Coercion resided not only in how economic policies were passed, but in how these policies worked. Technocrats devised monetary, fi scal, and industrial policies that imposed hard work and economy on a population in need of discipline. Aft er all, as the offi cial proceedings of the Brussels resolution pointed out, "[t]he country which accepts the policy of budget defi cits is treading the slippery path which leads to general ruin; to escape from that path no sacrifi ce is too great" (Resolution II, Commission on Public Finance, Brussels 1920, vol.

Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, loc. 725