Th e crisis of capitalism that followed the Great War was, for some people of means, an acute and terrifying development. Once workers stormed the stage of history with ideas for an alternative society, the defense of capitalism took on novel and more powerful forms. Guardians of capitalism went back to the drawing board to refurbish the old order, and their manufacture of austerity became their main weapon. Austerity consisted of a twofold process, at once material and ideological. Or better, it consisted of a twofold strategy— coercion and consensus.

Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, loc. 585