Jacobin Radio: Escaping Capitalism w/ Clara Mattei
Jacobin Radio
Jacobin
4.7 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 14 April 2026
⏱️ 58 minutes
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Summary
Suzi speaks with political economist Clara Mattei about her new book, Escape from Capitalism. The title is provocative: What does it mean to escape capitalism? Not reform it, regulate it, or make it kinder, but escape it altogether?
Mattei argues that capitalism is not a system gone wrong but one working exactly as intended. Her core claim is that austerity is not a policy mistake or ideological excess, it is structurally necessary. It is how capitalism reproduces itself: maintaining unemployment, disciplining labor, and foreclosing challenges before they can take shape.
Drawing on both historical analysis and present-day realities, Mattei shows how even hard-won social democratic gains are temporary — rolled back as soon as they threaten profits. From post–World War I Europe to today’s neoliberal order and the resurgence of right-wing authoritarianism, austerity remains the system’s core logic. As Mattei puts it: Unemployment isn’t a bug, it’s a feature. And anti-austerity politics already point beyond capitalism itself.
In this wide-ranging conversation, Mattei and Weissman unpack the “capital order,” the role of the state in enforcing it, and what it would actually mean to break free.
Jacobin Radio with Suzi Weissman features conversations with leading thinkers and activists, with a focus on labor, the economy, and protest movements.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Jacobin Radio. I'm Susie Wiseman. Today we're speaking to political economist Clara Mateh about our new book, Escape from Capitalism. The book is getting wide attention. It's been reviewed in many mainstream |
| 0:22.4 | and left publications, and that in itself tells us something about the nature of our times. |
| 0:27.8 | What does it mean to escape from capitalism, not reform it, not regulate it, not make it kinder, |
| 0:34.4 | but escape it. The word is a deliberate provocation, and Clara Matea implies that |
| 0:39.9 | we're inside a trap, that the trap is the system itself. The book's essential claim is that |
| 0:45.4 | austerity is not a policy error, it is not irrational, not the product of right-wing ideology, |
| 0:51.4 | and not a deviation from a capitalism that could work better. |
| 0:55.1 | Austerity is structurally necessary to capitalism, the mechanism through which the exploitation |
| 1:00.1 | of workers is reproduced. |
| 1:02.0 | The reserve army of labor is maintained, and any serious challenge to the system is foreclosed |
| 1:07.1 | before it can organize. |
| 1:08.8 | She even goes on to say that social democratic reforms, hard-won |
| 1:13.2 | victories by workers in struggle, ameliorate the system, but don't change it. Benefits granted during |
| 1:19.9 | periods of economic prosperity are attacked when they cut into profits, and even the most ambitious |
| 1:25.1 | social democracy doesn't escape capitalism. |
| 1:28.2 | Today, as the austerity policies of the last two generations, what we call the neoliberal |
| 1:33.1 | period, give rise to new right-wing authoritarianism. |
| 1:37.4 | Mate's analysis has enormous contemporary resonance. |
| 1:41.4 | She insists that the system is working as intended. It's not a broken one to be |
| 1:46.8 | repaired. Rather than repaired, the system needs to be replaced or, in Claremontay's words, |
| 1:52.4 | escaped. We're going to get her arguments and prescription for breaking the capital order and more |
| 1:57.0 | when our program returns in just a moment. |
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