What some economists today would characterize as a mistake of economic management had clear political advantages. Th e evil of unemployment was not so evil for the longterm survival of exploitation, a principle upon which capital accumulation rested. Unemployment weakened workers’ position, silenced demands for greater economic democracy, and guaranteed lower labor costs … As Cronin put it: “Th e astronomical levels of unemployment in some of the most militant and strike prone industries must have served to lower the expectations of workers and erode the bases of workshop organization” … Indeed, technocrats got what they wished for: wages fell tremendously as a consequence of the austerityinduced slump. Average money wages and retail prices plummeted by 30 percent between 1920 and 1923, a remarkable degree of fl exibility (Peden 1985, 68).

Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, loc. 994