Th e main contribution of Hawtreyan economics was to fortify the concept of monetary management (or austere management) of the market economy and to assign managerial command to a technocratic institution. As a private body, Hawtrey told us, the Bank of England was "free" to infl ict austerity without ever having to "explain," "regret," or "apologise." In this sense it emerges that there was nothing more political than the technocratic mission to depoliticize.

Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, loc. 1032