Austerity and Fiscal Policy
Key information
- Date
- Time
-
6:00 pm to 8:00 pm
- Venue
- Online via Zoom
- Event type
- Webinar
About this event
Continuing from our last discussion on the cost of living crisis and inflation, our fourth session explores austerity and fiscal policy.
The session will run with 1-hour panel discussion between the speakers, chaired by Clara Mattei, followed by an open discussion with the audience lasting 30 minutes to an hour.
The speakers, Peter Bloom and Pedro Rossi, will discuss points including but not limited to:
Austerity and the authoritarian-financial complex
Austerity reinforces an authoritarian-financial complex that merges state power, finance, and coercion into a system that profits from insecurity. It bridges structural dominance and psychological manipulation by turning social fear into a desire for repressive stability.
The repressive cycle of finance
Financialisation repeatedly generates crises that are then used to justify further cuts, deepening dependence on private capital. This cycle normalises precarity as both a disciplinary tool and a profitable economic strategy.
Neoliberal scarcity and the rise of nativism
Neoliberalism manufactures a constant sense of scarcity and displacement, which is then narrated as cultural threat rather than structural injustice. Economic insecurity is redirected into nativist resentment, targeting migrants and marginalised groups instead of financial elites.
The necropolitical logic of austerity
Austerity functions as a form of necropolitics determining who enjoys security and who becomes disposable, reinforcing racialised and exclusionary boundaries of belonging. This logic produces the 'global native', a political identity that channels economic pain into authoritarian and exclusionary politics.
Alternatives to austerity: abundance and radical indigenous futures
Overcoming austerity requires rejecting scarcity as a natural condition and embracing economic models grounded in care, reciprocity, and democratic control of finance. Indigenous and relational frameworks show how communities can build solidarity across borders without falling into exclusionary nativism.
About the speakers
Peter Bloom
Peter Bloom is a Professor of Management at the University of Essex. Prior to coming to the EBS, he was a Senior Lecturer and Head of the Department of People and Organisations at the Open University as well as the Co-Founder of the research group REEF (Research into Employment, Empowerment, and Futures). His research critically explores the radical possibilities of technology for redefining and transforming contemporary work and society. It focuses on better understanding the human aspects of organisational existence and the potential for constructing more empowering cultural paradigms for organising the economy and politics.
Pedro Rossi
Pedro Rossi is Professor at the Institute of Economics at Unicamp, chief economist at the Global Fund for a New Economy, and founder of Transforma Unicamp. He works in the areas of Brazilian economy, political economy, macroeconomics, and international economics. His research currently focuses on exchange rates and exchange rate policy, and the impacts of fiscal policy on human rights.
Series in Advanced Political Economy (SAPE)
The Series in Advanced Political Economy (SAPE) was launched in 2022, jointly organised by Departments of Economics at SOAS University of London and New School for Social Research (NSSR) in New York. We have been promoting political economy beyond university walls and created a platform where academics, activists, trade unionists, and many others, could come together to discuss pressing issues and explore ways to address the multi-faceted crises of our time.
Register to get updates via email and Zoom links for future events in the series.
Image credit: Harold Mendoza via Unsplash.
