How Economists Invented Austerity & Paved the Way to Fascism
Summary
TLDREl guion del video revela cómo la teoría económica, aparentemente apolitica, en realidad justifica políticas de austeridad que favorecen a la clase capitalista. Clara Mattei, profesora asistente de economía, explora la relación entre teoría económica y formulación de políticas, argumentando que la austeridad no es solo un conjunto de medidas fiscales, sino una amalgama de políticas y teoría que preserva el orden capitalista. Su libro, 'The Capital Order', analiza los orígenes de la austeridad tras la Primera Guerra Mundial y cómo se convirtió en un proyecto político para evitar el colapso del sistema capitalista.
Takeaways
- 📚 Clara Mattei es profesora ayudante de economía en The New School for Social Research y su trabajo se enfoca en la relación entre la teoría económica y la formulación de políticas.
- 💡 La teoría económica tradicional, que excluye el conflicto de clases y el rol del trabajador como fuente de valor, en realidad justifica políticas económicas de clase.
- 🌐 La austeridad ha tenido un éxito amplio en modelar nuestras sociedades y cómo pensamos sobre ellas, pero es tan normalizada que rara vez la llamamos por su nombre.
- 💸 La austeridad no es solo un conjunto de medidas fiscales, sino también una amalgama de políticas y teoría económica que se apoyan mutuamente.
- 📉 La austeridad tiene orígenes que se remontan al menos al siglo XX, específicamente después de la Primera Guerra Mundial, como una respuesta a una gran crisis del capitalismo.
- 🛠 La 'trinidad de la austeridad' incluye políticas fiscales, políticas monetarias y políticas industriales que atacan a la mano de obra organizada y aseguran flexibilidad salarial.
- 🤔 La austeridad no es producto de la era neoliberal de los años 70, sino que es fundamental para la operación del capitalismo y es más la norma que la excepción.
- 🚫 La austeridad no es solo una cuestión de teoría económica errónea, sino que tiene una lógica más profunda que busca preservar el orden social y económico basado en la capital.
- 🛑 La austeridad no necesariamente estabiliza economías, pero sí preserva lo que es la premisa para la acumulación de capital y la preservación del sistema socioeconómico en su conjunto.
- 🏛 Después de la Primera Guerra Mundial, el capitalismo se tambaleó en sus cimientos, lo que llevó a una crisis que no solo era económica sino también una llamada para la democracia económica y el fin de las relaciones de clase capitalistas.
- 🔄 La austeridad nació como un proyecto político para prevenir el colapso del capitalismo como sistema de clases, utilizando la teoría económica como herramienta para construir consenso y coacción.
Q & A
¿Qué es la teoría económica según la perspectiva de Clara Mattei?
-Según Clara Mattei, la teoría económica es un marco que expulsa el conflicto de clases, el trabajador como fuente de valor y promueve al empresario como el conductor de la máquina económica, justificando políticas económicas clasistas.
¿Qué es la austeridad según Clara Mattei y cómo influye en la sociedad?
-La austeridad, según Mattei, es una política económica ampliamente exitosa que ha modelado nuestras sociedades y cómo pensamos sobre ellas, normalizándose y afectando áreas como el gasto público en educación, atención médica, vivienda y beneficios de desempleo.
¿Cuál es la relación entre la austeridad y la teoría económica según el trabajo de Mattei?
-Mattei argumenta que la austeridad no es solo una política, sino también una teoría económica con un conjunto poderoso de ideas que la respaldan, lo que hace que sea exitosa y duradera en el capitalismo contemporáneo.
¿Por qué Clara Mattei considera que la austeridad es más que un conjunto de medidas fiscales?
-Mattei define la austeridad como una trinidad que incluye políticas fiscales, políticas monetarias y políticas industriales, que atacan a la mano de obra organizada y buscan flexibilidad salarial y represión salarial.
¿Cuáles son las tres partes de la 'trinidad de la austeridad' según Clara Mattei?
-La 'trinidad de la austeridad' incluye políticas fiscales (cortes y tributación regresiva), políticas monetarias (subidas de tasas de interés) y políticas industriales (ataque a la mano de obra organizada).
