Austerity sought consensus through the sponsorship and intellectual authority of technocracy, which operated as both its epistemic grounding and its political force. As preachers of “pure economic science,” experts imparted their teachings to all citizens. Th ey set out to educate the general public about the truthfulness of the prescriptions upon which their economic behavior should be shaped. Once disarmed of any agency to advance economic alternatives, the people had no choice but to either comply or be forced to comply with the economic necessity. And once the economic/political divide was reestablished, the coercive market forces would naturally work to discipline disarmed workers.

Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, loc. 819