1. Introduction and a survey of literature

This paper aims to provide a survey of the literature on one field of the Italian economic thought in the inter-war period, “corporative economics”.

A corporative organisation of the economy was attempted by the fascist regime only after 1925, when an early phase of ultra-liberal policy was definitively abandoned. The passage that marked this turn was Mussolini’s decision to replace the former minister of finance, Alberto De’ Stefani, with Giuseppe Volpi. Immediately after this decision, the classical liberal mechanisms of political representation based on individual vote were replaced by a new model of collective representation centred on professional and economic interests. The corporations were devised as public organisations, each of them comprehending one profession or branch of the economy. Workers and employers had joint and balanced representations in them. Moreover, after the “pact” signed at Palazzo Vidoni in October 1925 and the suppression of the National Confederation of Workers (CGdL) in 1926, the fascist government deliberated to admit to negotiations only the officially acknowledged unions. The law of 3 April 1926 – written by the jurist Alfredo Rocco – prohibited walk-outs and definitively established the corporative system. The new Ministry of Corporations was instituted on 2 July 1926, along with the National Council of Corporations, which had consultative powers in matter of labour relations. The powers of the latter organism were increased by a reform in 1930. The principles of corporativism were officially stated by the Carta del Lavoro, a declaration drafted by Giuseppe Bottai and published in the “Gazzetta ufficiale” on 21 April 1927¹. However, an organic law on corporations was not promulgated before 5 February 1934 – a proof of the prudence displayed by the fascist regime in this domain.

The institutionalisation of corporative economy was, as one can see, more the result of political decisions taken by Mussolini himself and supported by a bundle of political exponents and fascist intellectuals – generally philosophers and jurists (Bottai, Rocco, Edmondo Rossoni, the leader of the Confederation of Corporations founded in Bologna in 1922) – than the fruit of previous theoretical developments. The “scientific” debate on this economic model – and eventually the emergence of the new branch of corporative economics – largely came as a consequence of these decisions. The main events connected to this debate were the National Conferences of Corporative Studies. The first of these conferences was held in 1930, but with the exception of Celestino Arena no academic economist participated in it (Zagari 1982, p. 41). A larger resonance was secured by the second conference organised in Ferrara in 1932. This turned into a dramatic confrontation between the “right” and the “left” wing of the corporative movement. Lastly, the decree of 28 November 1935, n. 2004 – reforming the university system – transformed the teaching of “political economy” into “corporative political economy”. But even before that date political wisdom suggested young economists to produce contributions on corporative economics, if they wished to attain academic positions (Casadei 1994).

After the pioneering exploration by Mancini, Perillo and Zagari (1982), the historiography on the Italian economics of the 1920s and 1930s was increased in the 1980s and 1990s by a wealth of contributions, which contrasted with the reticence of former decades². At the same time the attitude vis-à-vis the economic literature of the fascist period changed. From a stance that ranged from embarrassment to downright contempt (see, e.g., Finoia 1984b), the historians’ approach moved towards more accurate textual and theoretical analysis. This change of attitude³ implied an emphasis on historical rather than rational reconstruction, and a shift from an engaged and highly evaluative (Whig) approach to more detached (Tory) historical analysis. This turn followed the general attempt of contemporary historiography to study the fascist period not as a negative “parenthesis”, but as part of the history of the Twentieth century. The conference on “The Italian Economic Thought in the Inter-War Period”, Pisa 6-7 December 1990 (see Faucci 1990a) was a significant episode of this new trend of research.

However, this historiographic turn was far from being radical. Those who attempted to examine the inter-war period as a whole (Faucci 1990b, 1990c and 1994; Zagari 1990; Realfonzo – Zagari 1993; Gattei 1995) could not refrain from concluding that what the Italian economists had written in this period could hardly be compared to the “high theory” afforded at an earlier stage by Pareto, Pantaleoni and Barone, or by contemporary economists spawning between Cambridge, UK, and London. Fortunately, recent studies on single Italian economists (Marco Fanno, Costantino Bresciani Turroni and Francesco Vito)⁴ enable us to draw less pessimistic conclusions.

This negative appraisal was even more radical in the case of corporative economics (Zagari 1982, pp. 14-15 and 1990; Faucci 1990b; 1990c and 1995b, pp. 523-528; Perri – Pesciarelli 1990; Cavalieri 1994)⁵. Indeed, the unsatisfactory achievements of corporative economics largely explain the distaste of historians of economic thought for the Italian economic literature of the inter-war period (Faucci 1990c, pp. 184-85). Nevertheless, it was admitted that the debate on the nature of corporative economy gave young economists an opportunity to revise the more obsolete aspects of orthodox marginalist economics (Perillo 1982; Realfonzo – Zagari 1993, p. 203; Faucci 1995b, p. 524).

