Introduction
Until the 1970s, academic inquiry had largely overlooked the examination of the features, role, and historical development of business interest associations. In their 1981 “secret classic,” Schmitter and Streeck observed that literature on contemporary politics was filled with references to the activities of individuals, specific enterprises, or the influence of capitalists as a class. However, they argued, analyses of the resources, organizational characteristics, activities, and strategies of formal organizations specialized in promoting and protecting trade or employer interests were rare. Even rarer, they added, were efforts to explain how these dimensions of interest politics evolve and change in response to varying contexts and conflictsFootnote 1.
This article aims to contribute to the discussion on the evolution of business interest associations by analyzing a specific case study: liberal Italy (1861-1914). The article has a twofold objective. First, it gives a non-sectorial account of the history of business interest organizations in Italy between 1861 and 1914, when a “new pattern of institutions”Footnote 2 was created—thus focusing on the second phase in the long-term evolution of business interest associationsFootnote 3. Second, it proposes a new historiographical interpretation of the underlying logic of their collective action that has not yet appeared in the literatureFootnote 4. In this regard, I specifically explore the changing nature, scale, and scope of business interest organizations as reflecting the transition between different phases of Italian capitalism in the period 1861-1914, which, in turn, implied a profound metamorphosis in the relations between economy, state, and society. Examining the forms and strategies of employers’ collective action in liberal Italy emerges as crucial for understanding the historical evolution of a country where public authorities have consistently struggled to emancipate themselves from economic interestsFootnote 5.
Despite their relevance, business interest organizations in liberal Italy have not received significant historiographical attention, leaving them as influential but largely unexplored political actorsFootnote 6. The history of agrarian interest associationism, for instance, has often been subsumed within a broader analysis of the nineteenth-century Italian bourgeoisieFootnote 7, in the general field of agricultural historyFootnote 8, confined to the post-1919 periodFootnote 9, or taken into consideration to investigate the origins of fascismFootnote 10. Nevertheless, a latent interest in the analysis of agrarian associations has persistently existed within Italian historiography, especially in relation to the agrarian interests in the Po Valley and the emergence of both public and private agrarian interest organizationsFootnote 11. A similar historiographical approach was also adopted in the industrial sectorFootnote 12. Overall, at least until the 1980s, historiographical attention was almost exclusively focused on the history of trade unions, although with few remarkable exceptionsFootnote 13. The 1980s marked a period of renewed interest in the associational efforts of industrialists, reflected in the works of authors who navigated across sociology, political science, and historyFootnote 14. In this phase, the topic was explored at local, sectorial, and institutional levelsFootnote 15, but also in relation to the early years of the national industrial associationFootnote 16.
Overall, this article argues for the existence of three qualitatively distinct periods in the history of business interest organizations in liberal Italy, each characterized by a specific prevalent logic of collective action: the homogeneity phase (1861-1881), the fragmentation phase (1881-1898), and the conflict phase (1898-1914). The essay is organized into four sections and a conclusion. In Section I, the literature on business interest associations is reviewed with the aim of building a conceptual framework that will guide the historiographical analysis. In Section II, the article explains how the development of business interest organizations after 1861 was initially marked by a degree of homogeneity within the political and economic elites of the new Kingdom of Italy. While conflict was not entirely absent, this homogeneity primarily revolved around the interests of landowners who advocated a strongly anti-protectionist policy as the country positioned itself as an exporter of agricultural goods on the international chessboard. Dealing with the subsequent period, Section III outlines the emergence of new economic groups and elites in both the agrarian and developing industrial sectors. These groups challenged the old landowner elites and policies, breaking down their former unity. The process eventually resulted in the fragmentation of economic interests and their organizations. In Section IV, the paper analyzes the third phase, the conflict phase, largely coinciding with the Giolittian Era. This phase includes primarily organizational development related to the increasing class struggle in both the industrial and agricultural sectors. As the threat of the workers’ movement intensified, capitalism transformed its organizational structures to respond to this threat. Finally, observing the results of the research on the backdrop of the broader historiographical debate on the political and economic evolution of liberal Italy, the concluding section discusses some insights offered by the history of business interest organizations into the political and economic development of the Italian society between 1861 and 1914.
The Logic of Business Interest Collective Action: A Conceptual Framework
In the last few decades, scholars have taken a renewed interest in the study of business interest associations. As Tolliday and Zeitlin highlighted, if “some impulses towards collective action remain ineradicable for employers,”Footnote 17 that is because, as argued by Martin and Swank, they “are social animals and, as such, develop their policy interests in packs.”Footnote 18 Overall, business interest collective action and associations have always had a major impact on the evolution of capitalismFootnote 19. This renewed interest in the collective action of business interests has led to intriguing analyses that, starting with the pioneers of the 1980s and the 1990sFootnote 20, have evolved into more recent works on the relations between business organizations and the European UnionFootnote 21 or in further historical and international explorations of different national experiencesFootnote 22. Overall, this new direction of research, intertwining with the emerging new history of capitalismFootnote 23, seems to have taken Galambos’s suggestions to bring politics and power back into business and economic historyFootnote 24, contributing to resolving what Rollings defined as “the vast and unsolved enigma of power.”Footnote 25
Although the analysis of the “trade unions of capitalists”Footnote 26, as Engels defined them in 1881, was not an entirely new subject in the reflections of economists and social scientistsFootnote 27, a more specific reflection on the role of business interest organizations in capitalist societies has been developing since the conclusion of World War IIFootnote 28. A review of the principal observations made on the subject over the past decades is essential for establishing a conceptual framework that will guide the analysis conducted in this article. A classic interpretation is offered by political pluralism, according to which the development of employer associations is the direct result of a latent shared economic interest among individual members, determining its political orientationFootnote 29. This direct causal link has been challenged by Mancur Olson with his well-known theory of the logic of collective actionFootnote 30. By focusing on the individual costs, Olson constructs his analysis around the problem of the free rider. As a rational actor, Olson argues, an individual will have no incentive for cooperation despite the existence of a shared interest if they can obtain the same benefits without incurring the costs of association. Only a separate and selective incentive granted to group members can stimulate a rational individual to act in a group-oriented manner. In this way, smaller groups, such as employer associations, will become the most fertile ground for associationism as they have lower costs. In the 1980s, the approach of Olson and classical pluralists was called into question by Offe and Wiesenthal, who argued that the logic of collective action is not singular but dual and qualitatively different for workers and employersFootnote 31.
Despite their differences, the cited authors converge in considering associationism as the collective expression of an individual economic interest. In stark contrast to this issue is the theoretical approach identified by the so-called neocorporatist theoristsFootnote 32. This approach points out that the collective organization of business interests is always extremely heterogeneous and fragmented, responding to different “logics” and based on an inherently provisional solidarity always tied to a specific historical phase. Secondly, neocorporatist authors assert that the associative moment is not exclusively the product of individual economic preferences and the historical context but becomes an active part that influences both the context and the group membersFootnote 33.