¿Por qué Clara Mattei argumenta que la austeridad no es un producto de la era neoliberal de los años 70?
-Mattei sostiene que la austeridad es más fundamental al funcionamiento del capitalismo y que sus orígenes se remontan al menos al siglo XX, específicamente después de la Gran Guerra en 1918, como una medida de reacción a una gran crisis del capitalismo.
¿Qué relación hay entre la austeridad y la tecnocracia según el análisis de Clara Mattei?
-Según Mattei, la austeridad está estrechamente ligada a la tecnocracia, que es el mandato de expertos económicos que aconsejan a los gobiernos y crean teorías que justifican políticas de austeridad como neutrales y objetivas.
¿Cuál es el objetivo final de la austeridad según el libro de Clara Mattei 'The Capital Order'?
-Mattei argumenta que la austeridad no se trata necesariamente de estabilizar economías, sino de preservar el orden capital, que es la premisa para cualquier acumulación de capital y preservación del sistema socioeconómico.
¿Cómo describe Clara Mattei el impacto de la Primera Guerra Mundial en el capitalismo y la austeridad?
-Mattei explica que la Primera Guerra Mundial sacudió el capitalismo en su núcleo, politizando las relaciones de propiedad privada de los medios de producción y relaciones salariales, lo que llevó a una crisis de capitalismo y el surgimiento de la austeridad como proyecto político para prevenir su colapso.
¿Qué es el 'orden capital' según el trabajo de Clara Mattei?
-El 'orden capital' es la idea de que el capital no es solo una mercancía, sino que presupone una relación social de producción y una relación de clase específica que requiere estabilización para mantener el crecimiento económico bajo el capitalismo.
¿Cómo argumenta Clara Mattei que la austeridad influye en el poder político y la distribución de recursos?
-Mattei sostiene que la austeridad, a través de políticas directas y indirectas, transfiere recursos y poder político de la mayoría a la minoría, disminuyendo la capacidad de negociación de los trabajadores y asegurando la preservación de la relación de clase fundamental para el capitalismo.
Outlines
💼 Teoría económica y política de austeridad
En el primer párrafo, Clara Mattei, profesora asistente de economía, critica la teoría económica que ignora el conflicto de clases y exalta al empresario como motor de la economía. Argumenta que esta teoría, a pesar de parecer apolitica, en realidad justifica políticas de austeridad que son profundamente de clase. Mattei, centrada en la relación entre teoría económica y formulación de políticas, analiza cómo la austeridad ha sido exitosa y duradera en el capitalismo contemporáneo, más allá de ser simplemente un conjunto de medidas fiscales. Su libro, 'The Capital Order', busca reconceptualizar la austeridad como una trinidad de políticas fiscales, monetarias e industriales que atacan a la mano de obra organizada, y como un conjunto de políticas y teoría que se justifican mutuamente.
🏛 Origenes de la austeridad y su lógica más profunda
El segundo párrafo profundiza en el concepto de austeridad, desafiando la visión simplista de que es solo una mala teoría económica. Mattei argumenta que la austeridad persiste porque tiene una lógica más profunda que no se centra en estabilizar economías sino en preservar el orden capital. La austeridad no siempre logra sus objetivos declarados de estabilización económica, pero sí mantiene lo que es fundamental para la acumulación de capital y el sistema socioeconómico: el capital en sí. La autora explora los orígenes de la austeridad después de la Primera Guerra Mundial, un momento de crisis para el capitalismo que desestabilizó las bases del sistema y generó llamados a una economía más democrática y alternativas al capitalismo.
🛠 La austeridad como proyecto político y herramienta de reacción
En el tercer párrafo, Mattei describe cómo la austeridad nació como una herramienta de reacción para prevenir el colapso del capitalismo como sistema de clases. Se trató de un proyecto político exitoso que evitaba alternativas al capitalismo, utilizando la tecnocracia y la teoría económica marginalista para justificar políticas que apoyaban a la élite ahorrosa e inversora. La austeridad, como trinidad de políticas, fue una forma de construir consenso a través de la teoría económica y de coerción mediante políticas que desplazaron recursos y poder político de la mayoría a la minoría.
