Clara E. Mattei, "The Capital Order: How Economists Invented Austerity and Paved the Way to Fascism"

Clara E. Mattei, Assistant Professor of Economics, launches her new book, THE CAPITAL ORDER: HOW ECONOMISTS INVENTED AUSTERITY AND PAVED THE WAY TO FASCISM (University of Chicago Press, 2022)
Introduction by Anwar Shaikh, University in Exile Professor of Economics at The New School for Social Research.
This talk was given on November 15, 2022 and was part of the Fall 2022 Economics Seminars Series presented by the Economics Department at The New School of Social Research.
**
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.
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[@iz8dwf]

She's one of the few persons that make me proud of being italian.

[@VGentile48]

recently

[@lilblackduc7312]

I am, "Assembled in America using Dutch-Scandinavian Parts". Lol My strong opinion is, you should be proud of being Italian for this, and many other reasons...🇺🇸 👍☕

[@codacreator6162]

Jobs in the US pale today compared to what they were 40+ years flat suck. We pay for health insurance through our jobs (buying our own benefits) that pay fractions of the costs of healthcare, we buy our jobs through the cost of education (the more you spend, the better the job? Hardly), and we pay our government for benefits we don’t receive. Technology and automation have not yielded the increase in productivity they’ve been lauded with, but have doubled and trebled the workload of the few remaining in the jobs that still exist. Meanwhile, real wages have dropped over the same period. Now, housing, food, energy, and other necessities are controlled by profiteers and millions are effectively homeless… it’s NOT good.

[@mariamorgan3009]

It's terrifying what has happened to our country and how we are being treated!!!

[@Achrononmaster]

@11:00 capitalism in the sense Clara uses the word does not really "stabilize" class relations, it imposes them by force, which creates instability, but it can be more static, not so much dynamic. That's a critical difference. The same as a tension in a glass sheet as opposed to a crack that is about to propagate and shatter the mess.

[@bwfrieds]

If you jump to 10:30 and listen for 45 seconds, I think she makes one of her key arguments.

[@japiro14]

I would go as far as to say that austerity not only keeps the social order in place but it tilts it more and more towards the capital owners.

[@garysantos7053]

"Landholders ought to have a share in the government, to support these invaluable interests and to balance and check the other. They ought to be so constituted as to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority. The Senate, therefore, ought to be this body; and to answer these purposes, they ought to have permanency and stability." -James Madison

[@T19422]

Great talk by Clara. Struggle of class in our faces.

[@garrettreynolds9145]

Spain elected an Anarchist government in the 1930s which was the only country which enacted this production reform and of course suffered at the hands of the Catholic church and the establishment.The union movement in the USA was oppressed by force when workers sought more rights.The US has not changed but Europe had improved in this regard until the 80s until the Neo Liberals took over and now it is right back to 1914 again.

[@alexandermondry4095]

Refreshingly accurate, beautifully presented. Love to hear your thoughts on South Africa.

[@Dorian_sapiens]

I appreciate the entire perspective Prof. Mattei presents here, but I want to single out for comment one very important point she raises: that fascism is not distinct from liberalism. Rather, fascism is a type of activity that liberals engage in when the need arises.

[@teocantsleep4611]

That would be nice if it was right but it isnt. Really, where has crítical thinking gone?

[@dinnerwithfranklin2451]

That is one of the things that I most noted as well. Austerity is not just a fiscal policy but as importantly it is a political act.

[@dinnerwithfranklin2451]

@@teocantsleep4611 Why is it not right? I'm curious how you made that conclusion.

[@teocantsleep4611]

@@dinnerwithfranklin2451 I should have explained. Now I forgot her arguments and I can't be sure if I was replying to OP or the lecturer. Sorry 😐 My bad. Edit: Very simplistically I can explain that fascism and liberalism are two very different things given that fascism has emerged in many dictatorships far removed from liberalism and rather protectionists governments but I'm unsure if that's what I was going for since it's painfully obvious

[@dinnerwithfranklin2451]

@@teocantsleep4611 I understand, you watched it a long time ago but it seems to me that you may be conflating the modern idea of "liberal" with "classical liberalism"? She said she was talking about classical liberalism which, if I understand it correctly, is about the government's prime responsibility being the protection of private property. As Mussolini said fascism should have been called corporatism because it is the combination of government and corporations. In which case all fascisms are in fact built around classical liberal ideas.

[@1o1s1s1i1e]

Terrific work! Off to buy the book!