In light of what has just been outlined, the conceptual framework applied in this article is structured upon the idea of “distributional coalition,” as formulated by OlsonFootnote 34. A distributional coalition is an alliance of interest groups whose collective action through association can secure a larger share of society’s economic benefits for its members at the expense of those outside the coalition. Various tax and subsidy policies, barriers to entry and mobility, and quotas or tariffs on imports are important—but not the only—examples of policies that redistribute income, wealth, and power to a special coalition of interest groups. From this perspective, in a stable society and economy, distributional coalitions that have formed are more likely to be the ones that have adapted to the status quo and stand to benefit from its continuation. Conversely, anything that shakes up a society’s institutions can destroy the cohesion of distributional coalitions and the sources of their power and special benefits, leading to phases of confrontation between new economic interest groups and associations to solve the problem of collective action, eventually forming new distributional coalitions.
Various elements contribute to the rise, stabilization, decline, and re-establishment of different distributional coalitions and the business interest associations that compose them. First of all, it is undeniable, as argued by authors from various schools of thought, that economic interest holds a primary position in defining the features and objectives of a business interest association. However, it has to be stressed that this element is never the only factor at play. Secondly, and consequently, as argued by the neocorporatist school, to understand the history of business interest associations one must take into consideration a multitude of factors related to different historical phases—national and international political context; the forces and objectives of other interests at play, which become potential enemies or allies; global commercial geography or government choices. All these elements contribute to determining the genesis and specificities of the associational tools implemented by the capitalist classesFootnote 35. Consequently, the history of business interest organizations and their changing collective logics must be studied not only in relation to the historical transformations of the mode of production and its specific social relations but also in terms of changing political, social, and cultural structures. In each historical phase, in fact, one or more types of business associationism develop parallel to the classic conflict between capital and labor, intertwining with it and forming an additional conflicting layer of non-negligible importance for the evolution of contemporary societies.
Overall, therefore, this essay reconstructs the history of business interest associations in liberal Italy, examining the rise, establishment, decline, and re-establishment of different distributional coalitions of business interest associations. This conceptual framework has been used to evaluate, measure, and verify the research hypothesis, i.e., the existence and characteristics of the three phases of homogeneity (1861-1881), fragmentation (1881-1898), and conflict (1898-1914). In this regard, it is important to emphasize that each of the identified phases is characterized by a prevailing feature—homogeneity, fragmentation, and conflict—which, without negating other elements, stands out as the predominant attribute of each of the three periods. Moreover, there is a logical and consequential link between the three phases in the sense that each one serves as the incubator for the causes of the next within a historical chain based on the outcomes, limits, and contradictions of the phases of capitalist development in liberal Italy. Although inevitably partial, the chosen perspective reveals profound dynamics that reflect and highlight significant social, economic, and institutional changes, which are highly relevant to the historical development of the country and its ruling classes.
Homogeneity (1861-1881)
The Kingdom of Italy was founded in 1861. The early years of the new Italian state were dominated by the governments of the Right (1861-1876), a coalition of conservative liberals, heir of Camillo Benso di Cavour, led by figures such as Bettino Ricasoli (1861-1862, 1866-1867), Marco Minghetti (1863-1864, 1873-1876), Alfonso La Marmora (1864-1866), Luigi Menabrea (1867-1869) and Giovanni Lanza (1869-1873). Intending to consolidate the newly unified country, their policies emphasized bureaucratic centralization, stabilizing public finances, and national unification, including the annexation of Venetia in 1866 and Rome in 1870. After 1861, Italy also embarked on an ambitious effort to modernize its transportation and communication networks, recognizing that infrastructure was essential for national integration. The government prioritized railway expansion, which helped facilitate economic exchange on a national level, although regional disparities persisted. Additionally, major investments were made in port development and telegraph networks, albeit at the cost of significant public debt. In this regard, Italy had also inherited a massive debt from the wars of independence, and the governments of the Right implemented harsh financial measures to balance the budget. Among these, it is worth mentioning the 1864 income tax and the 1868 grist tax, which placed a heavy burden on the poor, exacerbating rural discontent. Overall, economic development remained uneven. While the North began to see the early signs of industrialization, Southern Italy remained trapped in poverty and feudal-like agricultural structuresFootnote 36.
The history of business collective action in liberal Italy reflects and is an integral part of its political, economic, and social development. In this regard, even though the long pre-unitary past left a significant imprint on the Italian regions, shaping their various post-1861 patterns of growthFootnote 37, the first business interest organizations emerged in the agricultural sector. In fact, in the aftermath of Unification, the Italian hegemonic class firmly anchored its economic strength in the possession of the landFootnote 38. The years between the 1850s and the 1870s were a period of prosperity for the European economy, marked by the first wave of globalization and anti-protectionist policies enacted by the most significant European nations. Overall, the Italian liberal élites sought integration into new regional and international markets. In 1863, a trade treaty was signed with France, making the Kingdom of Italy a member of the nascent European network of treaties based on the most-favored-nation clause. This was consistent with both the liberal philosophy of Cavour and the economic structure interests of the Italian élites. The post-1861 hegemonic distributional coalition saw, in fact, national political unity as their key instrument to positioning the country as an exporter of primary sector goodsFootnote 39.
If we focus on the post-1861 agricultural interest representation system, the Kingdom of Italy embraced a concept that pivoted on establishing direct channels of communication between the periphery and the central government, bypassing both an undeveloped civil service and the parliament, in favor of organized interest groups and lobbiesFootnote 40. A key part in the wider negotiation process between the Piedmontese monarchy and regional and local élites, the function of economic interest representation was carried out through institutional structures endorsed, sanctioned, and at times financed by the central stateFootnote 41. This was made possible by the socioeconomic homogeneity that characterized the liberal élites of the new Kingdom of Italy, aligned by the objective of pursuing a free-trade economic policy. In this sense, extensive powers of central governments—the symbol of which was the prefect—have to be understood against the backdrop of a complex social process aimed at ensuring that local élites would adhere to the liberalizing capitalist project of the new state. In this phase, the instruments applied were, on the periphery, the Comizi agrari (1866) and the Camere di commercio (1862); and in the center, the Consiglio nazionale dell’agricoltura (1868) and the Consiglio nazionale dell’industria e del commercio (1869).
