Fascist Italy drove industrial real wages to historic lows by 1936
Evidence
Real annual wages reached their historical minimum in 1936 due to the infl ationary wave sparked by the war against Ethiopia and the international sanctions that followed. In 1936 real wages dropped by almost 20 percent from 1921 levels— decreasing from 17.34 lire in 1921 to 13.98 lire in 1936 (daily real wages at lira 1938; Zamagni 1975, Table 1 and 3). — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 1714
Categorization
- XREF: Connects to the book’s core argument that interwar economic orthodoxy functioned as a class weapon; wage suppression is the concrete evidence. — connects to: British wartime state intervention raised real wages while Italian workers’ real wages fell. — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order: How Economists…, 1653; Fascist Italy’s wage cuts were justified using manipulated statistics — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order: How Economists…, 1716; Fascist Italy and liberal Britain both paired market coercion with state repression of labor — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order: How Economists…, 1519 (+3 more)
Broader Connections
- Fascist Italy’s wage cuts were justified using manipulated statistics
#expands(0.80) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 1716 - Austerity reversed postwar labor income gains in both Italy and Britain by 1929
#corroborates(0.80) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 1486 - Fascist economist Pantaleoni blamed rising wages for moral decline
#expands(0.72) — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 198 - Italian austerity economists blamed wartime gains for working-class moral decline
#expands(0.72) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 1142 - Fascist Italy and liberal Britain both paired market coercion with state repression of labor
#expands(0.70) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 1519