On the 15th March 2023, AIDC convened a public forum to discuss international and historical experiences of austerity with Professor Clara Mattei, author of The Capital Order: How Economists Invented Austerity and Paved the Road to Fascism.
By examining how corporate media and mainstream economists ideologically seduce the general public regarding the necessity and outcomes of austerity, Clara Mattei offered a perspective on austerity that will certainly sharpen the strategic efforts of activists and human rights advocates to resist budget cuts and regressive tax policies.
The session contributed to an enhanced understanding of austerity as a political project advanced by economic elites. Highlighting how this is detrimental to the living conditions of the general public, especially women living in poor and working class communities. Enriching our understanding of austerity is indispensable to producing effective strategies to resist the devastation it unleashes on most South Africans.
By identifying how industrial, fiscal and monetary policy work in harmony to kill the economic agency of workers, attendees realized that their resistance to austerity would have to go beyond resistance to budget cuts. In this regard, consideration was directed to the possibility of pursuing litigation against the government’s austerity measures. Not least given that local human rights advocates and a United Nations Committee have publicly criticised the government’s austerity measures as damaging to human rights and not aligning with mandates of South Africa’s constitution.
The session was well attended and had rich engagement from local activists, specifically the AIDC partner social movement the Cry of the Excluded. Complimenting the attendance of activists was the participation of university students and feminist activists from local communities in Cape Town. Attendees shared their various experiences of austerity, reflecting the positions they inhabit in society in regards to race, gender and age. A consistent theme that ran through this discussion was how the weakening of state capacity, due to budget cuts or limitations, severely damaged the socio-economic well-being of vulnerable groups such as the elderly and children.