Mirroring what John Davis called the “shifting and uncertain boundaries”Footnote 42 between the state and local or regional élites, the structure of the Comizi was rather ambiguous. Based on the 1802 legislation on the comices of the Napoleonic period, which was adopted by the Kingdom of Sardinia starting from 1843Footnote 43, the founding law was drafted in 1865-1866 by a special commission composed of landowners such as Luigi Guglielmo di Cambray Digny and Giuseppe Devincenzi and became effective in December 1866. According to the decree, participation in the new organizations was open to all individuals interested in the field of agriculture. However, the composition of the directorates was not elective. Instead, officials were appointed by the Minister of Agriculture, and the control of its activities remained under the purview of the local prefect. Moreover, while the constitution of the Comizi was mandatory, participation was not equally compulsory.
As a result, these councils were largely composed of large landowners and were only rarely integrated with leaseholders or sharecroppersFootnote 44. Overall, if the political objective was to strengthen the connections between the state and the economic periphery, granting the agrarian élites a privileged position remained ambiguousFootnote 45. In fact, the Comizi, as well as the Consiglio dell’agricoltura, remained under the ultimate control of the prefect and the Minister of Agriculture. In this sense, prefectural supervision was part of a general strategy of the unified state aimed at controlling every form of autonomous association, even those of politically dominant groups within a policy based on the triad of consensus, control, and direction of local elitesFootnote 46. Moreover, as regards the Consiglio dell’agricoltura, the minister retained the power to nominate its members, even after the reform of 1878, which compelled the minister to select the members from among the directors of the most important local Comizi, who were always great landowners. Considering these factors, the distributional coalition in power was clearly predicated on a shared economic interest. Nevertheless, its specific forms and operations were also influenced by the specific historical and geographical context of liberal Italy, particularly the long-term pre-unification past that contributed to the formation of robust regional political and economic elites.
The network of Comizi agrari did not operate in a vacuum. Pre-Unitarian Italy, especially in the Center and the North, already had a series of private agricultural associations established primarily for scientific and technical purposesFootnote 47. One of the most significant of these societies—the Società agraria di Lombardia—was founded in 1863 with the goal, to use the words of Gerolamo Chiazzolini, a large landowner in the Mantuan region, of not allowing “only the class of landowners to remain as disinherited and unaware of the advantages offered by the new unified state.”Footnote 48 Apart from showing an earlier modern and capitalist-oriented attitude by some Italian landowners, the Società agraria di Lombardia provides a privileged perspective for understanding the post-1861 social relationships between the center and the periphery in the Kingdom of ItalyFootnote 49. The organization, in fact, rapidly became the stronghold of landowners’ resistance against the Comizi agrari, which were perceived as an attempt by the central government to violate their local network of power, privileges, and influences. In this regard, the Società showed a surprising autonomy that led to the absorption of the Comizi in its network. The case is representative of the tug-of-war that played out between the central government and peripheral representatives, which led to a substantial failure of the Comizi. This was another example of the fundamental ambiguity shaping the relationship between the center and the periphery, articulated on the ambivalence between governmental control, exerted through the constant interference of prefects, and local-based free-market capitalism, expressed in the forms of non-obligatory participation in the new organisms. This element ensured that the new institution operated in an ambiguous domain between voluntary and mandatory participationFootnote 50. Nevertheless, both the agrarian societies and the comizi should be interpreted as institutions promoted by a cohesive social and economic hegemonic group. Within this group, even though occasional clashes occurred, these did not indicate the existence of fundamentally different agencies and agendas. Rather, these tensions can be read as center-periphery divergencies in the process of solving the collective action problem of the distributional coalition in power.
Post-1861 political elites also pursued a similar strategy in relation to industrial interests. The Italian industrial sector in the first two decades after Unification was, however, in a rather marginal position and outside the ruling distributional coalition. The few existing manufacturing facilities in the North of the country faced strong competition from lower-cost and qualitatively superior foreign products. This was the natural outcome of the trade liberalization policies pursued by the liberal leadership from 1861 onwards, one which was opposed by a minority of industrialists, lamenting the lack of possibility for Italian industries to emerge victorious in the struggle with foreign competitionFootnote 51. In this regard, however, it must be noticed that the improvement of infrastructure, particularly the railway network, served as a stimulus for the growth of certain sectors of Italian manufacturing. It is also important to note the positive effects of the abandonment of the gold parity of the lira, which was decided in May 1866 to secure the necessary resources for financing the war against Austria. Although these policies were aimed at achieving different objectives, they resulted in significant positive secondary effects on industrial development. In particular, the devaluation of the currency that occurred after 1866 functioned as a protectionist tariff, leading to increasing industrial growth in the 1870s.
The difficulties faced by the industrial sector during the 1860s, however, did not result in a completely barren landscape for industrial interests. In this sense, the downside of focusing only on business interest associations that were created after the start of the industrial take-off is that the relevance of previous organizations could be overshadowed.Footnote 52
One of the characteristics of the earlier forms of industrial associationism was its cross-sectoral nature, which reflected the marginal social positioning of the industrial community within the post-unitary Italian society. Despite operating in different sectors, in fact, the few manufacturing entrepreneurs saw themselves as part of a common industrial culture looking for support in its developmentFootnote 53. Thus, it was the social positioning of the industrial community in those years that allowed for cross-sectional organizations aimed at protecting not yet differentiated industrial sectors.Footnote 54 Among these organizations, it is worth mentioning the Associazione degli industriali established in Faenza in 1864—the first industrial association in Italy; the Associazione commerciale set up in Florence in 1865; the Associazione industriale italiana, founded in Milan in 1867; and the Società promotrice dell’industria nazionale, established in Turin in 1868.
As stated in the first Statute of the Associazione industriale italiana, the main purpose of the association was to “stimulate industriousness in order to increase production [and] promote local industries.”Footnote 55 This objective, as articulated in the new Statute of 1878, was to be achieved “through the collective action of the members and the establishment of an Executive Committee […] directly representing the industries.”Footnote 56 On one hand, therefore, the primordial nature of the Italian industry meant that its organizations were not yet sectorally delineated. At the same time, however, this relative “backward” condition did not inhibit the adoption of modern forms of interest organization, suitable for the specific capitalist structure of post-unification Italy, where a distributional coalition centered around industrial interests was still in a minority position.
In parallel with the private organization of representations of industrial interests, there were several bodies created directly by the state. Analogous to what was done in agriculture, these took the forms of the Camere di commercio (1862) and the Consiglio dell’industria e del commercio (1869). The law of July 6, 1862, which established the Camere di commercio, largely incorporated the prerogatives assigned to them by Napoleonic legislation, which, in turn, was modeled on the network of chambers of commerce in the Austrian Lombardy of 1786. Subordinate to the control of the central administration, they primarily performed the functions of organizing local consensus among economic categories. At the center of the system, the Consiglio dell’industria e del commercio came into light in 1869 in a context where questions were beginning to be asked about the government’s stance toward the still weak and fragile economic structure of the countryFootnote 57. The decree of 1869 established that its main task was to provide opinions on reforms to be proposed in commercial legislation, projects of trade, navigation treaties, and railway tariffs.
