Hard work and economy— as in budget cuts and individual abstinence— were the guiding principles that formed the essence of austerity as a response to crisis. In themselves these were not much of a novelty; they had been an integral part of the conceptual toolbox of the renowned classical economists Adam Smith, David Ricardo, and Th omas Robert Malthus for at least a century. What was new in the early twentieth century was that the general public had seen the fault in such narratives.

Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, loc. 718