2015/17 | LEM Working Paper Series | |
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Austerity and Repressive Politics: Italian Economists in the Early Years of the Fascist Government |
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Clara Elisabetta Mattei |
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Keywords | ||
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Austerity, Repressive Politics, Economists as Consultants, Fascism
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JEL Classifications | ||
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B41, N44, N14, B13
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Abstract | ||
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The historical forerunners of contemporary austerity are still largely
unexplored. This essay considers the “liberal phase” of Fascist Italy
(1922-1925) as a case study to explain austerity as a full-blown
rationality, that is intrinsically, and simultaneously, theory and
practice, encompassing the moral, the economic and the political. My
explanation moves beyond the interpretation of austerity as the
post-1980, neoliberal recipe of price deflation and budget cuts. The
Italian case draws attention to a neglected connection: that between
austerity and repression. Austerity was the guiding principle of the
Fascist economic agenda during the 1920s. It served to extinguish the
effects of the democratization process of the post-WWI years. The
paper examines the work of four distinguished economists, Maffeo
Pantaleoni, Luigi Einaudi, Alberto De Stefani and Umberto Ricci, who -
in different roles as professors, journalists, advisors, and
policy-makers – can be considered the source, the guardians and the
enforcers of Fascist austerity.
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