Overall, the political-economic élites of the Kingdom of Italy boasted a degree of homogeneity principally revolving around agrarian interests and proposed a strongly liberal-capitalist model of economic development. This process is mirrored by the forms assumed by business interest organization practices, molding a phase in which the state controls, manages, and organizes the associative channels through which peripheral economic elites have access to the country’s decision-making centers. Obviously, homogeneity does not mean the absence of disagreement, but rather consensus on the most efficacious mechanisms for organizing the economic interests of the ruling classes within the newly unified state under the largely accepted umbrella of a free-trade political economy. Despite the prevailing socio-economic homogeneity of the post-1861 years, the process was not without contestations and obstacles, although they never took on the characteristics of open conflict. However, even in cases of dispute, the necessity of establishing channels of communication between the political center and economic interests remained uncontested. The relationship that was envisioned and implemented occurred within the sphere of the dominant hegemony without challenging the key guidelines of the nation’s economic policy. This is a somewhat hidden but equally important part of the process of constructing the national market. Nevertheless, these political-economic processes, along with their organizational reflections of the early capitalism of the liberal age, laid the groundwork for the emergence of the contradictions that characterized the last quarter of the century.
Fragmentation (1881-1898)
Starting in the 1870s, the sources of power and legitimacy for the ruling distributional coalition began to erode. For the period 1865-1876, the growth of per capita industrial production was close to 1 percent. Although this progress was slow, it was not insignificant, particularly linked to the expansion of light industries, such as the food, textile, leatherworking, and timber industriesFootnote 58. The inquiry into Italian industry that began in 1870 revealed divergent analyses of the Italian industrial path. In this period, some entrepreneurs—notably the wool industrialist Alessandro Rossi, a member of the Inquiry Committee and a Senator—began to exert an increasing influence on the political economy of the Kingdom. This new influence reflected an improvement in the Italian industrial position, which became more pronounced in the years 1880-1887, primarily due to the intervention of the state in certain sectors, such as metal-making, chemical, and engineeringFootnote 59. In this context, the Italian industrial bourgeoisie, despite its diverse interests, was beginning to reject the marginal position it had been relegated to in the leadership of society. In this regard, the improvement of the railway network and the abandonment of the gold parity in 1866 not only fostered industrial production but also heightened industrialists’ awareness of their role as a ruling class.
At the same time, numerous fiscal and institutional issues were shaking the coalition of the Right. All of this led to profound changes in the country’s political life. In 1876, the so-called “parliamentary revolution” brought about the formation of the Agostino Depretis governments (1876-1879, 1881-1887), representing the Left—a coalition that included the middle class from the North and South, the urban bourgeoisie, industrial entrepreneurs, and the large landowners of the South. Depretis continued leading the Left until his death in 1887, and then Francesco Crispi (1887-1891, 1893-1896) emerged as a dominant figure, pursuing new economic policies and military expansion, including colonial ventures in Africa. He also implemented major political reforms, such as the 1882 electoral law, which expanded suffrage, and the 1889 new penal code. Moreover, after years of free trade, a new economic policy was inaugurated. High tariffs were introduced in 1878 and 1887, seeking to protect Italy’s emerging industries. This shift to protectionism benefited Northern manufacturers but devastated Southern farmers, particularly as France responded with its tariffs, cutting off an important market for Italian wine, citrus, and olive oil. Industrialization accelerated in the North, especially in textiles, steel, and machinery. The government continued to support infrastructure expansion, and key financial reforms, such as the establishment of the Bank of Italy in 1893, helped stabilize the banking sector. At home, Italy faced growing social unrest. Economic hardship, worsened by rising food prices, led to strikes, peasant revolts, and socialist agitation. By 1898, tensions reached a boiling point with the bread riots, particularly in Milan, where thousands protested against rising food prices. The government of Luigi Pelloux (1898-1900) responded with brutal repression. This wave of violence pushed Italy toward a period of greater political repression, but it also fueled opposition movements, from socialists to republicans.
Overall, if the years 1876-1881 represent a crucial turning point from a political, social, and economic perspectiveFootnote 60, they did not interrupt the process of socio-economic modernization. Rather, the dynamics of the late 1870s and the 1880s triggered new forms of political economy, capitalist models, and, therefore, business interest organization strategies.
Both the industrial and agricultural Italian events of this period appear to be the consequence of the increased integration in the world market—a variable that exerts a constant and crucial influence on a semi-peripheral country such as Italy. As regards the agricultural sector, one of the main consequences of Italy’s integration into the world economy in the 1860s was the international synchronization of price dynamics. Starting in the 1880s, this resulted in a drastic decline in prices due to the arrival of low-cost food products from overseas. At the same time, during the 1880-1887 period, food imports increased by 10 percent.
The variation in economic balances had profound consequences on social and political stability. The economic crisis of the 1880s set in motion a process of disintegration of the established distributional coalition built around export-oriented agricultural interests, leaving the field to new forms of business interest associations organized for the defense of new economic groups, both in the agricultural and industrial sectors. Within this process, the rupture of the uncontested hegemony of the landed property was revealed.Footnote 61 Despite this rupture, a new distributional coalition of interest groups did not emerge immediately. Instead, what surfaced was a multiplicity of identities based on a plurality of divergent economic interests.
Among this process of fragmentation of identities and interests, of major importance is the one related to the agricultural sector. Overall, the profit crisis generated a process of division in which large leaseholders gained the necessary collective consciousness to create new associative methods of defending their specific interests and started to articulate their demands.Footnote 62 At the same time, the old landowner class suddenly found themselves facing a fierce political battle that threatened to jeopardize the survival of ancient powers, influences, and privileges.Footnote 63
During the 1880s, the central object of the dispute between the landowners and the leaseholders of the Po Valley was the structure of the lease agreement. In particular, the leaseholders’ criticisms were directed towards those limitations that made it outdated and inadequate for a modern development of agricultural enterprises. The central problem was the relationship between decreasing prices of agricultural products and the constant increase in agricultural land rents. As reported by the rent survey concluded in 1885, rural leases rose in the period between 1858-1860 and 1879-1881, with even larger increases during the last decade observed. Over the long term, the overall result was an increase of almost 400 percent in rental rates between 1831 and 1881Footnote 64. The issue was particularly thorny. On one hand, the landowning class was interested in the economic development promised by the leaseholders, as this would translate into an increase in their revenues. On the other hand, landowners were reluctant to give up the advantages resulting from the existing contractual asymmetry, which ensured them more control over land management and economic strategies. Nonetheless, a successful lease management, which required a significant capital investment, was indeed the only way for the owner to ensure the reproduction of their rentier conditionFootnote 65.
