Th e public disgust for early austerity was its crucible: austerity was rendered more antagonistic because it had to overcome— and indeed tame— an incensed public. Aft er World War I, with the gold standard in pieces, the newly enfranchised European “great public” was not simply going to accept austere policies, and the experts knew it. Th us, they devised austerity to conjoin two strategies: consensus and coercion.

Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, loc. 43