The Capital Order
How Economists Invented Austerity and Paved the Way to Fascism
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The Capital Order
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Narrated by:
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Susan Ericksen
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By:
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Clara E. Mattei
About this listen
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. Today, an important question remains: What if solvency was never 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. Where these policies "succeeded," relatively speaking, was in their enrichment of certain parties 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, The Capital Order offers a damning account of the rise of austerity—and of modern economics—at the levers of contemporary political power.
©2022 The University of Chicago (P)2023 TantorWhat listeners say about The Capital Order
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Anonymous User
- 24-03-2025
Interesting history and well researched
This is a very interesting take on many of the problems in economically developed countries today and why they can't resist austerity.
The author uses Britain and Italy as examples where austerity was pursued before WWII as a form of class control and to split economics from politics to position austerity as a necessity rather than a political choice and protecting capitalism and rendering any alternative as unfeasible.
Plenty of examples are used to back up her arguments and many of the problems she mentions from last century are the same problems populations are battling with today where governments keep telling us cuts are unavoidable otherwise the capitalist class might have to pay a bit more in taxes.
10/10
The narrator was clear (can't fault her for that) but she sounded like an AI voice. Became a tough listen after a while tbh. Would have preferred the author to have read this as she's a great speaker.
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