Advanced
Error loading page.
Try refreshing the page. If that doesn't work, there may be a network issue, and you can use our self test page to see what's preventing the page from loading.
Learn more about possible network issues or contact support for more help.
Title details for The Capital Order by Clara E. Mattei - Available

The Capital Order

by Clara E. Mattei
Susan Ericksen
Audiobook
Listen to a sample Listen to a sample
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.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English