Th e austerity agenda that was shared among the Brussels meeting's "specialists in fi nancial disease" (Davis 1920) consisted of both a "diagnosis" and "a mode of treatment." Th e diagnosis was harsh and evoked a sense of dramatic emergency: the world economy was in severe crisis and "the severity of the malady" varied immensely "in proportion to the degree in which each nation has been immersed in the maelstrom of the war" (Brussels 1920, vol. 1, 4).

Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, loc. 688