Welcome, friends, to another edition of Economic Update, a weekly program devoted to the economic

dimensions of our lives and those of our children. I'm your host, Richard Wolf. Today's program

is special in a number of ways. We are experimenting with our format and our structure,

and bear with us as we experiment in order to find the best possible programs to bring you. I am very proud in that

spirit to bring to your microphone cameras that we have a very special guest. She's actually

a colleague of mine at the New School University here in New York City. Her name is Clara Matte. She's a faculty member

in the economics department there. And she recently published her first book that has been

widely discussed and praised. It's called Capital Order, How Economists invented austerity and paved the way to fascism.

It investigates how the economics of austerity, managing capitalism's crises,

usually by cutting government spending, increasing unemployment, and so on, emerged

after World War I as a way to fight against social movement for transition beyond capitalism.

Mate's book shows how austerity economics paved in the past tense and may also pave

in the present tense the way to fascism.

And she's currently working on another book that reassesses the so-called golden age of capitalism from 1945 to 1975, and it's

governing Keynesian economics through the lens of her analysis of austerity.

So first of all, Professor Maté, Clara, if I may, welcome to our program.

Your work is extraordinarily important, and I wanted to share it with my audience.

It's the greatest pleasure to be here. I'm an enormous fan of this program. I listen to it weekly, and so it could not be a bigger honor to have worked on

this book and be able to share it with you. Thank you. That's very kind. Let's jump right in to

this. First of all, I think I need to be sure that everybody understands what the word austerity

means, and it's central to your work. So tell us briefly how

you understand what that term represents, especially because it's a bit more commonly used in

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