There are at least two justifications for such a negative assessment. First, it is hard to judge what corporative economics actually was, since this doctrine, despite a plethora of writings on the argument, fell short of significant achievements. Second, the fascist regime itself, after 1930-32 – despite official declarations made for propaganda reasons – abandoned the corporative model, and relegated corporative legislation to an instrument for controlling the labour force and enforcing low wages. After the Great Crisis, a model of “mixed economy” was adopted, in which governmental control over the economy was secured by State-owned banks and industrial plants located in strategic branches⁶. Corporative studies were practically discouraged, and even fascist intellectuals rapidly realised that their “revolutionary” theories had become suspect (Bini 1982, pp. 282-283)⁷. But even in the years of the largest success of corporative ideas (1926-34), bold declarations in favour of the advent of homo corporativus flagrantly contrasted with the prudence displayed by the fascist government (see ibid., p. 253). This fact has been considered as a proof that the only end of corporative legislation was the “normalisation” of the labour movement (Santarelli 1972; Gattei 1995).

Moreover, as shown in sections 2 and 3 of this paper, the fact that almost all orthodox economists felt themselves compelled to discuss the nature of corporativism imposed to the debate a marginalist flavour. This discouraged attempts to formulate an alternative economic paradigm (Zagari 1990, p. 462). The case of corporative economics is therefore a case of “histoire ambigüe” (Dockès – Rosier 1988) requiring the patient construction of “potential alternative histories” or uchronies (Bellanca –Guidi 1997). But also chronology proves to be essential in this case. The order in which official declarations and influential attacks and replies were pronounced determined the direction taken by theoretical elaboration, and eventually influenced the prevailing approach to corporative economics.

A result of this hybridisation between marginalism and corporativism is that the distinction between “genuine” corporatist theory and eclectic or opportunist uses of the label “corporativism” is practically vanishing. Still more difficult is to fix a periodisation in the corporatist debate. It might result that corporative economics as a distinct discursive practice was dead well before the fall of the fascist regime.

A further problem is represented by the fact that many advocates of corporativism were philosophers or legal and political thinkers (see Ornaghi 1984; Costa 1990). Alfredo Rocco, Ugo Spirito, and Arnaldo Volpicelli were among them. Their knowledge of current economic theory and of the history of economic thought was unequal, and so was their ability to debate with professional economists. But even the background of an economist like Massimo Fovel was substantially legal and philosophical. An interdisciplinary approach is then required in order to study the historical evolution of corporative economics.

In short, the research on corporative economics is still largely to be made. But it can be productive of new results only if it meets the following methodological requirements:

1. “Tory” interpretation that aims to contextualise the content of theories and discursive practices;

2. historical and theoretical reconstruction of the unexpressed potentialities of corporatist reformulations of the nature of economics (uchronies);

3. interdisciplinary approach to the economic, political and legal contents of corporatist theories.

The present notes intend to raise the problem of the place of corporative economics in the long-term evolution of the Italian economic thought and culture.

2. A review of the troops

Who were the corporatist economists, and what issues were debated among them? The answer to these questions is not simple, since the debate involved almost all the Italian economists of the inter-war period.

Those who have studied corporative economics have attempted a periodisation of it (Zagari 1982, pp. 24-30 and 1990; Faucci 1990c, pp. 215-220). They have identified four stages:

1) 1920 to 1925. In this period the majority of economists was still faithful the Italian marginalist tradition. Pareto and Pantaleoni, who had approved the fascist coup d’état, died between 1923 and 1924, and De Viti died in 1943 after two decades of absolute silence. They were followed by a generation of disciples, among whom was Alberto De’ Stefani, the minister of finances between 1922 and 1925, who promoted an economic policy inspired to authoritarian laissez-faire. Corporatist theory was in its pioneering stage, cultivated by some exponents of “revolutionary trade-unionism” (Alceste De Ambris), nationalist thinkers (Filippo Carli and Alfredo Rocco), and fascist leaders (Rossoni and Bottai).

2) 1925 to 1934. In this period corporative economics was at its zenith. The main partisans of this approach proclaimed that the “new” theoretical basis of corporative economics lay in the doctrine of homo corporativus who replaced the individualist homo œconomicus. Orthodox economists like Attilio Cabiati, Luigi Einaudi, Pasquale Jannaccone, and Umberto Ricci were forced to a tactic retreat.

3) 1934 to 1943. Orthodox economists came back to the stage. Most of them (although not all) put into brackets their laissez-faire beliefs and attempted to interpret the phenomena of corporative economy from a marginalist viewpoint. Einaudi and Jannaccone insisted that for the corporative system to be efficient, wages and prices should not differ from those determined by free competition. According to them, the causes that had hindered the functioning of free market were temporary and of an institutional nature. However, other economists – like Gustavo Del Vecchio, Marco Fanno, Costantino Bresciani Turroni, Giovanni Demaria, and Giuseppe Palomba – discussed the new role of the State in the light of the great crisis and the increasing weight of monopolies and oligopolies. Treading the pathways unclosed by Pantaleoni and Pareto, these economists developed a dynamic approach to the interpretation of these emerging phenomena. But at the same time, they ignored or misunderstood the content of the contemporary Keynesian revolution (Zagari 1990, pp. 462-464).

