Capital Order: Class politics and the invention of Austerity

The Institute of Economics will hold a seminar meeting as part of its Seminar Series on Tuesday, June 15, 2021: Clara Mattei from the New School for Social Research will present the paper "Capital Order: Class politics and the invention of Austerity".

Abstract:

The talk will expand on the main themes of the author's forthcoming book Capital Order: Class politics and the invention of Austerity (Chicago University Press, 2022). The book tells the story of the origins of austerity that dates back more than a hundred years to look deeper into its logic and purpose which its normalization often conceals. Austerity as we know it today emerged after WWI as a method of preventing capitalism’s collapse. It functioned as a powerful counteroffensive during the early 1920s—a period oddly overlooked by scholars of austerity—and its timing reflects the movement’s animating motivations. Austerity’s strength and persistence for more than a century can be explained once it becomes clear how, from its very inception, it embodies a political project. It serves primarily to safeguard the class relations that are at the basis of capital accumulation and that allow capitalism to thrive as the sole conceivable socio-economic system.

All interested participants are welcome to join online at the following link.  In person participation, in Aula 3, is restricted to members of the Institute of Economics, conditional on available seats.