Austerity's coming back. Here's why it never works

The Bunker

Podmasters

News, Politics, Society & Culture, Government

4.6 • 984 Ratings

🗓️ 25 January 2023

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Austerity is a staple fixture of our political system. How did it become such a dominant economic policy? And is it really a ‘prudent’ and ‘realistic’ way of organising our economics? Philosopher and historian Clara Mattei, author of The Capital Order: How Economists Invented Austerity and Paved the Way to Fascism joins Ahir Shah to explore how austerity came to become the water we swim in and why we can’t imagine a world without it. “Austerity has become the water we swim in.” “We use very specific economic models from the 1900s, in which the worker loses agency while the entrepreneur is championed.” “The purpose isn’t to ‘trickledown’, it is to incentivise those at the top.” “In the US the richest 400 families pay the lowest tax.” “Even Lenin had to accept austerity.” Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/bunkercast Written and presented by Ahir Shah. Producers: Jet Gerbertson, Alex Rees. Assistant producer: Kasia Tomasiewicz. Lead producer: Jacob Jarvis. Bunker music by Kenny Dickinson. Audio production by Jade Bailey. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. THE BUNKER is a Podmasters Production Instagram | Twitter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	My name is Stan. I'm at. Nice to meet you. So you took up photography where? I've always loved
0:05.5	photography but I turn it into earning a living at 60. I enrolled on a day course.
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0:13.0	I loved going to college.
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0:55.3	look after theirs with dental life. Pick up dental life in the pet food aisle. Hello and welcome to the bunker daily I'm Ahir Shah, austerity.
1:13.2	To many of us, it's a word we now most associate with David Cameron and George Osborne, a policy decision
1:19.0	taken in the name of sound public finances that had disastrous effects on so many without seeming even to
1:26.0	fulfill its stated aims.
1:28.2	But what if by taking these stated aims at face value we've been getting austerity dangerously wrong. This
1:35.2	question is part of the basis of a new book, The Capital Order, how economists invented austerity and paved the way to fascism by Clara Maté,
1:45.4	associate professor of economics at the New School for Social Research.
1:49.2	It's pleasure to be joined by her now.
1:50.9	Professor Maté, welcome to the bunker. I'm so glad to be here. On conventional
1:55.5	understanding, austerity is about things like reducing debt, ensuring sustainable public
	...

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