My guest Clara Mattei has written about austerity’s dark intellectual origins in her important new book The Capital Order: How Economists Invented Austerity and Paved the Way for Fascism. We discuss the main ideas of this book and how the historical roots of austerity emerge as a response by the ruling class to the social democratic gains of the working class following the First World War in Europe. At the core of Dr. Mattei's book is a powerful lesson for the left, namely that conditions of economic austerity have the tendency to sap the political resolve of the working class. Austerity depoliticizes the working class and this is why liberal economists implement it. We discuss the history of how economists and technocratic policymakers invented austerity and how we can challenge it.
Clara E. Mattei is a Professor of Economics and Director of the CHE, Center for Heterodox Economics, of The University of Tulsa Oklahoma, recently inaugurated in February 2025 (https://sites.utulsa.edu/chetu).
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