The leaseholders protest began in 1882—the same year as the beginning of the large peasant protests—and centered around the rice-growing areas of Vercelli and Lomellina. As their profit declined, leaseholders tried to contain the damage by cutting labor costs and inducing peasant organization and strikes. However, they also took the path of organized interest group confrontation. On February 15, 1883, the Associazione italiana conduttori di fondi Footnote 66 was established in Melegnano, near Milan, which represented a completely new form of agrarian organization.Footnote 67 In this sense, the demand for a reduction in rent became the triggering cause that launched a broader project for the affirmation of the identity of the new class of leaseholders and for the legitimation of its economic role and legislative needs. The mediation between the Associazione italiana conduttori di fondi and the Società agraria di Lombardia on the revision of the lease contract started in 1884, with the Società agraria di Lombardia representing the large landowners of the region. The direct negotiation between economic interest organizations—even though it had no significant concrete effects as the new lease contract was never applied—can be considered as one of the elements of the modernization of the country, in which the economic crisis of the 1880s served as a mechanism for the redefinition of structures and power relationships. Furthermore, it was a first step for the negotiation of a new distributional coalition.
After the initial confrontation, between 1884 and 1885, a process of rapprochement between the two interest groups began, culminating in full convergence on the issue of tariff protection. Until 1885, the leaseholder group had attempted to take advantage of the agricultural crisis to modify the country’s production directions and articulate rural relationships differently while maintaining free trade positions. However, from 1885 onwards, the failure of these perspectives led most of them to shift towards protectionist positions. The increase of customs duties was seen more and more as the only method of safeguarding price levels and, consequently, the survival of the group.
After the divisions over the lease agreement at the beginning of the decade, the agrarian front was finally reunited when the Lega di difesa agraria was founded in Turin on April 16, 1885Footnote 68. Unity was achieved on the basis of a joint policy of requesting tariff increases on imports of agricultural products, inaugurating a mixed associative formula. Apart from the issue of protectionism, however, an important role in unifying the interests of owners and lessee-entrepreneurs was also played by the violent and widespread peasant claims of the 1880s.Footnote 69
The post-1861 distributional coalition was undergoing internal fragmentation into various factions with divergent economic policy agendas. Nevertheless, despite this disintegration, a temporary convergence was achieved due to external pressures, including the measures to counteract declining prices and the necessity to present a unified front against peasant protests. This latter factor anticipates the conflict phase of the Giolittian era. Just as the previous phase of homogeneity did not mean the absence of friction, in this second phase of fragmentation, the possibility of agreements and convergences was not excluded. What is important to emphasize, however, is that these were convergences between business interest associations that had their own well-defined social, economic, and political background, each one with a diversified political economic agenda. Multiple class struggles, therefore, overlapped with each other, exposing different levels of conflict, opposition, and mediation even within the liberal élites.
From the mid-1870s onwards, a similar fragmentation of interests also characterized the industrial sector, albeit for slightly different reasons. This development followed a process of sectoral specification based, on the one hand, on a differentiation of industrial interests from those more specifically commercial, and on the other hand on a distinction of interests among single manufacturing branches. Upon closer inspection, while agrarian fragmentation arose from the crisis in the sector, the birth and subsequent expansion of industrial organizations reflected economic progress and modernization, which led entrepreneurs to introduce increasingly particularistic associative strategies to protect specific economic interests. The new associations that appeared in the late 1870s in the context of the economic crisis and the preparation for the protectionist turn had, as Banti argues, a nature that was inversely mirrored if compared to the early business industrial associations. Whereas the former were local and cross-sectional, the latter were distinct by commodity sector and aspired to be national.Footnote 70
The domestic industrial development and the overall European economic context led many to start questioning the idea of Italy’s necessary agricultural vocation. The discontent of Italian industrialists was also starting to be widely known, emerging from the Industrial Inquiry promoted in 1869 by the governments led by Menabrea and Lanza, which covered the period 1870-1874.Footnote 71 The new direction of the Italian industrial sector began to exert pressure in the years leading up to the expiration of commercial treaties, loudly demanding new protective tariffs for its goods. The negotiations between Italy and France lasted three years, and with their failure in 1878, a new customs tariff was introduced, incorporating a series of duties that had a significant impact on the defense of the cotton, wool, and metallurgical sectors. It does not seem to be a coincidence that the first sectoral industrial associations developed in the years of the Italian-French negotiations for the renewal of commercial treatiesFootnote 72. At the outset of protectionism in 1877, three significant organizations were founded, all with the aim of defending their specific interests: the Associazione laniera Italiana, founded in Biella; the Associazione dell’industria e del commercio della seta, established in Milan; and finally, the Associazione cotoniera italiana, set up in Turin.Footnote 73
The 1878 Italian-French trade agreement reflected the broader shift toward protectionism of the governments of the Left. While the tariff defense of the textile sector met the needs of a traditional entrepreneurial class well-rooted in certain areas, it was the desire to strengthen the strategic-military sector of the state that dictated the introduction of high customs protection for the metallurgical sector. The goal was to increase the self-sufficient production of the productive sectors supplying the army and navy in response to an international scenario that, after the 1878 Berlin Congress and the French occupation of Tunis in 1881, appeared increasingly potentially conflictual. This movement reached its peak in 1887 when, on the proposal of the third Depretis government, the parliament approved, by a large majority, a new customs tariff decidedly more protectionist than the one of ten years earlier. Once again, the needs of export sectors, such as silk, were ignored, while the focus was on defending the production of cotton, wool, and the new sectors of steel and cast iron productionFootnote 74.
The period characterized by the fragmentation of economic interests and their collective strategies reflects the emergence in Italy of a phenomenon typical of the contemporary era: the integration of a greater number of diverse and intricate social and economic forces into political life. This stage saw the breakdown of the previously established distributional coalition, driven by the evolution of several processes. Key factors included transformations in worldwide trade patterns, shifts in international geopolitical dynamics, internal tensions within the Right, and the expansion of specific manufacturing industries in Italy, also as a result of infrastructural and monetary policies of the 1860s. These developments contributed to the dismantling of the coalition that had defined the earlier phase. In turn, the increased complexity and modernization of the social fabric laid the groundwork for the subsequent evolution of Italian capitalist collective actions and also for the implementation of new political strategies aimed at handling the new situation.
