IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ssa/lemwps/2015-23.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Guardians of Capitalism: International Consensus and Fascist Technocratic Implementation of Austerity

Author

Listed:
  • Clara Elisabetta Mattei

Abstract

Current debates on austerity often forget that these policies are almost 100 years old. This paper explores how the combination of austerity and technocracy acted as a powerful tool to secure the compliance of European countries to socio-economic stabilization after WWI. Austerity emerged as an economic, moral and technocratic message as economic experts sought to educate the restless post-war civil society. This paper analyses primary austerity documents from the international economic conferences of Brussels (1920) and Genoa (1922). In addition I use a case study of Italy (1922-1925) to show how austerity succeeded under the first years of Fascism, when the government authorized prominent economics professors to implement the international financial codes devised at Brussels and Genoa. This essay considers the scientific writings of De Stefani, Ricci and Pantaleoni to examine the theoretical roots of the technocratic nature of austerity.

Suggested Citation

  • Clara Elisabetta Mattei, 2015. "The Guardians of Capitalism: International Consensus and Fascist Technocratic Implementation of Austerity," LEM Papers Series 2015/23, Laboratory of Economics and Management (LEM), Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy.
    • Handle: RePEc:ssa:lemwps:2015/23
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.lem.sssup.it/WPLem/files/2015-23.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Feinstein, Charles H. & Temin, Peter & Toniolo, Gianni, 2008. "The World Economy between the World Wars," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780195307559.
    2. Germà Bel, 2011. "The first privatisation: selling SOEs and privatising public monopolies in Fascist Italy (1922--1925)," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 35(5), pages 937-956.
    3. Clavin, Patricia, 2013. "Securing the World Economy: The Reinvention of the League of Nations, 1920-1946," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199577934.
    4. Eichengreen, Barry, 1996. "Golden Fetters: The Gold Standard and the Great Depression, 1919-1939," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780195101133.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Olivier Accominotti, 2019. "International banking and transmission of the 1931 financial crisis," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 72(1), pages 260-285, February.
    2. Macher, Flora, 2018. "The Austrian banking crisis of 1931: one bad apple spoils the whole bunch," Economic History Working Papers 87151, London School of Economics and Political Science, Department of Economic History.
    3. Galofré-Vilà, Gregori & Meissner, Christopher M. & McKee, Martin & Stuckler, David, 2021. "Austerity and the Rise of the Nazi Party," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 81(1), pages 81-113, March.
    4. Peter Rosenkranz & Tobias Straumann & Ulrich Woitek, 2014. "A small open economy in the Great Depression: the case of Switzerland," ECON - Working Papers 164, Department of Economics - University of Zurich.
    5. Ho, Tai-kuang & Yeh, Kuo-chun, 2019. "Were capital flows the culprit in the Weimar economic crisis?," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    6. Alex Klein & Keisuke Otsu, 2013. "Efficiency, Distortions and Factor Utilization during the Interwar Period," Studies in Economics 1317, School of Economics, University of Kent.
    7. Valerio Cerretano, 2018. "Multinational business and host countries in times of crisis: Courtaulds, Glanzstoff, and Italy in the interwar period," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 71(2), pages 540-566, May.
    8. Nicolas-Guillaume Martineau & Gregor W. Smith, 2015. "Identifying fiscal policy (in)effectiveness from the differential counter-cyclicality of government spending in the interwar period," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 48(4), pages 1291-1320, November.
    9. Hoffer, Rewert, 2021. "Is the business of business business alone? The International Chamber of Commerce and the origins of global business diplomacy, 1920-1931," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 112961, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    10. José Luis Cendejas & Félix-Fernando Muñoz & Nadia Fernández-de-Pinedo, 2017. "A contribution to the analysis of historical economic fluctuations (1870–2010): filtering, spurious cycles, and unobserved component modeling," Cliometrica, Springer;Cliometric Society (Association Francaise de Cliométrie), vol. 11(1), pages 93-125, January.
    11. Klein, Alexander & Otsuy, Keisuke, 2013. "Efficiency, Distortions and Factor Utilization during the Interwar Period," CAGE Online Working Paper Series 147, Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE).
    12. Matthias Morys, 2014. "Gold Standard Lessons for the Eurozone," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 52(4), pages 728-741, July.
    13. Barbara McKiernan, 1998. "Monetary disturbance or financial market collapse: tests of two theories of the Great Depression," Applied Financial Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 8(2), pages 133-144.
    14. Ben S. Bernanke & Vincent R. Reinhart & Brian P. Sack, 2004. "Monetary Policy Alternatives at the Zero Bound: An Empirical Assessment," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 35(2), pages 1-100.
    15. Marianna Astore & Michele Fratianni, 2016. ""We can't pay": How Italy cancelled war debts after Lausanne," Mo.Fi.R. Working Papers 129, Money and Finance Research group (Mo.Fi.R.) - Univ. Politecnica Marche - Dept. Economic and Social Sciences.
    16. Mervyn Allister King, 1993. "Debt Deflation: Theory and Evidence," FMG Discussion Papers dp175, Financial Markets Group.
    17. Edwards, Sebastian, 2020. "Change of monetary regime, contracts, and prices: Lessons from the great depression, 1932–1935," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 108(C).
    18. Juan Herreño & Matias Morales & Mathieu Pedemonte, 2023. "The Effect of Local Economic Shocks on Local and National Elections," Working Papers 23-08, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland.
    19. Joachim Voth, 2013. "Tightening Tensions: Fiscal Policy and Civil Unrest in South America, 1937–95," Central Banking, Analysis, and Economic Policies Book Series, in: Luis Felipe Céspedes & Jordi Galí (ed.),Fiscal Policy and Macroeconomic Performance, edition 1, volume 17, chapter 3, pages 59-92, Central Bank of Chile.
    20. Charles I. Plosser & George P. Shultz & John C. Williams, 2016. "Panel on Independence, Accountability, and Transparency in Central Bank Governance," Book Chapters,in: John H. Cochrane & John B. Taylor (ed.), Central Bank Governance & Oversight Reforminancial Crisis, chapter 6 Hoover Institution, Stanford University.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Austerity; Technocracy; Post-WWI Financial Conferences; Economists as Consultants; Fascism;
    All these keywords.

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ssa:lemwps:2015/23. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/labssit.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.