An Institutional History of Italian Economics in the Interwar Period — Volume II by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9783030383312
Publisher: Springer International Publishing

6 Between Residual Autonomy and Increasing Regimentation: Being an Economist at the Fascist Senate

Also the Senate, as mentioned, was submitted from the late 1920s to a process of fascistisation. In this institution, however, the legacy of the pre-fascist past was stronger and the process of substituting the older, mainly liberal-oriented senators with politically more reliable new members was undoubtedly slower.

Among the representatives of the liberal pre-fascist élite, one of the most outstanding was Luigi Einaudi. Appointed to the Senate in 1919, Einaudi manifested his dissent with the regime by rarely attending to the sessions and avoiding from taking part in the discussions on the floor. Furthermore, in 1928 he voted against the new electoral law promoted by Alfredo Rocco and in 1935 to a Senate agendum in favour of Ethiopia’s war (Faucci 1986, 215).

Another influential economist, who came from a different approach but, as Einaudi, was alien to the fascist ideology, was Achille Loria, an eclectic thinker influenced by the German historical school (but also by Marx and Darwin) and author of original, albeit controversial, essays and monographs in which he tried to explain the economic and political evolution of the modern societies on the basis of the abundance or scarcity of land.51 Member of the “Accademia dei Lincei” since 1901, he was appointed to the Senate in October 1919.

In spite of the fact that, being alien to fascist ideology, he was subjected to increasing isolation, Loria took an active part in the work of the Senate. In March 1930, in a speech delivered in the presence of Mussolini during a debate on a law aimed at implementing the “National Council of Corporations”, a new constitutional body, he expressed a favourable opinion on the role played by the corporations on the economic and social system of Italy, as they could guarantee a continuous coordination between workers and employers.52 In his analysis, Loria interpreted corporatism as a manifestation of the intervention of the state in the economy: as such, he argued, this issue had been already raised by several nineteenth-century economists, in particular the German Kathedersozialisten. In the same speech, however, Loria warned against the claims, made by some supporters of the corporatism, that this would finally overcome the clash between social classes. The debate itself that had accompanied the approval of the same legislative proposal in the Chamber of deputies, observed Loria, had revealed that on crucial aspects the representatives of the entrepreneurs and those of the unions had different, even conflicting point of view.53 To some extent, he added, these conflicts were indeed unavoidable and even beneficial.

In another remarkable speech, delivered in the Senate in May 1935, Loria focused on the Italian banking system, expressing a very positive evaluation of the legislative interventions that led to the establishment of the “Istituto per la Ricostruzione Industriale” (IRI).54 Thanks to these measures, stated Loria, it had been possible to overcome the main factors of instability affecting the major Italian banks, namely their tendency to invest short-term deposits in long-term loans. The

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