📉 Consecuencias de la austeridad en la economía y la política
El cuarto y último párrafo aborda las consecuencias de la austeridad, tanto directas como indirectas, en la economía y la política. La austeridad, a través de políticas como la desinflación monetaria y recortes presupuestarios, crea un retroceso económico, eleva el desempleo y disminuye el poder de negociación de los trabajadores. Mattei enfatiza la importancia de entender la historia de la austeridad para comprender su lógica actual y cómo ha sido un éxito en mantener el orden capital, a pesar de su impacto negativo en la mayoría de la población.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Teoría económica
💡Austeridad
💡Trinidad de la austeridad
💡Política monetaria
💡Política fiscal
💡Política industrial
💡Capitalismo
💡Gran Guerra
💡Tecnocracia
💡Clase trabajadora
💡Orden capital
Highlights
Economic theory often overlooks class conflict and the role of the worker in value creation, instead emphasizing the entrepreneur's role.
Clara Mattei, assistant professor of economics, discusses the relationship between economic theory and policy making.
Austerity policies have become normalized and pervasive in contemporary societies, yet are rarely named as such.
Austerity is characterized by budget cuts, welfare reductions, regressive taxation, and interest rate hikes.
Mattei's work aims to re-problematize austerity, questioning its success and endurance in modern capitalism.
Her book 'The Capital Order' explores the origins and impacts of austerity, challenging its traditional economic justifications.
Austerity is not merely fiscal policy but also a theoretical framework that intertwines with policy.
The concept of austerity predates the 1970s, with roots in the post-World War I era as a response to a capitalist crisis.
Austerity is not an irrational policy mistake but has a deeper, persistent logic within the capitalist system.
The primary goal of austerity is not economic growth but the preservation of the capital order and class relations.
The 'austerity trinity' includes fiscal, monetary, and industrial policies that work in concert to maintain the status quo.
Post-World War I saw a significant shock to the state-market relationship, challenging the foundations of capitalism.
The crisis post-World War I led to calls for economic democracy and a reevaluation of the profit motive and private property.
Austerity emerged as a political project to prevent the collapse of capitalism and to foreclose alternatives.
The connection between austerity and technocracy involves economic experts advising governments on policy.
Neoclassical economics, with its marginalist framework, provided a classless justification for austerity policies.
Austerity policies have both direct and indirect effects, including legal restrictions and economic downturns that weaken workers' bargaining power.
Mattei argues that understanding the historical context of austerity's birth is crucial for grasping its enduring logic.
Transcripts
- It is at this point that you see how economic theory
understood as a framework that expels class conflict,
expels the worker as the source of value,
and instead tells us that the economy
is made up of individuals,
it's no longer the worker who counts,
but it's the entrepreneur who's the driver
of the economic machine,
it's there that this economic theory
that seems so apolitical is actually justifying
the most classist set of economic policies of all.
Hi, everyone, my name is Clara Mattei.
I'm assistant professor of economics
at The New School for Social Research.
And my work focuses on the relation
between economic theory and policy making.
So, an interdisciplinary work
that is both history of economic thought
and economic history, as well as methodology of economics.
So, austerity has been so widely successful
in shaping our societies and how we think about our society.
It has been fundamentally undetectable.
It is so normalized that we rarely call it by name.
But it actually informs all the common tropes
of contemporary policy making,
from the budget cuts, specifically in welfare cuts,
such as public spending for schools,
for universities, for healthcare, for housing,
unemployment benefits, regressive taxation,
so we constantly see cuts
in the highest brackets or cuts in corporate taxes,
and also hikes in the interest rates,
which is, of course, something that we're seeing
the Fed is undertaking at the present moment.
What I try to do in my work
is re-problematize austerity.
Austerity is everywhere.
It's all-encompassing in our lives.
Yet, I don't think that scholars have thoroughly been able
to pinpoint why austerity is so successful
and so enduring in contemporary capitalism.
I wrote this book that took many years
and it's coming out with Chicago University Press
beginning of November.
The book is called "The Capital Order:
How Economists Invented Austerity
and Paved the Way to Fascism."