[@NaderNabilart]

Incredibly important work! Thank you professor Clara, I hope to see more work on austerity as a disciplinary tool in the countries that produce the most capitalist products; i.e. the global south/ emerging markets/3rd world

[@ilgiardinonelcassetto4126]

il made in Italy come sempre è un'eccellenza globale! ;-) Go Clara GO!!!

[@imbariegh]

Lectio Magistralis. I have just bought the Audiobook and can't wait to start listening. Dr. Mattei explanation is brilliant, it is such a pity she is almost unknown to the Italian public

[@dinnerwithfranklin2451]

Clara has helped me make connections that I'd never made before. Brilliant presentation, thank you.

[@caitape20022]

" Solvency was never the goal " !!!

[@craigholt4263]

She makes me proud of being Italian too, and I am not even Italian. I'm definitely curious, oh, about the book. OK, yeah for sure. Genuinely looking forward to mine being delivered, but Amazon are making excuses...Much demand eh..

[@alfredkottman578]

Very impressive work : cannot wait to get the book!!!

[@CaresseTaVie]

Wow, I can't wait to read the book!

[@sursamkorda6794]

Just bought the book. Molto molto bene.

[@sash3497]

Great first presentation of your book.

[@davidwright9824]

Interesting perspective, I will have to read the book to help me understand better.

[@rodrigoribeiro9057]

I highlight the clarity with which Clara Mattei conveys her message.

[@christopherfegley421]

The one truth we learned from the pandemic, is that the US economy clearly can afford to provide a dignified living to all citizens. And at the same time US Corps saw record profits, yet now they want to cut all social funding... We beat the fascist urge to end social security many times, we will continue. Just as Grasmci taught us from his prison cell.

[@christopherfegley421]

I make $330 a week. I am buying your book. Perhaps my study of Gramsci will give me a way in....

[@rodrigoribeiro9057]

Under capital order, fiscal and monetary "mistakes" are, in fact, intentional class warfare through the imposition of austerity policies. Neoclassical economic policy continues to pave the way for fascism. The financialization of the economy implemented by the FIRE sector prioritizes rent-seeking to the detriment of the real economy, normalizing technofeudalism.

[@GnosisMan50]

*_“In capitalism economic activity, success, material gains, become ends in themselves. It becomes man’s fate to contribute to the growth of the economic system, to amass capital, not for purposes of his own happiness or salvation, but as an end in itself. Man became a cog in the vast economic machine - an important one if he had much capital, an insignificant one if he had none - but always a cog to serve a purpose outside of himself.”_* Erich Fromm "Escape from Freedom" 1941

[@lucanicolazzi4916]

bravissima e bellissima

[@numbawang9766]

When audiobook?

[@person.X.]

Learn to read dumbo 🤣

[@alanhehe4508]

Wow, she's certainly the prettiest economist I've ever seen!! And sharp!! MMT is a possible cure for neoliberal austerity, I think, but overcoming people's indoctrination isn't easy. Many won't even listen. Don't step on the glass of shattered illusions.. Thank you.

[@lenuvian]

👍👍👍

[@frederickwalzer5555]

Listening to her argument there is nothing different that people already heard in the news. That is the problem of social scientists they reduce knowledge. Even your thesis is not strong enough for a real thought. Again, the constant use of the word "austerity" and the word "allow" in your speech shows limitations on philosophical thought. Don't waste your money on this book. Just read a book by any historian and the economic news. That's it.

[@davidwilkie9551]

As a purely Amateur critique of a subject we are not meant to understand, because administrators of these money management systems not only don't know how to control the requirements of a balance of trade, there's no way they can know when the determinism taken for granted in whole number equations, is pure-math temporal vector-values of relative-timing, an amorphous log-antilog numberness that Physicists try to describe as Conformal Field Condensation Correspondences, in wave-packaging probabilistic dimensionality coordination, ie active spaces of objectives, yet to be reassessed in accurate Singularity-point Resonance and Absolute Zero-infinity resonant positioning terminology. A more re-evolutionary refitting Nomenclature is overdue for all the words used to indicate logarithmic temporal condensation, using "ism-ist" tendency or intention to imply trending meanings. A real job for Quant skills.

[@japiro14]

Check Prof Steve Keen if you want a more realistic math/physics side of macro analisis

[@carlofino4666]

30:00 da appassionato di storia monetaria: applausi

[@geoffreynhill2833]

Semaphore Alert !

[@solallirico4063]

and who invented hiper-inflation, do I dare ask her?

