Giolitti endorsed workers’ control as a needed transformation of labor relations

Evidence

On September 19, 1920, the government summoned the parties to Rome and mediated the fi nal phase of negotiations. Prime Minister Giolitti, who had fully supported the CGdL’s proposal for worker control, asserted that the historic moment demanded a radical transformation in the relation between capital and labor. It was no longer tolerable that in industry “one man should command, and thousands obey. We must give the workers,” said Giolitti, “the right to know, to learn, to raise themselves, the right to share in the running of the fi rm, to assume some of the responsibility” (reprinted in Spriano 1975, 103). — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 563

Categorization

• QUESTION: This is a striking moment — a prime minister endorsing radical worker control. Worth chasing what exactly Giolitti expected from the arrangement and how Mattei frames his subsequent austerity agenda against this.
• XREF: connects to: Factory councils aimed to merge economics and politics through workers’ control — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order: How Economists…, 581; Italian Prime Minister Giolitti endorsed workers’ right to run firms in 1920 — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order: How Economists…, 563

Broader Connections

• Factory councils aimed to merge economics and politics through workers’ control #expands (0.80) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 581