4) Finally, a very short fourth stage was represented by the impact over the Italian debate of the Nazi perspective of a “new economic order” based on “spheres of influence” dominated by the emerging State powers (Faucci 1990c, pp. 218-220). However, a conference organised in Pisa in 1942 on “The Economic Problems of the New Order” resolved into a triumph of the laissez-faire vision, courageously defended by Giovanni Demaria. This position granted to Demaria a role of prestige in the preparatory works for the Constituent Assembly of the post-war republic in 1946.

This periodisation reveals that an important turn in the debate on corporativism was represented by the massive intervention of orthodox economists at the beginnings of the 1930s. Before that date, the prevailing opinion was that corporative economics would call for a complete renovation of the economist’s “box of tools” as a consequence of the new goals and values generated by the “corporatist revolution”. However, this attempt was largely unsuccessful both for the internal contradictions of the new approach and for the new tone imposed to the debate by orthodox economists. Corporative economics was reduced to a case of applied economics, which did not modify the content of pure theory. The only novelty was the development of dynamic analyses in response to the problems raised by the increasing role of the State.

How can this fact be explained? The superior intellectual capacity and scientific proficiency of orthodox economists is an obvious answer. Einaudi, Fanno, Del Vecchio, Demaria were the heirs of a tradition of high international standing. Mussolini’s distaste for the corporative model – which made any further discussion on it suspect – may also have discouraged the inventiveness of corporative economists.

But an enlarged analysis of the institutional context of economic debates in this period reveals other explanations of the success of the orthodox approach. A first key of analysis is provided by the sequence of events; another by the institutional framework of economic studies.

2.1. Time sequence

Many studies on the Italian economic thought of the inter-war period suggest that the scientific authority of some interventions in the discussion on corporativism may have decisively influenced the direction impressed to the debate.

Among the reasons of the success of corporative economics in the period 1925-1934, Zagari (1982, pp. 25-27) mentions the intervention of the philosopher Giovanni Gentile (Che cos’è il fascismo, Florence 1925), Alfredo Rocco’s detailed comment of the law of 1926, and the articles published by Giuseppe Bottai in “Critica Fascista”. These texts gave political and intellectual dignity to corporative economics, encouraging those who accepted the challenge. More documented is the impact produced by an article published by Ugo Spirito in 1930⁸, which gave rise to a host of comments and replies (Zagari 1982, pp. 32-33 and 33 note).

Such key events encouraged orthodox economists to enter the playground too. For example R. Benini, U. Gobbi and G. Del Vecchio took the opportunity of a meeting of the Italian Society for the Advancement of Science (1930) (Zagari 1982, p. 28) to declare that time had come for academic economists to explore the problems of corporative economy. This invitation produced the interventions by G. Masci (1932), L. Amoroso and A. De’ Stefani (1933), and L. Einaudi (1933 and 1934).

A second episode was an open letter from Rodolfo Benini to Ugo Spirito, followed by an article published in the “Giornale degli economisti”⁹. Benini – an eclectic economist influenced by the historical school – reformulated the analysis of corporative economy in the language of the economists. He also propounded a bridge between orthodox and corporative economics by acknowledging that marginalist economics was “half a science”, since it concerned only the cases in which the power of each individual was equal in all markets of goods and factors (see Maccabelli 2001). According to Benini, the analysis of the State as economic agent was a common ground between marginalist and corporatist analysis. The list of reactions to Benini’s article – mostly of a critical character – shows that his motion was highly provocative (Zagari 1982, pp. 41-42 and 41 note). An important consequence of Benini’s suggestions was that some corporative economists (A. Lanzillo, L. Gangemi, A. De Pietri Tonelli, S. Giua and C. Arena) were convinced to re-evaluate the tools of marginalist economics.

The interpretations of the decisive episode that determined the orthodox revision are different. R. Faucci highlights the role of two articles published by Einaudi in the early 1930s: Trincee economiche e corporativismo¹⁰, and La corporazione aperta¹¹. Einaudi replied to Benini’s articles and defended the point of view of orthodox liberal economics. According to Faucci (1990c, pp. 214-216), Einaudi’s influence – not Benini’s proposals – stimulated G. Masci in 1932 to compare the corporative model to a case of bilateral monopoly. They also had a decisive impact on A. Breglia, G. Del Vecchio and C. Arena.

