"By 2009, every anti-worker ideologue and their devotees had a popularized concept under which to mobilize their arguments about how and why workers should absorb the excesses of those capitalists who wanted to maintain their wealthy lifestyles: austerity. In this sense, the austerity apparatus is simply that which functions to police the everyday operations of crisis capitalism. In another sense this apparatus is the mobilization of operations that are a normative part of capitalism even without a crisis But this is simply due to the fact that economic crises are also part of capitalism’s day-to-day functioning: capitalism is crisis, implicitly or explicitly."
An excavation of the ideology of austerity and its relationship to the mechanisms of capitalism, Austerity Apparatus is a philosophical excursion through a variety of concepts surrounding capitalist crisis and class struggle. Written as a series of interconnected meditations on the problematic of austerity, Austerity Apparatus is a creative intervention rather than a polemic or rigorous analysis; it is designed to force reflection on the ways in which contemporary capitalism conditions its subjects to accept its limits.
In examining the problematic of austerity, Moufawad-Paul also discusses the relationship between neoliberalism and fascism and the ways in which the latter is immanent to capitalism. This aspect of Austerity Apparatus should be of particular interest to readers exploring the meaning of the contemporary re-emergence of fascist politics.
What People Are Saying
“Accessible without losing its edge, the language fantastically compelling while also being as precise and uncompromising as a bullet.”
Benjanun Sriduangkaew, award-nominated author of Scale-Bright, the upcoming Winterglass, and various stories appearing in Clarkesworld, Apex, and collections of the year’s best speculative fiction
“This book is an unapologetic, militant critique of contemporary capitalism. Moufawad-Paul’s skillful arguments are a testament to the necessary centrality of class politics, indeed class war, to any anti-capitalist struggle worthy of its name. Drawing not only on Marx, Lenin, and Mao, but also more recent analyses, this book disassembles the politics of austerity in our world, offering hope that the left can be, or is, more than the sum of its parts.”
Colleen Bell, Assistant Professor of Political Studies at University of Saskatchewan, author of The Freedom of Security and co-editor of War, Police, and Assemblages of Intervention.