Conflict (1898-1914)
The years from the end of the nineteenth century until World War I coincided with an expansive phase of the international economic cycleFootnote 75. In Italy, the biggest increase in agricultural and industrial production took place within the framework of the second industrial revolution, which increased with the decisive contribution of the state. In this regard, technological improvements triggered a decline of traditional industries, such as textile, cotton, wool, and silk, while new industrial efforts—specifically the hydroelectrical, engineering, chemical, rubber, automobile, and metalworking industries—began to take placeFootnote 76. Simultaneously, driven by industrial development and favorable international economic conditions, the agricultural sector, which employed nearly 60 percent of the population in 1911, experienced growth. This was attributed, in part, to government-supported land reclamation and irrigation projects, especially in the Po Valley. Additionally, continued high tariffs on grain imports provided significant motivation to increase food production on suitable land.
At the beginning of the period, the political context also underwent profound transformations. Driven by an increasingly intense social conflict toward the end of the century, Crispi’s repression of popular dissent, along with imperialist failures abroad, brought an end to the political dominance of the Left. After the authoritarian measures proposed by the Di Rudinì and Pelloux governments between 1896 and 1900, in 1901 leadership passed to Zanardelli and Giolitti, who adopted a different approach. Unlike his predecessors, Giovanni Giolitti, who dominated Italian politics from 1903 to 1914, sought a policy of inclusion, bringing the working class and socialists into the political system while maintaining the confidence of industrialists and conservatives. Within a strategy aimed at expanding the support base for the liberal state through a series of reforms, Giolitti’s governments introduced progressive labor policies, legalized strikes except in essential services like railways, improved wages, and enacted social welfare programs, including pensions and accident insurance. Economically, this period saw remarkable growth in industry and infrastructure, particularly in Northern Italy. However, while the North prospered, the South remained stagnant, as Giolitti’s attempts to encourage investment in Southern agriculture and infrastructure had limited success. On the political front, Giolitti presided over a major expansion of democracy. The 1912 electoral reform granted universal male suffrage, increasing the electorate from 3 million to 8 million. Foreign policy once again took center stage when Italy launched the Italo-Turkish War (1911-1912), successfully conquering Libya from the Ottoman Empire. By 1914, Italy stood at a crossroads. The economy was growing, and political reforms had expanded democracy, yet deep regional inequalities, class tensions, and political fragmentation remained unresolved.
Overall, the characteristics of this period of Italian modernization had significant repercussions on the formation of specific forms and instruments of Italian business interest associations. In this phase, the scope and strategies of business interest associations undergo a radical transformation, shifting from trade policies to the management of capital-labor conflict.
With regard to agrarian interest organizations, triggered by renewed social conflict in the countryside, new forms of business interest organizations and collective strategies emerged, characterized by a strong conflictual nature.
In 1901, Italy started to experience labor unrest at an unprecedented pace and intensityFootnote 77. Apart from the magnitude of this unrest, a crucial difference compared to the past was the organizational capacity, highlighted by the establishment of Federazione dei lavoratori della terra in 1901. The breadth, violence, and organizational capacity demonstrated in those years by the labor leagues, together with the neutrality of the government, caught the employers off guard. After an initial period of disarray, they began to organize their response by creating local associations, especially in areas of the Po Valley, where the upheaval was more significantFootnote 78.
In relation to the nineteenth-century business interest organizations, the new agricultural associations of the Giolittian era showed profoundly different objectives, as a quick analysis of their statutory regulations reveals. Resistance to the demands of the peasant leagues and mutual assistance took a prominent place. In this regard, if the main goal of the Associazione fra proprietari e fittavoli of 1901 in the Polesine was “to provide mutual assistance to resist […] claims by workers that were recognized as excessive,”Footnote 79 the agrarian association in Bologna, founded in 1902, pledged to “oppose the social action of the members of the trade unions against freedom and property with the equally collective action of the associates against the impositions, attacks, and violations carried out by the trade unions.”Footnote 80 Moreover, some specific tools began to be applied, including the establishment of a common fund for mutual assistance to compensate for damages caused by strikes, and the first blacklists, binding associates to “not hire […] those agricultural or artisan workers […] expelled or dismissed for just cause by another associate.”Footnote 81 Finally, there was a widespread use of strikebreakers and private armed groupsFootnote 82.
A more robust effort to defend agrarian interests was undertaken in 1907 when the Federazione agraria interprovinciale was founded with the participation of local agricultural associations from areas most affected by social conflict. Simultaneously, a mutual insurance against strike damages was formed, with Lino Carrara, one of the leading figures in the illiberal and extremist wing of the Po Valley landowners, appointed as its director. Despite its efforts, the Interprovinciale quickly revealed its shortcomings. Another conference was convened in Bologna on the initiative of the Interprovinciale in 1909. During this conference, the foundation of the Confederazione nazionale agraria was decided with the participation of the Interprovinciale and its nine federated associations, along with other local agricultural associations. Overall, those new associative experiences were crucial in elaborating a very radical stance against the unions and the government. This new approach showed that violent opposition eventually paid off and contributed to the radicalization of the employers’ front. As had occurred previously, the diverse factions of Italian agrarians reconstituted their distributional coalition in response to the intensifying social conflict in the countryside.
A process similar to that experienced by the agrarians characterized the history of industrial associationism in the new century. The beginning of the century in Italy was characterized by a resurgence of social conflict, also in the economically advanced cities of the North-West of the country. A distinctive and novel element of these workers’ struggles was the high degree of trade union organization, which took shape in the foundation of the Federazione italiana operai metalmeccanici, in 1901 and the Confederazione generale del lavoro of 1906Footnote 83. If workers’ associationism has a long history in the Northern regions of Italy, especially through mutual aid and cooperative societies, a substantial evolution of the forms of struggle occurred with the general strike of September 1904. This strike made a strong impression on public opinion, both for its violence and for the simultaneous rise of the socialist party in the elections of the same year.
For these reasons, the industrial business interest organizations that emerged in the first decade of the twentieth century aimed primarily at maintaining or restoring the social peace necessary for the continuation of production. Again, social conflict became the cornerstone for the new industrial organizations. In this regard, the first difference in the associational practice of the preceding period in industrial relations was realized by the metalworkers’ employers in Milan and Genoa. The Consorzio fra industriali meccanici e metallurgici of Milan was founded in 1898, following the implementation of the mandatory work accident insurance law. Its aim was to negotiate such insurance while protecting the interests of its members from the effects of that law. However, from its inception, the Consorzio also began addressing disputes over working hours and wage levels. Dealing with the country’s most organized and combative union, the Consorzio aimed to “defend the fair interests of its members from restrictive and burdensome impositions on the free conduct of industries coming from workers’ coalitions.”Footnote 84
Less than three years later, the Consorzio industriale ligure was founded in Genoa in 1901 by entrepreneurs active in the mechanical, metallurgical, and shipbuilding sectors. Its main purpose was to intervene in resolving economic and legal disputes between capital and labor and to prevent potential conflicts with the union. Overall, it aimed to defend the “just interests of its members from excessive impositions on the free conduct of industries.”Footnote 85 One of the main functions of the Consorzio was to directly take charge of the negotiations with the unions in the case of strikes in affiliated companies. It also regulated the hiring of striking workers and financially supported those workers who, not following the indications of the unions, decided to go to the workplace anyway. The Consorzio industriale ligure included, in its statute, a unique chapter in the landscape of industrial business interest associations, dedicated to the lockout as a primary tool of economic struggleFootnote 86.
