austerity to uncover its originating motives: the protection of capital-and indeed capitalism-in times of social upheaval from below. Mattei traces modern austerity to its origins in interwar Britain and Italy, revealing how the threat of working-class power in the years after World War I animated a set of top-down economic policies that elevated owners, smothered workers, and imposed a rigid economic hierarchy across their societies. Where these policies "succeeded," relatively speaking, was in their enrichment of certain parties, including employers and foreign-trade interests, who accumulated power and capital at the expense of labor. Here, Mattei argues, is where the true value of austerity can be observed: its insulation of entrenched privilege and its elimination of all alternatives to capitalism. Drawing on newly uncovered archival material from Britain and Italy, much of it translated for the first time, Capital Order offers a damning and essential new account of the rise of austerity-and of modern economics-at the levers of contemporary political power"-- |
| Carrier Form: | 452 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references (pages 409-437) and index. |
| ISBN: |
9780226818399 022681839X |
| Index Number: | HB501 |
| CLC: | F03 |
| Call Number: | F03/M435 |
| Contents: |
The Great War and the economy -- "A wholly new school of thought" -- The struggle for economic democracy -- The new order -- International technocrats and the making of austerity -- Austerity, a British story -- Austerity, an Italian story -- Italian austerity and fascism through British eyes -- Austerity and its "successes" -- Austerity forever. |