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 <a href="https://www.claramattei.com/" target="_blank">Clara Mattei</a> 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, <a href="https://www.claramattei.com/books/the-capital-order">The Capital Order: How Economists Invented Austerity and Paved the Way to Fascism</a> University of Chicago Press, 2022
<a href="https://www.freefreeforum.org/home" target="_blank">Forum for Real Economic Emancipation</a> 
Photo credit of Athens protest: Kotsolis
The post <a href="https://kpfa.org/episode/against-the-grain-october-29-2025/">Austerity: Guardian of Capitalism</a> appeared first on <a href="https://kpfa.org">KPFA</a>.

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