European governments and their central banks enforced the “proper” (i.e., classappropriate) behavior on the working classes in order to rescue capital accumulation by the wealthy. Th e three forms of austerity policies— fi scal, monetary, and industrial— worked in unison to exert a downward pressure on wages among the rest of society. Th eir aim was to shift national wealth and resources toward the upper classes, who, the economic experts insisted, were the ones capable of saving and investing.

Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, loc. 45