According to Zagari (1982, pp. 49-50, and 1990, p. 465), the decisive episode was an article published by two leading fascist economists, Luigi Amoroso and Alberto De’ Stefani, on La logica del sistema corporativo¹². Amoroso and De’ Stefani expounded a theory of corporative economy considered as a special application of economic dynamics. Following the path opened by Pantaleoni, they extended the logic of choice to inter-temporal analysis, by examining the relationships between “living forces” (the decisions instantaneously taken by individuals), “inertial forces” (the decisions taken in former periods, which still have an influence on present decisions) and “directive forces” (expectations and choices concerning the future, which have an influence on the present). Economic dynamics, which studies the interactions between these “forces”, was interpreted as a generalisation of orthodox static theory. According to Amoroso and De’ Stefani, since the relationships between these groups of “forces” change in different historical contexts, dynamics is able to analyse different economic models. The corporative economy is just one of these models. According to Amoroso and De’ Stefani, the specific “living forces” of this economic organisation are private property and the entrepreneurs’ inclinations. The “inertial” and “directive forces” are determined by the regulation of industrial relations, price control and the State intervention in certain sectors, since these regulations modify individual values, attitudes and expectations. In Amoroso and De’ Stefani’s view, the study of homo corporativus could be made with the classical logic of individual choice.

Among the outcomes of Amoroso and De’ Stefani’s article, an important contribution was Giuseppe U. Papi’s attempt to reduce corporativism to a case anti-cyclical policy (see the 3^rd vol. of Papi’s Lezioni di economia politica corporativa, 1943) (Faucci 1995, p. 526). A similar direction was undertaken by Marco Fanno’s, who defined the corporative economy as a planned economy in which the State enacts anti-cyclical policies (see M. Fanno, Principii di scienza economica, 1938, 3^rd ed., 7^th part) (Faucci 1990c, p. 218).

A third decisive episode was the showdown that took place at the second Conference on Corporative Economics (Ferrara, May 1932). During this conference, Spirito’s radical proposal of a transition from capitalist economy to a system based on “proprietary corporation” was seriously attacked by the moderate “right wing” of the movement (Zagari 1982, p. 29). This episode demonstrated that the majority of corporative economists had understood that the political attitude of the fascist regime had changed and that the “new economics” should surrender to less “revolutionary” approaches. Giuseppe Parlato has recently documented how Mussolini himself prepared the trap in which Ugo Spirito fell at the Conference (Parlato 1997).

2.2. Institutional factors

An analysis of the institutional framework that favoured the success of orthodox economists must necessarily start with the state of teaching in the area of political economy. Faucci (1990c) has attempted a systematic comparison of economic teaching in the academic years 1921-22 and 1942-43. This comparison reveals that many of the orthodox economists who were in place at the beginnings of the fascist regime were still there at the end of the period. One of the major causes of displacement – apart from age and death – was racial discrimination following the law of 1938, which affected Jew economists (among which were some corporatist economists like Gino Arias). Many of the younger economists who had been recruited during that period were the disciples of orthodox economists and their career was generally not obstructed by political diktats. Only the University of Rome was partially “colonised” by politicians like Giacomo Acerbo or De’ Stefani himself.

Corporative economics conquered some vantage positions only in some universities. Among them were the University of Ferrara, where Nino Massimo Fovel taught, and the University of Naples, where an equilibrium was reached between liberal economists (Breglia and Corbino) and fascist economists (Gangemi and Arena) (Faucci 1990c, pp. 191-192). To some extent, also the Catholic University of Milan became a centre of corporative economics.

The efforts of the fascist regime in this field were concentrated on the institution of special schools and research institutions – like the School of Corporative Sciences of the University of Pisa, directed by Ugo Spirito and Arnaldo Volpicelli, the Trade Unions School of Florence, headed by Gino Arias, and later the Institute of Corporative Finance. To these institutions one should add the National Institute of Agrarian Economics (Inea), directed by Arrigo Serpieri, who was also appointed the president of the ancient Academy of Georgofili in Florence.

On the whole, a jealous control over the mechanisms of recruitment was one of the means by which orthodox economists preserved their academic power and promoted their reconquista.

Another field that reveals the vitality of orthodox economics is that of editorial initiatives. The largest publishing houses played an important role in supporting these economists. Giulio Einaudi, the son of Luigi, started a series of collections and manuals that republished the classics of Italian marginalism, and sponsored the younger generation of liberal economists. A similar policy was followed by Zanichelli and Treves, while Laterza’s strategies were strongly influenced first by Pantaleoni (Michelini 1999), and later by the liberal philosopher Benedetto Croce. These publishing houses translated many important contributions of foreign economists. On the whole, they ignored fascist economics (Faucci 1990b and 1995).

The publishing houses that more actively sponsored corporative economics were Sansoni (Florence), the publisher of Giovanni Gentile’s works, and Cya, another Florentine small house (Faucci 1990c, p. 195). Sansoni published a collection of texts issued by the Pisa Corporative School, which included not only the works of corporative economists, but also many works on economic planning, including writings by Stalin and Molotov¹³. This collection signalled itself also for voicing the works of nazi and racist authors. Other publishing houses that played a limited but significant role were the publishers of school and university textbooks, like Hoepli and Mondadori in Milan, and Cedam in Padua¹⁴.

