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The Profligate Colonial: How the US Exported Austerity to the Philippines
In
The Profligate Colonial
, Lisandro E. Claudio reveals how austerity, long before it became a buzzword of modern technocracy, was a tool of US empire.
Austerity is often praised as prudence in hard times, a responsible response to crisis. In the Philippines today, it is treated as common sense, an unquestioned commitment to a strong currency, low inflation, and fiscal restraint. Claudio argues that this orthodoxy is in fact a colonial inheritance—a legacy of American rule that cast Filipinos as reckless spenders and imposed monetary discipline as a civilizing force. At the center of this logic is the "profligate colonial," a feminized, racialized figure who wastes public funds and so requires the steady hand of imperial governance.
Focusing on key moments in Philippine economic history across the twentieth century, Claudio charts how austerity was first exported through empire, then domesticated in line with nationalist ambitions. He shows that generations of Filipino policymakers, central bankers, and intellectuals absorbed the lessons of American "money doctors," transforming what was a means to build a colonial state on the cheap into a postcolonial moral imperative. Austerity became not just policy, but ideology—one that transcended political divides and reshaped the boundaries of the Philippine economic imagination.
As austerity politics rise once more in response to global inflation, The Profligate Colonial is a vital, incisive reminder of how austerity's appeal is less about economics than about a deep-rooted politics of control—one born in empire and still alive in policy today.
Austerity is often praised as prudence in hard times, a responsible response to crisis. In the Philippines today, it is treated as common sense, an unquestioned commitment to a strong currency, low inflation, and fiscal restraint. Claudio argues that this orthodoxy is in fact a colonial inheritance—a legacy of American rule that cast Filipinos as reckless spenders and imposed monetary discipline as a civilizing force. At the center of this logic is the "profligate colonial," a feminized, racialized figure who wastes public funds and so requires the steady hand of imperial governance.
Focusing on key moments in Philippine economic history across the twentieth century, Claudio charts how austerity was first exported through empire, then domesticated in line with nationalist ambitions. He shows that generations of Filipino policymakers, central bankers, and intellectuals absorbed the lessons of American "money doctors," transforming what was a means to build a colonial state on the cheap into a postcolonial moral imperative. Austerity became not just policy, but ideology—one that transcended political divides and reshaped the boundaries of the Philippine economic imagination.
As austerity politics rise once more in response to global inflation, The Profligate Colonial is a vital, incisive reminder of how austerity's appeal is less about economics than about a deep-rooted politics of control—one born in empire and still alive in policy today.
- GenresHistory
228 pages, Hardcover
Published November 15, 2025
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March 10, 2026
Alongside the US’s obsession with democracy (whilst increasingly eroding itself from within), the biggest scam and hypocrisy they ever pulled was stigmatizing debt-driven development, whilst simultaneously being one of the most interventionist states in the world in promoting the growth of its own industry through currency manipulation and low-interest rates.
This is an outstanding piece of economic history that synthesizes a measured critique and defense of colonial-era sources by tracing the unfortunate and tragic means by which the disease of austerity was imposed yet embraced (some would say, even contracted) by the contradictions of Filipino nationalist, post-colonial, and anti-authoritarian and anti-corruption discourses. One of the many insights I think a lot of scholars would find most interesting is the way the author integrates the work of Hau (on intellectualism), of Tadem (on technocracy), and of Scalice (on the Filipino left) to show how this obsession with a tight monetary policy finds its easiest scapegoat in producing a racist politics (on both sides of the political aisle) that which distracts from pursuing a better industrial policy.
While this book found its right timing with the perennial corruption and good governance discourses of the modern day, it will be timeless because it raises many good questions on Philippine development for the next decades: Should the Central Bank continue to focus solely on price stability? On what grounds should we evaluate development initiatives (like the Maharlika Investment Fund, which was highly criticized for being an avenue for corruption)? And most importantly, with the long overdue collapse of the dollar standard, under what conditions will the peso be supported?
Last thought: this book contains the beginnings of what could be a more extensive account of the internal conflicts and discourses within the UP School of Economics (UPSE), an elite technocratic institution inseparable from, yet sometimes critical of, government. The jukebox economists will certainly return for Avengers Doomsday! Hopefully, we’ll get to read something about this in the future.
This is an outstanding piece of economic history that synthesizes a measured critique and defense of colonial-era sources by tracing the unfortunate and tragic means by which the disease of austerity was imposed yet embraced (some would say, even contracted) by the contradictions of Filipino nationalist, post-colonial, and anti-authoritarian and anti-corruption discourses. One of the many insights I think a lot of scholars would find most interesting is the way the author integrates the work of Hau (on intellectualism), of Tadem (on technocracy), and of Scalice (on the Filipino left) to show how this obsession with a tight monetary policy finds its easiest scapegoat in producing a racist politics (on both sides of the political aisle) that which distracts from pursuing a better industrial policy.
While this book found its right timing with the perennial corruption and good governance discourses of the modern day, it will be timeless because it raises many good questions on Philippine development for the next decades: Should the Central Bank continue to focus solely on price stability? On what grounds should we evaluate development initiatives (like the Maharlika Investment Fund, which was highly criticized for being an avenue for corruption)? And most importantly, with the long overdue collapse of the dollar standard, under what conditions will the peso be supported?
Last thought: this book contains the beginnings of what could be a more extensive account of the internal conflicts and discourses within the UP School of Economics (UPSE), an elite technocratic institution inseparable from, yet sometimes critical of, government. The jukebox economists will certainly return for Avengers Doomsday! Hopefully, we’ll get to read something about this in the future.
Displaying 1 of 1 review