Political Science and The Capital Order: A Review Essay

The relationship between capitalism and democracy has been a preoccupation of political science for at least half a century. It has appeared in different forms, but the basic question remains the same: can capitalism and democracy coexist? Through an analysis of post-World War I austerity policy, Clara Mattei's Capital Order: How Economists Invented Austerity and Paved the Way to Fascism puts the incompatibilities between the two on stark display. Mattei demonstrates that austerity is a not a neutral policy tool for economic management, as its supporters and critics assume. Rather, it is a mechanism of class control. This interpretation helps to make sense of austerity's apparent "failures." By calling attention to the class character of economic policy in general, Capital Order suggests that political scientists revisit the notions of the structural dependence of the state on capital and class compromise. It also asks readers to take seriously the politically constructed nature of economics as a realm of action and thinking separate from politics. Through its implication of professional economists in an antidemocratic policy initiative, it also has uncomfortable implications for political science.