Five years later, in 1906, at the initiative of the major figures in the Turin industry of the time—including Giovanni Agnelli, the Bocca brothers, and Luigi Bonnefon Craponne—the Lega industriale was founded with the aim of “effectively advocating for the respect and defense of labor and promoting good understanding with the workers.”Footnote 87 From an organizational standpoint, the members of the new association were divided into groups of related companies led by a president. These groups were broadly autonomous in resolving trade union disputes, although they worked within a common and shared framework.
The league’s anti-union action was considered the very reason for the organization’s existence. The new organization presented itself as a cohesive space capable of creating a disciplined unity of purpose to collectively manage the high level of workers’ conflict. In this sense, strategies of collective resistance to strikes began to be standardized and coordinated through the systematic use of various tools. These included the prohibition of hiring striking workers from other companies affiliated with the league; the negotiation of a certain number of agreements and conventions against strikes; the mutual solidarity among employers, resulting in the establishment of a mutual industrial strike society in 1911; and the use of lockouts, whose individual application was strengthened by collective support from the league.
In this context, Italy’s past experiences did not offer a suitable model for entrepreneurs-workers confrontation. In this regard, it is plausible that the leadership of the Lega Industriale closely observed industrial and labor experiences from abroad. The model they adopted likely drew inspiration from various business interest associations established in England, France, and Germany, which were formed about a decade earlier in response to the emergence of workers’ trade unionsFootnote 88.
The league’s approach was the product of the diametrically opposed conception of labor relations compared to the Italian paternalist tradition of the nineteenth century. On this point, it is important to highlight the existence of different approaches towards workers’ organization as forms of paternalism continued to exist in the following decades. Paternalism offered an alternative model for managing capital-labor conflicts, fostering consensus by promoting a cultural paradigm that viewed the company as a family unit. In this setting, the entrepreneur took on the dual role of both a paternal figure and a leader, avoiding confrontations with trade unions and assuming the responsibility of developing various corporate welfare initiatives designed to maintain social stabilityFootnote 89.
On the other hand, in the league’s documents, references to peaceful and loyal collaboration between classes were sporadic, and the construction of a harmonious society was not on the agenda. The interests of the two parties were interpreted as radically divergent, and the establishment of workers’ trade unions was welcomed. The unions, in fact, could become privileged interlocutors in a value system where various industrial issues had to be resolved without government intervention. In what has been termed the ‘Einaudian phase’ of the leagueFootnote 90, social conflict was not denied, nor was there any illusion that it could ever be completely suppressed. The existence of associations representing labor and capital instead became necessary in acknowledging a natural clash of interests, to regulate it in a way that wouldn’t disrupt productive functioning, minimizing overtly conflictual manifestations. Ultimately, even though the league did not promote class conflict, it accepted it as a principle of reality from which to build a more effective system of collective bargaining between organized interests.
The work of the Lega industriale gave a decisive impetus to the process of creating the first national industrial association, which materialized in the Confederazione italiana delle industrie in 1910. In this process, one cannot underestimate the weight of the anti-union industrial movement that had developed in the first decade of the century. From Liguria to Lombardy to Piedmont, this movement provided associative models, tools, and essential personnel. In 1910, when the confederation was established in Turin, representatives of eleven business interest organizations from the most industrialized regions of Northern Italy gathered. Thus, if in 1910 Turin became the center of national industrial association, the organizational drive had been nourished by a series of previous experiences scattered throughout the most industrialized territories of the country.
In general, the path that led to the founding of new types of industrial associative entities was well summarized in 1910 by the president of the Lega Bonnefon Craponne. He noted that the old industrial associations were “not sufficient to fulfill the necessity for the union of the employer side against the working class and to organize that defense movement” because those industrial associations “had arisen with different purposes.” Their action, therefore, was “not sufficient to meet the needs of defense.”Footnote 91 This defense, as specified by the general secretary Gino Olivetti in 1910, could only be organized by the new “industrial organizations […] created solely for the protection of industrial interests in their relationships with labor” and “for the defense of the employer class in labor disputes.”Footnote 92
Overall, albeit within a framework of social conflict, the nature and approach of industrial and agricultural business interest associations were quite different. The varying degrees of violence employed in social conflicts in the industrial and agrarian sectors had important effects on their collective associations. Distinctive modes of production shaped substantially different working and living conditions experienced by peasants in the Po Valley compared to those of industrial workers in the NorthFootnote 93. While industrial production could be suspended to facilitate mediation between parties, such an option was not feasible in agriculture, where even a brief work stoppage could result in the loss of an entire annual yield. At the same time, the profits of landowners in the Po Valley were closely tied to the low wages of unskilled laborers. Additionally, while certain groups of industrial workers could leverage their skilled labor during negotiations, the same could not be said for agriculture, where overpopulation and the demand for unskilled labor by landowners gave the latter a significant advantage in negotiations.
Furthermore, the varying levels of integration between Northern workers and unskilled peasants within the Giolittian power system, coupled with the failure to implement any form of fiscal reform that would have raised the living standards of a substantial portion of the population through even partial income redistribution, had profound implications for the radicalization of protests and, consequently, the stance of business interest associations. Consequently, the Lega Industriale of Turin on one hand, and the Interprovinciale and the Confederazione on the other, ultimately theorized and implemented two distinct models of approach to class struggle: the industrial model, which was more inclined towards negotiation with unions, and the agrarian model, which centered on repression and private violence. In both instances, however, social conflict represented the cornerstone of the business interest associations of the Giolittian era, as well as the bedrock of new distributional coalitions in progress.
In relation to this last element, some brief reflections can also be made regarding the origins of fascism. While fascism cannot be understood without the impact of the war, the failure to redistribute wealth and the substantial failure of Giolitti’s strategy to open liberal society to the integration of new classes and groups remain key factors in the postwar development of the fascist movement. The history of business interest associations during the liberal era supports this view insofar as, after the rupture of the 1880s, Italian society was no longer able to express a stable distributional coalition that includes the lower strata of the population, moving from a phase of fragmented interests to one in which organizations were founded in response to social conflict. The particularly intense violence of this conflict in the countryside, especially in the Po Valley, gave rise to a series of local agrarian associations that, after the war, were instrumental in enabling the fascist movement to gain prominence on the national political stage. Although it was and remained a complex and heterogeneous phenomenon, fascism was able to assert itself for the first time in 1920-1921 by resolving through violence a specific issue of social conflict within Italian agrarian capitalism, supporting those agrarian organizations that had emerged during the Giolittian era precisely because of social conflict. The founding reason of the business interest associations between 1901 and 1914, together with a renewed alliance between postwar Italian capitalist groups, became the cornerstone for the creation of a more stable postwar distributional coalition under the fascist regime.
