The Capital Order: How Economists Invented Austerity and Paved the Way to Fascism
by Clara E. Mattei (Author) – November 17, 2022
"A must-read, with key lessons for the future."—Thomas Piketty
A groundbreaking examination of austerity’s dark intellectual origins.
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 path to 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 The Capital Order, political economist Clara E. Mattei explores 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, The 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.
资本秩序:经济学家如何发明紧缩政策并为法西斯主义铺平道路
克拉拉·E·马泰 (作者) – 2022 年 11 月 17 日
“必读之作,为未来提供重要教训。”——托马斯·皮凯蒂
对紧缩政策黑暗思想起源的开创性考察。
一个多世纪以来,面临金融危机的政府都采取了紧缩的经济政策——削减工资、财政支出和公共福利——作为实现偿付能力的途径。虽然这些政策成功地安抚了债权人,但它们对世界各国的社会和经济福利产生了毁灭性的影响。今天,由于紧缩政策仍然是陷入困境的国家青睐的政策,一个重要的问题仍然存在:如果偿付能力从来都不是真正的目标,会怎样?
在《资本秩序》一书中,政治经济学家克拉拉·E·马泰探索了紧缩政策的思想渊源,揭示了其最初的动机:在社会动荡时期保护资本——事实上是保护资本主义。
马泰将现代紧缩政策的起源追溯到两次世界大战之间的英国和意大利,揭示了第一次世界大战后几年工人阶级权力的威胁如何激发了一系列自上而下的经济政策,这些政策抬高了所有者的地位,压制了工人,并在整个社会中建立了严格的经济等级制度。相对而言,这些政策“成功”的地方在于,它们让某些政党(包括雇主和外贸利益集团)赚得盆满钵满,他们以牺牲劳动力为代价积累了权力和资本。马泰认为,这正是紧缩政策的真正价值所在:它隔绝了根深蒂固的特权,消除了资本主义的所有替代方案。
《资本秩序》利用最近发现的英国和意大利档案材料,其中许多材料是首次翻译,对紧缩政策和现代经济学在当代政治权力杠杆中的兴起进行了严厉而重要的新解释。