[@voxpopneverdies2025]

Phew

[@granitesevan6243]

Her argument is flawed in a few critical ways. Fascism may have been supported by protagonists of the free market, just as it was supported by many traditional Catholic and monarchist conservatives, but this doesn't automatically mean fascist equated to dyed-in-the-wool free-market capitalism. Corporatism is a much more accurate characterisation of their economic philosophy, indicating the non-marxist socialist heritage of the fascist movement (remember, fascism had deep, pan-European roots - think French Proudhonism). Also, for her thesis of a symbiosis between austerity and fascism to be as rigorous as she claims, it would have to be universally observable. Austerity affected every industrial economy in the '20s, but there were myriad responses beyond fascism. For example, the New Deal shared some of the Keynesian doctrines of German National Socialism, but that didn't make FDR a fascist. One could quite easily expand on this with further examples... The argument that fascism was a violent, authoritarian defence of capitalism - one that suppressed left-leaning alternative systems - is as old as the road. It was labelled as such by supporters of these latter movements in their day. However, one was not faced with the choice between free-market, naked capitalism or utopian, propertyless socialism on the other hand, despite what the latter purported. The ideologies are much more complex. I would suggest more knowledge of scholarship concerning fascism from actual historians is in order. At the moment, the ahistorical aspects of this argument betray the very obvious present-day political bias that is being upheld. *Incidentally, virtually all of the left-wing movements of the 1920s and beyond (from Stalinism through to British communism) never actually proposed nor exercised an alternative to capitalism; they all fundamentally accepted the idea of a "work society" and industrially-facillitated, international exchange of wealth, just with different accents on the means by which that was organised.

[@bashful228]

You’re really confused and grasping at so many straws here. FDR New Deal was pretty much an opposite of austerity. Corporatism didn’t exist in 1920s Italy. Mattie (the she to which you keep referring) is not saying a symbiosis bw fascism and austerity so much as austerity as a tool to be used in a counter-revolutionary way to suppress movements towards workers rights by making a bunch of them unemployed and the rest scrambling to stay employed. As Mattie has said elsewhere, It’s hard to fight capitalism when you’re dependent on markets for survival, Uber Eats and drivers striking anywhere you’ve heard of in spite of terrible conditions. I could go on but that’s enough.

[@bashful228]

Mattei’s not saying that “fascism equates to capitalism”, that is a reduction or collapsing you invented and use as a strawman arguement of your own making. We know many capitalists everywhere in the world supported Hitler and Mussolini, including many US and UK banks, like the Bank of England who wrote to Hitler and asked if they should fire all their Jewish staff (Hitler wrote back that was a matter for them to decide). Presidents Bush’s grandfather was a private banker for Hitler and others in the fascist elite. It’s not that they are one and the same thing and Mattei didn’t say that. She’s pointing to the connnnections between austerity measures encouraged in neoclassical economic theory and praised by captialism then and today are tools for putting down movements for workers rights and classical liberalism and fascism are but a cigarettes papers difference when push comes to shove around who benefits from the economy and who keeps it going.

[@granitesevan6243]

@@bashful228 if you read my statement properly you will see that I cited the New Deal as a response to austerity - "an opposite", indeed. I mentioned that as an example of an alternative response to austerity because she is implying that fascism was a development of a counter-revolutionary conspiracy engendered by austerity. I am arguing that fascism was a product of nebulous, pan-European ideologies that found an opportune moment in time. It was NOT the cutting edge of capitalism, as so many contemporary Left-wing opponents stated. I'm also stating that this "alternative to the capital order" is a complete fallacy as well, given that the revolutionary movements of the Left maintained the KEY foundations of capitalism - ie. a work-society and a system of material exchange. Lastly, whether or not Italian fascism had time to develop its corporatist practices does not detract from the fact that corporatism was much more in the wheelhouse of its economic ideology, not laissez-faire capitalism. This argument is actually pretty clear and based on a lot of sound historiography. Not a grasp for any straw in sight here.

[@granitesevan6243]

@@bashful228 neo-classical economic theory and austerity are like oil and water, so you might want to think again. Also there are only two "n" in connections, seeing as you want to take a condescending tone with me.

[@bashful228]

@@granitesevan6243 "neo-classical economic theory and austerity are like oil and water"?!? austerity is a political choice, neoclassical economics is an abstract collection of formulas and assumptions that over 100 years have been proven deficient in almost any angle you care to consider them from. oil & water can coexist, even if one doesn't dissolve into the other. your comment is bizarre to say the least.

[@super8mmo]

This girl is not very smar huh?

[@RodrigoFarias-vc1nm]

Awesome