Faucci (1990b, p. 10; 1990c, pp. 196-197; 1995b, p. 516) has also documented the strange case of another collection, the Nuova collana di economisti stranieri ed italiani, 12 vols., Utet, Turin, 1932-37. This collection was originally contrived as a sequel of the five series of the Biblioteca dell’economista. The new series was to become the seal of fascist economic culture. The choice of the general editors (Celestino Arena and Giuseppe Bottai) left no doubts on the intentions of the promoters. However the editors did not fulfil these expectations. Their opus was open to updated international literature (Pigou, Sraffa, Hicks, Frisch, Hayek, Robertson and Keynes). Some corporatist editors originally included in the project (such as Spirito, Arias and Ferri) were replaced by others. On the whole, the collection offered no room for corporative economics. Einaudi’s public opposition to the original project and Gustavo Del Vecchio’s back-stage activism probably contributed to the re-orientation of this initiative. One should not forget the role played by Celestino Arena, who aimed to improve corporative economics through contributions from contemporary unorthodox approaches.

Finally also the major cultural enterprise of the fascist regime, the Enciclopedia Italiana published by the Istituto Treccani, Rome, and edited by Giovanni Gentile, was relatively impartial in the choice of economists as authors of its entries¹⁵. The fundamental entry Political Economy was entrusted to Ugo Spirito, who did not refrain from presenting his personal view of the history of economic thought. But the entry Labour was authored by U. Gobbi, that on Wages by Augusto Graziani (see Bini 1982) and the article on Trade-unionism was committed to Rodolfo Mondolfo. Unexpectedly, the entry Corporation (vol. XI, 1931) was relatively understated. Most of this entry was devoted to the history of medieval corporations, and the three pages on La corporazione nel sistema sindacale italiano were committed to Carlo Costamagna, a professor of public law at Pisa University. Only in the Appendix published in 1938, a new and more substantive entry on Corporativism was added. This time it was entrusted to a 100% fascist economist, G. Bottai¹⁶.

A serious study of the collections sponsored by the corporatist movement is still to be made. This study could possibly highlight the role played by these collections in spreading the economic writings of institutionalist, socialist and New Deal authors. These works probably contributed to the education of a young generation of “technocrats” who composed the group of “Nittian” managers and bureaucrats who occupied economic and political institutions after WW II (see Barca 1997).

In contrast to this picture, economic journals seem to have been more engaged in the promotion of corporative economics. A systematic study of these journals is still to be made. A list of them is reported in Appendix A. This list brings together journals of different kinds. Some were official organs of the fascist regime; others were no more than bulletins. Also some journals of politics, social policy, law and generalities hosted debate on corporativism. Among economic journals, a distinction should be made between the journals issued by centres of corporative economics (such as the Universities of Pisa and Ferrara, and the Trade Unions School of Florence) and other journals – such as “Economia”, “Rivista italiana di scienze economiche” and “Rivista di politica economica” – which did not predominantly focus on corporativism. Some historians of thought (Barucci 1981; Bini 1981) have suggested a distinction between academic journals and the propaganda organs of the fascist regime. According to this interpretation, the former hosted contributions by orthodox economists who aimed to reconcile their theoretical approach with corporativism. However, most of the academic journals listed in Appendix A originated in milieus that had fostered nationalist and proto-corporative doctrines. Their editorial boards and lists of contributors, and even their chronology – with the exception of the “Rivista di politica economica”, they were discontinued in 1943 – reveal that these initiatives voiced the ideas of those intellectuals who believed in corporative economics as an alternative paradigm.

Compared with pro-corporative journals, those who battled in the camp of orthodox economics experienced some adversities. Among them there was the “Giornale degli economisti e rivista di statistica”. During the inter-war period Del Vecchio, Beneduce and Mortara were its editors. In 1938 it merged with “Annali di economia”, a journal published by the Commercial University Luigi Bocconi of Milan since 1924. The new series was called “Giornale degli economisti e Annali di economia” and was edited by Giovanni Demaria. In 1942 the journal was temporarily discontinued for political reasons. Another journal was “La Riforma sociale”, edited by Luigi Einaudi. This journal was definitively discontinued in 1935 for political reasons. A third important journal was the “Rivista internazionale di scienze sociali e discipline ausiliarie”. This journal was issued by the Catholic University of Milan. Agostino Gemelli, the dean of this university, was the editor of the journal between 1927 and 1930. Then the task was committed to a young economic historian, Amintore Fanfani, who in the post-WW II period became a leader of the Christian Democratic Party and eventually prime minister. In this period the number of economic contributions increased. They were authored by economists of Catholic University such as F. Vito. Thanks to him, the “Rivista internazionale” became the voice of “Catholic” corporativism.

A number of specialised journals created before WW I survived in the inter-war period. Among them were “L’Industria”, (Milan 1886-  ); the “Rassegna numismatica” (Rome, 1904-35), then renamed “Rassegna monetaria” (Rome 1936-43); the “Rivista bancaria” (Milan 1920-43), which was the journal of the Fascist Confederation of Banks, edited by Giuseppe Bianchini¹⁷; the “Rivista di diritto finanziario e scienza delle finanze” (Padua, then Milan 1937-43), edited by Benvenuto Griziotti; and the “Rassegna economico-finanziaria” (Naples 1942-  ), a journal sponsored by the Banco di Napoli¹⁸.

