In Pakistan’s economic discourse, words cost less than reforms, and metaphors often replace mathematics. The state’s language around the economy—especially during periods of austerity—is a strategic exercise in framing scarcity as necessity, inflation as discipline, and suffering as sacrifice. Behind every promise of fiscal consolidation lies a narrative carefully shaped to justify inequality as inevitability.
The lexicon of austerity is marked by euphemism and abstraction. “Rationalizing subsidies,” “structural adjustment,” and “macro-stabilization” are terms designed not to enlighten the public, but to insulate policymakers from critique. These phrases are semantically rich but experientially empty—describing human pain in terms of economic ‘balancing.’
Van Dijk’s socio-cognitive approach suggests that such discourse constructs a mental model of inevitability: the idea that austerity is the only path forward. This narrative is further strengthened by the constant invocation of external constraints—“global trends,” “IMF conditionalities,” “market pressures”—which de-center national agency and obscure local alternatives.
The dominant metaphors used in economic speech also reflect this framing. Economic reform is cast as a “journey,” a “transition,” or a “tightrope walk”—concepts that imply hardship but also endurance. The state becomes a benevolent guide, and the people are passengers, urged to remain patient as the road narrows.
Crucially, this discourse renders the economic subject passive. Citizens are no longer agents but consumers, taxpayers, beneficiaries. Their role is to absorb impact, not to shape direction. Even labor—arguably the central engine of any economy—is discursively sidelined in favor of investment, deficit control, and digitalization.
Media and political campaigns reinforce these frames. Budgets are announced with ceremonial vocabulary—“historic,” “pro-people,” “game-changing”—even when they offer little relief. The gap between rhetorical prosperity and lived austerity creates a cognitive dissonance that deepens public disillusionment.
Furthermore, economic debates are conducted in hyper-technical English, inaccessible to most Pakistanis. Terms like “primary balance,” “fiscal deficit,” and “external account stability” become the gatekeepers of credibility. To question them is to risk being labelled populist, ignorant, or worse—anti-progress.
Yet within this technocratic fog, some narratives of resistance emerge. Farmer protests, labor union strikes, and informal sector demands represent counter-discourses that insist on naming suffering not as “adjustment” but as exploitation. These voices disrupt the polite fictions of economic speech and demand a new grammar of inclusion.
For a truly participatory economy, Pakistan must first reclaim the language of economics. Transparency begins with words that explain rather than obscure. Prosperity begins with discourse that acknowledges people not as numbers but as narrators of their own lives.
