Capitalism by its nature produces crises and, for the last century, states have responded by imposing austerity measures on the public. Governments claim it’s a bitter but necessary medicine to set economies back on track. But economist Clara Mattei argues that austerity is actually a bludgeon to entrench elite power and repress workers’ aspirations for a more egalitarian society. She looks at its origins — and that of modern economics — during the greatest existential threat to the Western capitalist order.

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

Forum for Real Economic Emancipation

Photo credit of Athens protest: Kotsolis

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