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

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.” 

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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

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