A relative novelty of the inter-war period were the specialised journals issuing from University Faculties or Institutes. These initiatives came as a consequence of the enhanced institutionalisation of economics promoted by the fascist regime. The practically oriented Higher Schools of Commerce were transformed into Faculties of Economics, while the first Faculties of Political Sciences were created. Among the journals issung from university centres were the “Annali di economia” published by the Commercial University Luigi Bocconi, Milan. Other initiatives of the Bocconi University were “Prospettive economiche” (Milan 1921-37), and the “Rivista italiana di scienze commerciali” (Milan 1935-54), later renamed “Rivista internazionale di scienze economiche e commerciali”. “Studi economici, finanziari e corporativi” was issued by the University of Naples (1941-43). After WW II this journal was re-baptised “Studi economici”¹⁹.

To sum up, the fascist regime and its intellectuals marked some scores in the field of periodical publications. These corporative journals cannot be reduced to propaganda vehicles: they stimulated debate on corporative economics and involved in it also orthodox academic economists. They also spread some unorthodox approaches such as institutionalism and the literature on economic planning. On the other hand, the action of old-standing academic journals was partially checked by censure and repression. However academic publications were reinforced by university institutions and private sponsoring.

To sum up, the “orthodox revision” of corporative economics was supported by academic economists. The latter took advantage of their scientific authority and of their capacities as cultural organisers and academics. On the other hand, the fascist regime promoted some initiatives in favour of corporative economics. However, especially after the change of economic policy in 1931-32, the orthodox revision of corporative doctrines was tolerated, if not favoured, as a weapon against the adventurous radicalism of corporative economists.

3. The nature and scope of corporative economics

The reconstruction of the context in which corporative economics developed has revealed that different tendencies were present in the debate. Historians of economic thought have tried to clarify the characteristics of the main groups or “schools”.

First comes the group of “integral” corporatists (Zagari 1982), who believed that the corporative doctrine was alternative to marginalist economics (Bini 1982). They thought that the newly introduced mechanisms of public negotiation between the government and the representatives of labourers and capitalists had determined the end of class conflict and of traditional market relationships. This fact in its turn implied the mutation of individual values and motives. Private individuals would spontaneously give up their self-interested behaviour and subordinate their actions to the higher universal goals of the State. This mental revolution, as Gino Arias stated, implied the rise of a new “corporative conscience”.

For “integral” corporatists, economics should be characterised by a normative approach:

[They] wanted to re-introduce ethics and the dialectic between the individual and the State into economics. Thus they intended to prepare the ground for a science of a normative, rather than cognitive, character. This science was to sanction the unambiguous political supremacy of the State over the economic order (Zagari 1982, p. 28).

This was the common denominator of a wide range of different, often conflicting (Faucci 1990b, p. 16) approaches.

The more radical was the “statalist” and “philosophical” tendency led by Ugo Spirito. Spirito propounded a Hegelian interpretation of corporativism. In his approach, individuals were totally subordinated to the State. Without the enlightened guide of government, society necessarily precipitated into chaos. Spirito also believed that economics was subordinated to politics and to the supreme and universal judgement of philosophy. In the course of time, he went increasingly pessimistic about the scientific content of economics, which he came to consider no more than a “technique” (Perri – Pesciarelli 1990). According to Spirito, the corporative organisation of the economy was a third way between capitalism and socialism. Corporativism was the only social organisation that triumphed over individual “particularism” and selfishness.

Many eclectic thinkers followed Spirito in this approach. One of them was Giuseppe Bottai, who believed in “corporative democracy”. There are many similarities between his vision of the self-government of producers organised by the State, and Spirito’s ideal of “proprietary corporation” (Cavalieri 1994, pp. 17-18). Another group of “integral” corporatists emerged from the anti-individualistic wing of the nationalist movement. It was composed by Alfredo Rocco, Carlo Costamagna, Francesco Ercole and Filippo Carli. They believed in a strong supremacy of the State, although they rejected Spirito’s Hegelian arguments. Also Rodolfo Benini agreed with Spirito on the project of a reformed science based on the subordination of the individual to the State (Faucci 1990c, p. 214).

