There is a book everyone should read by Clara E. Mattie, called The Capital Order. It's all about how austerity in terms of its fiscal, monetary and industrial aspects is part of the 'DNA' of capitalism. That is to say, it's all about how austerity is a necessary structural feature of capitalism - specifically, of the 'capital order' itself (the central social relation of production between capital and wage-labour) - which is both produced by and at the same time helps to maintain and reproduce capitalism as a particular mode of production or, if you like, economic system.
In later blog posts, I shall write extensively about this book. But, for anyone who's interested in understanding advanced capitalism, then this is a book one should read. It will also help you to understand the crucial differences between austerity as a necessary structural component of capitalism and the political-economic project of neoliberalism, of which austerity is an ideological feature.
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