Conclusions
This article aimed to propose a non-sectorial reconstruction of the history of business interest associations in liberal Italy, providing at the same time a new historiographical interpretation. The historical examination of business interest associations in liberal Italy has been framed through a conceptual framework based on Olson’s theory of distributional coalitions, complemented by other elements from the pluralist and neo-corporatist schools. This theoretical approach has allowed an examination of business interest associations as key components of broader socio-economic and political alliances, shaped by national and international transformations. By looking at the rise, consolidation, decline, and re-establishment of distributional coalitions, the article highlights three phases in the history of business interest associations in Italy between 1861 and 1914. The first phase was dominated by a distributional coalition based on the economic and political hegemony of the agrarian interests, which gave rise to what we have defined as the phase of homogeneity (1861-1881). Subsequently, after the first development of the industrial sector in the late 1870s and the agricultural crisis of the 1880s, a phase of fragmentation of the previous distributional coalition (1881-1898) led to the emergence of a series of competing business interest associations. In this phase, various organized economic interests engaged with each other to resolve their problem of collective action, with the aim of establishing new distributional coalitions founded on different internal balances and economic policy priorities. Finally, in the last phase, the conflict phase (1898-1914), social conflict became the cornerstone for the creation of new varieties of business interest associations. It is precisely this element that enables a reorganization of the social groups at the top, which, albeit in different forms, find in social conflict the trigger to establish new types of business interest associations.
Understanding the historical development of Italian business interest organizations between 1861 and 1914 in relation to the evolution of the political and economic landscape of the country represents a new research path that builds on the work of scholars such as Galambos and Rollins, further exploring the intersections of politics, power, and business. On a general level, the research highlighted how the collective choices of business interests were dictated by constraints imposed by economic, technological, social, cultural, and political changes, both at national and international levels. In this sense, the case of liberal Italy supports the perspectives of Tolliday and Zeitlin, as well as Martin and Swank, on the necessity for entrepreneurs to organize collectively. In fact, the option of collective action seemed indispensable from the very beginning of the new state, albeit with different nuances, forms, scales, and scopes. From this perspective, cooperation and competition appear as two sides of the same coin, with the former often considered a prerequisite or preparatory moment for the latter. Moreover, research on the Italian case also confirms Olson’s thesis that different forms of collective action among relatively small groups were preferable to individual action. Such collective efforts provided greater comparative advantages in managing relationships with public authorities, whose importance was understood for regulatory and economic purposes; and with other rival economic actors, whether they were competing sectors or workers’ unions.
Based on what has emerged in this work, it seems possible to put forward three general formulations in the form of conclusions. First, the organizational process of interest groups in nineteenth-century Italy is not linked to the opposition between aristocratic or bourgeois origins but emerges in relation to the role that individuals and their reference groups played in the country’s productive landscape. In this regard, the role of shared economic interests as a key factor in the formation of associations is reaffirmed, as previously emphasized by the pluralist tradition. As the productive landscape changed, the relative positions of economic agents—the relationships between them and the state—and, therefore, their objectives and associative tools also changed. Secondly, and consequently, business interest associations can be considered as one of the tools for the social positioning of economic interests within Italian capitalism in the period considered—a means, therefore, to try to bend social relations and power dynamics to their advantage.Footnote 94 Building on the work of neo-corporatist authors such as Schmitter, Lembruch and Streeck, this leads us to argue—and this is our third formulation—that the organizations of economic agents in the liberal era were, on the one hand, a reflection of changing economic and productive conditions, and, on the other hand, actors on the political stage whose actions reacted to the same economic and productive conditions.
Another point that deserves to be discussed regards how the above discussion fits in the wider debate on the history of liberal Italy and its economic development. The perspectives have shifted from optimistic views, envisioning the country’s trajectory as a journey “from the periphery to the center,”Footnote 95 to others’ interpretations that, questioning whether it is possible to remain “rich forever”Footnote 96 or to be rich “by chance,”Footnote 97 observed more dark than light in Italian history. In this sense, Italy is described as a country that has never truly left the periphery of the global capitalist system or, even though it has experienced periods of ascent, is argued to be undergoing a relative decline.Footnote 98
This study is consistent with a historiography that argues for questioning the teleological assumptions that link the failure of liberal democracy in Italy to flawed economic and social modernization.Footnote 99 More specifically, recent historical seriesFootnote 100 have cast doubt on classical interpretations by scholars like Romeo and Gerschenkron,Footnote 101 removing from historiographical debate “suggestive but imprecise”Footnote 102 terms such as take-off or great late-century momentum, and reinforcing the idea, previously proposed by historians like Luciano Cafagna and Franco Bonelli,Footnote 103 of cyclical growth linked to sudden accelerations and slowdowns tied to the international economic cycle.
A specific focus on the forms and objectives of collective action in Italian capitalism has confirmed this interpretation. The essay demonstrates how different and evolving economic interests pursued collective strategies suitable for addressing each phase of Italian capitalist development, both in agriculture and in the industrial sector, on the fundamental backdrop of the international economic system. Therefore, the exploration of the changing logic of capitalist collective action supports replacing the image of a fragile industrial latecomer triggered by a late growth spurt for that of a society caught up, from an earlier moment, in the formation of new and modern international market economies and politics. The process resulted in qualitatively different waves of business interest associative impulses, which can be seen as mirrors of what Cafagna described as “the composite character of the agents of development” in Italy.Footnote 104
At the same time, the study has allowed for the verification of how Italian economic elites, despite their internal divergences, displayed a proclivity for defensive convergence, especially during periods of heightened social conflict. This phenomenon was notably observed in instances such as the agricultural strikes of the 1880s and the early twentieth century, but also in the rapid foundation of the first national industrial organization in 1910. Thus, the research also appears to furnish insights that prompt a reassessment of the conventional Marxist interpretation pertaining to a sporadic and fragmented alliance between big financial and industrial interests and landownersFootnote 105.
Overall, within the pattern of economic and political development, liberal Italy experienced forms of modernization on its own terms and with its own peculiar characteristics. The three phases of business interest collective actions identified, and the related rise, stabilization, decline, and re-establishment of various distributional coalitions, were part and parcel of this development.