The second group of corporative economists shared with the first the “statalist” approach. However its members tried to restate the issues of corporativism in an economic language. Two leaders of this group were Nino Massimo Fovel and Celestino Arena. Fovel engaged himself in an attempt to conciliate corporative theory and pure economics, «through a confuse notion of the “economic character” (economicità) of human behaviour, which included anti-economic behaviour (minimum result, with maximum means)» (Faucci 1990b, p. 16). The role played by Arena was perhaps more interesting. Arena tried to bridge the gap between academic and corporative economics by discussing the problems related to «political prices, price discrimination and the taxation of “unproductive surplus”» (Faucci 1995b, p. 526). In his university lectures published in 1933-34, he found in the rigidity of the labour demand a cause of structural unemployment. In Arena’s approach, the flexibility of wages was not expedient in order to contrast this tendency. In an article written in 1937, he proudly compared himself to Keynes (Bini 1982, pp. 279-281). But the more important aspect of Arena’s work was the interest he showed in foreign new economic approaches. With American institutionalism

he shared both the opposition to the excessive neo-classical bent towards abstraction, and the need to integrate economic theory with contributions coming from other disciplines, especially from law studies (Bini 1982, p. 263).

His editorial work in the Nuova collezione di economisti should be interpreted in this light. This collection should not be considered as a failure of corporatist culture. It was perhaps an attempt to attract younger academic economists – eager to open new perspectives in their discipline – towards corporative economics. Arena was sympathetic to Amoroso and De’ Stefani and was responsible for the “conversion” to corporative economics of other economists like Lello Gangemi and Guido Menegazzi.

A third tendency – led by the catholic economist Gino Arias – was characterised by a more “privatistic” approach. Arias belonged to the conservative wing of social Catholicism (Faucci 1990b, p. 16). Significantly, Mussolini himself often hosted in “Critica Fascista” Arias’s writings on corporativism (Bini 1981). Arias’s vision was based on the idealisation of the Italian medieval society and on Scholastic philosophy. According to him, the adoption of the corporative model should be the result of a moral revolution taking place in the conscience of individuals. However, he thought that the institution of a corporative economy did not change traditional hierarchies and social distinctions of roles. Society was not an aggregation of individual interests, and the State was just one essential element in the social pyramid, but not the totalitarian Leviathan that radically subordinated everything (Zagari 1982, pp. 27 and 32). Arias was followed by Carlo Emilio Ferri – who was sympathetic to attempts to bridge the gap between corporativism and orthodox economics (Zagari 1990, p. 461) – and Francesco Vito. According to Faucci (1990b) Vito was an author midway between orthodox economics and the catholic version of corporative economics.

4. How many traditions of political economy?

A further question raised by the historiography on the economics of the inter-war period concerns the place of corporative economics in the long-term evolution of the Italian economic thought.

According to Riccardo Faucci (1990b, pp. 5-6) the Italian economics of the inter-war period issued from two distinct and conflicting traditions originated in the 19^th century. The first tradition was distinguished by an individualist, theoretical and ultraliberal approach. Francesco Ferrara (1810-1900) (see Faucci 1995a) was its main representative, while Galiani and Beccaria were its forerunners. This tradition favoured the introduction of marginalism in Italy between 1990 and 1914, the period in which, according to Schumpeter (1954, p. 855), Italian economics was “second to none”.

The second – and prevailing – tradition was characterised by an organicist, historicist and moderately interventionist approach. This tradition could be traced back to Genovesi and later to Romagnosi and Gioia, despite differences between them²⁰. After 1848, and especially after the unification of Italy in 1861, this tradition generated a variety of schools of thought. Among them, the majority was held by the Chair Socialists (Luzzatti, Lampertico, Messedaglia) – who favoured substantive State intervention in tariff regulations, social policy, technical education, and banking. Also some moderate liberals such as Minghetti and Sella, and Catholic economists like Giuseppe Toniolo shared the same approach to economics (see Guidi 1996). These authors had in common a paternalist, anti-universalistic and inegalitarian vision of society, coupled with a distrust in the automatic functioning of the economy. The society was governed by the responsible agency of the ruling classes, both in private relationships and in the public sphere. State intervention should be subsidiary to the private benevolent initiative of paternalist agents. Economics was not a highly theoretical and independent science, but a practical and empirical discipline, strictly connected with other ethical, legal and political sciences²¹.

According to Faucci, this paternalist and historicist tradition

was re-launched by fascist corporativism. But it was an ephemeral success. After the war, no room was left for both autochthonous currents, and the Italian economic thought lost any national connotation (Faucci 1990b, p. 6).

This conclusion contains many elements of truth. For example, a system of corporative representation had been espoused by Toniolo on the model of the Italian middle age guilds. Toniolo also argued that corporativism represented a “third way” between liberalism and socialism. Its moral and political superiority lay in the fact that it encouraged the “solidarity” between labour and capital. More widely the ideas of solidarity and harmony between classes had been central to the debate on “association” and “co-operation” in the second half of the 19^th century (see Piretti 1985) – a debate which was strictly connected to the movements in favour of economic associations, co-operatives and municipal services.

