"The Capital Order uses the historical record in Europe to argue that austerity—tightening the belt, cutting government programs—is less about budgets and debt and more about deliberately making the labor force feel insecure."

"The Capital Order uses the historical record in Europe to argue that austerity—tightening the belt, cutting government programs—is less about budgets and debt and more about deliberately making the labor force feel insecure."

"Mattei reminds us that . . . austerity is a one-sided class war, conducted in numbers and defended by economists’ jargon.”

“Illuminating . . . Any reader of The Capital Order will be struck by the contemporary resonances.”

"In our current moment, as policymakers are once again entertaining monetary tightening as a means to impose necessary hardship & discipline on working people, The Capital Order is a potent reminder of the cruel rationality of austerity."

“Shocking disparities underlie economist Clara Mattei’s topical study of austerity measures promoted over the past century. Focusing on 1920s liberal-democracy Britain and fascist Italy, she argues that the profitable application of austerity to these dissimilar nations licensed its use as a capitalist ‘tool of class control.”

"Mattei shows how austerity emerged as the response of international capital to the risks to its power and wealth. Its aim was to rescue capitalism from ‘its enemies’ by taming an increasingly politicized and restive class and restoring the prewar order."

“[With The Capital Order], we can begin to see method in the madness: austerity is a vital bulwark in defense of the capitalist system.”

“It’s often been pointed out that austerity just doesn’t achieve its stated aims of balancing the books and paying down public debt. [In Mattei’s] analysis the actual aim is not the stated one, it is to discipline the working population. Over the last century it would seem to have achieved that quite successfully.”

“A serious economic history of the 1920s and its fiscal and credit policies, and you should not dismiss it.”

“Brilliantly provocative . . . powerfully argued. . . . With her history of the relationship between liberal economists and fascism, Mattei puts the skids under complacent champions of liberal democracy who today summon the fascist figure as a reassuring boogyman. . . . A round house critique of the role of liberal economics in general.”

"There are few books that once read manage to leave a clear idea and a full-fledged thesis imprinted on the reader’s mind: Chiara E. Mattei’s book is one of them."

"She [Mattei] has done an impressive amount of archival research and has skillfully mined the published literature of the interwar period. The fruit of these labors is a rich and insightful account of a pivotal moment in capitalism’s history."

"Through meticulously compiled archival material, Mattei explores austerity by studying economists in the 1920s from the birthplace of liberalism (Britain) and the birthplace of fascism (Italy) to draw a provocative conclusion about its nature: 'an anti-democratic reaction to threats from bottom-up social change.'”

“A powerful critique.”

“She argues that forcing a recession or cutting social welfare is not really about budgets and debt. This so-called “economic pain” is inflicted deliberately to make the labour force feel insecure and to stop demanding better conditions.”

"Austerity’s defenders claim that any adverse impact on employment will quickly end and will be justified by eventual success. Such is the theory. Clara Mattei will have none of it. Her vigorously written and well-researched new study, The Capital Order, insists that austerity is a class strategy, not just a policy to restore economic equilibrium."

“A work with remarkable resonance for the moment we are living through. I found it impossible to put down.”

“Clara Mattei shows how the supposedly apolitical science of economics has served, and continues to serve, as an ideology of class oppression. The chapters exploring the birth, in Britain and Italy in the 1920s, of what the author calls ‘the technocratic project’ of austerity, and its political and economic consequences, are particularly illuminating.”

“A decade after austerity tore British society apart, the UK government stands ready to do so again. Given that it didn’t work the first time around, one wonders why they want to try it again. This is where Mattei’s explanation illuminates brightly: if we think of austerity not as an economic policy, but as a form of capitalist crisis management for moments when the lower orders start to question the governing classes’ preferences, then its repeated dosage—despite its damages—makes much more sense.”

“Clara Mattei’s work is an important contribution to building a new economic narrative. At a time when inflation is up and governments feel inclined to once again ‘tighten their belts,’ this book is as relevant as ever.”

“Austerity is not an innocent policy error, but a fallacy functional to dark interests. Mattei’s admirable new book exposes austerity’s hidden agenda.”

“There is a long history of efforts to separate the political from the economic domain. . . . One very impressive recent study, by Clara Mattei, argues persuasively that this dichotomy, typically taking the form of austerity programs, has been a major instrument of class war for a century, paving the way to fascism, which was indeed welcomed by Western elite opinion.”—Noam Chomsky 

A 2022 Best Book in Economics

“A fascinating history of the rise of austerity policies in post–World War I Europe and how it paved the way for fascism—along with many of the economic policies of today. A must-read, with key lessons for the future. Historical political economy at its best.”

Fall 2022 Book Recommendation (General Interest)

“[A] message for our time.”

"The capital order asserts the primacy of capital over labor in the hierarchy of social relations within the capitalist production process. That primacy was threatened after World War I in what Mattei claims was the greatest crisis in the history of capitalism. . . . To counter these trends, Mattei argues, unelected technocratic elites 'invented' austerity as a means of re-naturalizing the capital order. . . . What Britain’s technocrats accomplished through the market, Italy’s fascists accomplished through Mussolini’s edicts. . . Recommended."

"In her book The Capital Order, economist Clara Mattei shows that austerity was thought of as a counter-offensive against experiments in economic democracy."

"A wonderful book [and a] compelling story."

“A very readable and historically profound work.”

"Austerity is premeditated policy. It’s a blunt instrument that preempts resistance by weakening and dividing the working class while unifying different wings of the ruling class. . . . Mattei documents austerity’s essential role in the rise of fascism."

"Meticulously researched. . . Mattei’s analysis is an exemplary work of historical political economy that seeks to steer the conversation on capitalist crisis from Keynesianism back toward Marx."

Clara E. Mattei is assistant professor of economics at the New School for Social Research in New York City.