As Pantaleoni put it bluntly in 1920, economic policy making could not be “at once popular and exact.” Th e problem of political democracy was that people did not understand what was in their best interests; they had to be kept away from economic decisions for their own good. Today’s austerity politics remain grounded in a drive to shield economic governance from popular opinion— to keep the economy from getting political.

Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, loc. 1581