Austerity policies originated with efforts by economic elites to crush working-class power and redistribute income upward after World War I. That history demonstrates the need for democratic control over economic policy to defend workers’ interests.
Something I've always wondered, are there any examples of countries that did decide to keep more direct democratic control over the central bank? Have they been more able to avoid implementing austerity?
That's honestly a great question. Cuba and Vietnam both come to mind, but I don't know for certain since they've both undergone liberalization in the last few decades
Those countries are explicitly communist, so that's pretty much a given. Presumably in China the same holds true, the central bank will do what Xi wants. But in the West pretty much every central bank just does its own thing, regardless of what the government wants, and this could really explain why it's been so hard for centre left parties to actually accomplish the things they want to do. Even when they get in power, they're still limited by the inherently conservative budget constraints and interest rates imposed by the central bank, who are always run by bankers that have a vested interest in making sure the working class is 'kept in its place'.
It's actually kind of embarrassing that even supposed centre left parties just accepted the neoliberal framing and Chicago school economics, and it's a good thing there's more pushback from the likes of the MMT economists (and Marxists who never changed their tune) who say that there's really way more budgetary space if you can break through the current political consensus.