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forming to the general pattern of Western civilization. In one other
respect it followed that pattern. It was what is commonly called a
capitalist society—a society in which the instruments of production
and distribution were owned and operated by private persons or
groups for profit and within the framework of the money economy.
That is, it was like the other countries of western Europe.
Of course the Italy of the Risorgimento was a more simple form
of society than that of the fascist squadrons. But so also was the
America of the Civil War compared with the more complicated
system of Mr. Coolidge's New Era or Mr. Roosevelt's New Deal. As
Italy grew and the machine invaded the world, and the techniques
of corporation organization and modern finance were perfected,
Italy adopted them, though less extensively than Germany or Britain
since she remained largely an agricultural country. Italy, however,
developed and exhibited very quickly the characteristic defects of
her economic system. These were persisting poverty, inadequate
income, interrupted employment, crises.
The men who united Italy into a nation were preoccupied not
with her economic problems, but with the dream of liberation and
unity. There was a deeply rooted popular notion that Austria was
at the bottom of all Italy's troubles, including her poverty. The
country was supposed to be divinely favored by Providence with
abundance which only the suppressive hand of Austria held away
from the people. "Where is there another country in the world,"
said Cesare Correnti, "endowed with such smiling, well-navigated
coastlands, with so many ports, a land so rich in every blessing of
nature, so fertile, so healthy, suitable for every form of agriculture,
bearing oaks and northern trees as well as Syrian palms and other
tropical plants, enlivened by a bracing, invigorating climate, by
life-giving streams, by shores rich in fish, by pastoral and wooded
mountains, by lovely prospects of land, water, and sky?" 1
The leaders of the Kisorgimento, knowing little of economics,
believed that if a united Italy could be liberated from the Austrian
yoke, she would be free to put her resources to work for a better
life. But when the Austrian had gone and the honest Piedmontese
Quoted in Development of Political Ideas in Italy in the 19th Century, by Luigi Villari.
Proceedings of the British Academy, February 17, 1926, Vol. XII.
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