In this article, we examine the making of austerity as common sense, located at the intersection of state interventions and the everyday practices and moral logics through which austerity emerges as an acceptable livelihood possibility for individuals, households and communities. Our argument is based on a comparative analysis of austerity in Italy and Portugal, with a focus on popular austerities among working-class households in two post-industrial towns. With the aim of addressing the conundrum of the pervasiveness of austerity, we emphasise the relevance of Gramsci’s notion of common sense to expand the anthropological theorisation of austerity as a hegemonic project combining coercion and consent, capable of reconfiguring the state, and as a field of contradictions integral to the very making of common sense. We argue that austerity regimes become operative through the deployment of institutional coercive practices, moral arguments and the ideological co-optation of historical legacies of austerity embodied by ordinary people in their livelihood praxis.

在本文中，我们研究了紧缩政策的常识，它位于国家干预与日常实践和道德逻辑的交叉点，通过紧缩政策，紧缩政策成为个人，家庭和社区可接受的谋生手段。我们的论证基于对意大利和葡萄牙的紧缩政策的比较分析，重点是两个后工业城镇中工人阶级家庭的普遍紧缩政策。为了解决紧缩普遍性的难题，我们强调了葛兰西常识概念的相关性，以扩大紧缩的人类学理论，将紧缩的人类学理论扩展为结合了强制和同意的霸权项目，能够重构国家，并成为一个领域。常识的固有矛盾。