However, studies on the evolution of economic associations and the co-operative movement between the end of WW I and the rise of the fascist regime in 1922 have revealed that these organisations underwent a serious crisis during the so called “Biennio Rosso” (1919-20). Some leaders asked for the official recognition of these associations as a direct response to the crisis. Also the leaders of the CGdL – the major workers union – solicited the legal erga omnes enforcement of the contracts negotiated by their representatives (see Pepe 1996). The fascist regime acquiesced to these demands by promulgating the corporative law and bestowing a public status to some economic institutions and unions. At the same time these institutions were submitted to a strict and illiberal political control. However, the most enduring result of this policy was that syndicates, economic associations and trade unions were transformed into official organisms, endowed with monopolistic privileges and administrative functions. Significantly, the return to political freedom after WW II did not entail their re-privatisation.

There are reasons to believe that such a metamorphosis in the legal status of economic organisations was to fascist totalitarian ideology as the private and solidaristic nature of pre-WW I associations was to the 19^th-century moderate-liberal vision of society. If so, then this break in the history of social facts corresponded to a discontinuity in social and economic ideas. Despite some superficial analogies, there was a radical rupture between the “privatistic” ideal of solidarity endorsed by the liberal tradition, and the “publicistic” State-centred ideology of fascist corporativism. The authoritarian bent of fascist corporativism was not a pure addition to the established paternalist ideology, since it implied an inversion in the traditional conception of the relationships between society and politics.

However, the new approach to economic regulation was not entirely new²². The connection between political and economic thought is crucial here. Zagari (1982, pp. 16-24), has stressed the role played by “revolutionary trade-unionism” – the current of the Italian socialist movement inspired to Georges Sorel and guided in the 1900s-1920s by Enrico Leone, Arturo Labriola and Adriano Olivetti. Still Zagari has emphasised the influence of nationalist ideology in the period between 1900 and 1923.

At an early stage, “revolutionary trade-unionists” opposed the reformist revision of Marxism and exalted the role of class struggle and violence as weapons against the capitalist State. They refused to acknowledge the role of liberal political institutions, and opposed to them the “self-government of producers”. According to many, this illiberal and authoritarian ideology later «furnished the ideological justification» to the fascist regimentation of the labour power (Zagari 1982, p. 23; see also Gervasoni 2001; Cubeddu – Monceri 2001). Significantly, some leaders of revolutionary trade-unionism – like Lanzillo, Panunzio and Orano – soon adhered to fascist corporativism.

As to nationalism, it «furnished a political platform» to fascist corporativism, in that it promoted «a sort of State trade-unionism which aimed to engage all productive classes in the pursuit of the greatest national prestige» (Zagari 1982, p. 23). More recent studies (Cardini 1990; Bianchini – Morato 1997; Michelini 1999) have confirmed this interpretation, by showing how some partisans of economic nationalism later became the active ideologists of corporativism.

Lastly, the justification of corporativism given by Ugo Spirito allows us to evaluate the role of the Italian Hegelian tradition of political thought. This tradition had been originated by Bertrando Spaventa at the University of Naples. Spaventa drew from Hegel’s philosophy of law a conception whereby the State was the synthesis of the particularistic interests existing in any society. Among Spaventa’s followers were the Marxist philosopher Antonio Labriola and his younger friend and disciple, Benedetto Croce. The latter endorsed Spaventa’s liberal opinions. But the Italian Hegelian school of thought also generated the totalitarian approach known as “actual idealism” or “actualism”. This interpretation was exposed by Giovanni Gentile and Ugo Spirito, and had its centre in the Faculty of Law and School of Corporative Studies of Pisa University. According to the liberal version of Hegelianism, the conciliatory role of the State did not suppress the free and independent interplay of private interests and goals in civil society. Conversely, in Gentile’s and Spirito’s approach the mediation of the State entailed the absolute subordination of private inclinations to the regenerating ends of the State²³.

Spirito’s interpretation of corporativism and of the fascist political order was not entirely approved by other corporative economists. However, Spirito expressed in a philosophical language an idea that was common even to the heirs of the paternalist Catholic tradition, and to the proselytes of social Darwinist, voluntarist and élitist doctrines: this idea was that there was no spontaneous social order outside the regimentation of private interests within the State. The corporatist State-centred doctrine, therefore, was the result of the marriage between totalitarian Hegelianism and authoritarian pre-fascist ideologies, rather than the natural evolution of liberal moderate social and economic doctrines.

5. Conclusion

It would be misleading to interpret corporative economics as the authoritarian epilogue of the paternalist and organicist tradition that had dominated the Italian economic thought in the 19^th century. Rather, fascist corporativism was an original albeit illiberal application to economic problems of a “statalist” tradition of political thought. This tradition was alternative both to individualistic economic liberalism and to the moderate-liberal, anti-individualistic vision of society²⁴.

There is an irony in this story: the only Italian intellectual tradition that stressed the universal regulatory role of the State – the Hegelian tradition – ended up in a totalitarian ideology. Only Benedetto Croce survived as an heir of the liberal Hegelian approach. The field of liberal thinking was dominated, even after WW II, either by intransigent adversaries of State intervention or by the heirs of the “subsidiarist” view.

Appendix A

Main journals involved in corporative economics

Sources: Bini (1981); Faucci (1990c); De Bernardi – Guarracino (1998).

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