What I tried to do in this book is rethink austerity,
rethink it in fundamentally three ways.
The first is to avoid considering austerity
just as a matter of fiscal measures.
So it's not just about cuts in the budget.
It's something more.
It's what I call the austerity trinity,
which includes the mutual operation
of fiscal policies, so, of course,
both on the side of cutting and on the side of the income
through regressive taxation,
monetary policy, so, interest rates hikes,
and industrial policies.
And when I talk about industrial policies,
what I fundamentally mean
is the fact that there is a permanent attack
on organized labor,
which can be cutting union benefits,
curtailing the role of the unions,
but also, fundamentally securing wage flexibility
and wage repression.
So, this austerity trinity works in unison,
and you cannot just focus on one aspect.
Moreover, what I try to say is that austerity
is actually not just policy.
It's more.
It's actually the amalgamation of policy and theory.
And austerity is in fact very successful
because it has a powerful set of theory backing it.
So this is the first main claim, what austerity is.
It's both policy, not just fiscal policy,
and it's also theory.
And theory and policy cannot be separable.
Secondly, austerity is not the product
of the so-called neo-liberal era of the 1970s.
Austerity is actually quite more fundamental
to the operation of capitalism.
And its origin dates back to at least
the beginning of the century,
and my claim is that austerity finds its origins
after the Great War, so after 1918.
And it was a measure to react to a big crisis of capitalism.
So austerity as the mainstay of capitalism,
not just an exception, but quite the norm.
And at this point,
the third claim I make is that austerity
is not just a matter of irrationality,
of bad economic theory that thus informs a mistaken policy.
And this is the reading of austerity
that many Keynesians have,
but I think it's very simplistic.
Because it does not really get to why, then,
does austerity persist?
And to really fundamentally understand
why austerity persists,
we need to figure out its deeper logic.
And this deeper logic
is understandable if we think about austerity
not as stabilizing economies necessarily, right.
The reason why Mark Blyth calls austerity madness,
it's because it has never really
or very exceptionally achieved its stated goals
of economic growth
and debt repayment, right?
So the tale of expansionary austerity
is certainly one that economists espouse
but has been often, actually,
disproven by historical events.
So, as I was saying,
austerity is not necessarily successful
in stabilizing economies,
but it is successful in something deeper.
And my bold claim in the book is that austerity
was really never about the end goal
of curtailing inflation and balanced budgets.
These were means to a greater end,
which is that of preserving the capital order.
So austerity may not stabilize the economy,
but stabilizes what is actually the precondition
for any capital accumulation
and any preservation of our socioeconomic system as a whole,
which is capital.
That comes from, that's the title's motivation
is the capital order, what is the capital order?
It is the idea that capital is not merely a commodity.
So money invested to make more money.
But it's actually presupposes
a specific social relation of production,
a specific class relation that requires stabilization.
If you don't secure the preservation of this class relation
that is at the foundation of economic growth
under capitalism, then the system may be in crisis.
So the book explores the origin of austerity
because I believe that in order to understand the logic
of austerity still today,
you need to really go back.
After the first World War,
something unimaginable happened for the people living
at that time.
Capitalism was shaken at its very core.
The pillars of capitalism,
what guarantees capital accumulation,
which is private property of the means of production
and wage relations,
so capital as a class relation, were shaken.
Why were they shaken?
Well, because there had been a massive shock
in the relation between the state and the market.
The Great War, the first World War,
was a moment in which the state,
in order to guarantee economic victory,
had to cross the natural boundaries
of what it was normally meant to do.
The state became the main employer,
the main producer, and actually the main regulator
of the labor force.
In this way,
what used to be understood as natural givens,
private property of the means of production
and wage relations,
were all of a sudden re-politicized.
What do I mean by this?
Seems like a big word, but it's actually quite simple.
Workers and the majority of citizens in Europe,
and I focus specifically on Britain and Italy,
and I will tell you why more later,
started realizing that things could be different.
We could be living in a different socioeconomic order.
Capitalism was not a natural given.
It was a specific classist political choice
in which the state was directly visibly intervening
to coerce the workers into greater exploitation
in order to win the war.
So after the first World War,
and this is what I discuss in the first part of the book,
the crisis of capitalism,
this crisis was not just about an economic downturn,
was something much more.
It was about calls for economic democracy,
calls to overcome capital as a class relation,
calls to actually regain sovereignty as producers
and fundamentally abolish the profit motive
and the private property of the means of production.
How did this happen?
It happened in many ways.
It happened through guild socialism,
through worker council movements.
I go through a whole spectrum of practical possibilities
for change that were also informed
by different economic theory.
So Marxian economic theory
that put at the center stage the worker.
So what happens there?
And this is, we get to the crux of the matter.
In a moment in which capitalism was shaking,
in which there was deep uncertainty for the future,
the sense of contingency was everywhere,
not just from the side of the workers,
especially from the side of the bourgeoisie,
who was really frightened on the news
and on the press about the possible collapse
of the socioeconomic order.
And this is very clear also in Keynes' writing in 1919.
This is when austerity is really born.
Austerity is born as a tool of reaction
to prevent the collapse of capitalism
as a classist socioeconomic system.
So, austerity is really a political project
that was extremely successful
in preventing, foreclosing alternatives to capitalism.
And how did that happen?
Well, I reconstruct the first
international financial conferences
in Brussels and Genoa, 1919, 1922,
in which experts, economists, for the first time,
were called to advise states all over Europe
and to tell them what was the true economic doctrine
that should be implemented in order to prevent the collapse.
And this is the big relationship
between austerity and technocracy.
Technocracy, meaning the rule of economic experts
in advising governments, but more than this,
technocracy as an epistemic stance
by which experts can come up with theories
that are above classist, that are neutral, objective,
without any sort of bias,
and thus, the expert as the guide to the solution
and to the prosperity of all.
So, very much apolitical theory, and of course,
this was grounded in the growing marginalist framework.
The original of neoclassical economics
that still dominates to this day is really dated
at the end of the 19th century,
but was really kind of spreading
and becoming ingrained
in the years of the birth of austerity,
in the 1920s.
So it is at this point that you see how economic theory
understood as a framework that expels class conflict,
expels the worker as the source of value,
and instead tells us that the economy is made up
of individuals that are not in conflict with one another,
but they're actually in harmony,
and that it's no longer the worker who counts,
but it's the entrepreneur who is the driver
of the economic machine,
it's there that this economic theory
that seems so apolitical is actually justifying
the most classist set of economic policies of all.
And again, we need this theory
that in its classless guise
is able to justify policies, the trinity,
the austerity trinity of fiscal, monetary,
industrial austerity, that served to crush
the voice of the workers in a very material way.
So austerity as a tool,
as a political project,
that is at once about constructing consensus
for the capitalist order
through mainstream economic theory
that justifies the priority of the saving investing elite
as the real engine of the economic machine,
that thus should be incentivized,
and austerity as coercion through these policies
that in fact, austerity policies are nothing but
the shifting of resources from the majority
that at that time was empowered.
Wage shares were very high after the war.
The Red Biennium, 1918 to 1920,
in which the workers were raising their voices,
not just for higher wages,
but for a really different socioeconomic order.
Austerity serves to disempower them materially speaking.
And how does this happen?
Well, either directly through policies
that actually make strikes illegal, such as in Italy,
and curtail wages, and this is what happens
under Mussolini's Italy, but also indirectly
by creating an economic downturn.
So, monetary deflation,
what we see actually being the main policy agenda now
of the Fed, monetary deflation together with budget cuts
have also, the indirect effect,
that very important indirect effect
of slowing down the economy,
creating higher unemployment,
which, of course, kills the bargaining power of the workers
and thus, subordinates them in a coercive way
into accepting the capital order.
So we see how there's a direct and indirect shift
of resources and of political power
from the majority to the minority.
And in this, austerity is successful
and it has, what I tried to show in the book is that,
the origin story only really makes more explicit,
given that it is a moment in which everyone recognizes
class conflict as the driving feature
of the historical moment,
makes only more explicit what is more nuanced
and hidden today.
So this is why we need to take history seriously
is that if you understand the moment
in which austerity was born,
you can really figure out its logic.
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