Italian economists blamed poverty on working-class moral defects rather than economic causes

Evidence

Pantaleoni’s public interventions demonstrated his belief that the economic status of the working classes refl ected their lack of social and economic merits: “all considered, it seems obvious that the classes with lower incomes are signifi cantly defi cient in qualities with respect to others. So that this defi ciency [defi cienza] is the cause of the lower income and not the lower income the cause of the defi ciency” (Pantaleoni 1922, 36). Members of the working classes were such because they suff ered from incurable vices, such as wasteful consumption, and were hangerson to a more perfect economic system populated by savers. Being poor or workingclass was a choice and a pathology. — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 1141

Categorization

• XREF: Resonates with the broader austerity-as-class-weapon thesis and modern ‘culture of poverty’ arguments; connects to the reader’s core interest in how economic elites morally pathologize the poor. — connects to: Italian voters directed anger at welfare cheaters rather than the wealthy elite — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 228; Elite economists blamed poverty on the supposed deficiencies of the poor themselves — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 226; Development economics RCTs blame individuals while ignoring poverty’s structural causes — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 289 (+10 more)
• ADDENDUM: This moral-pathology framing of poverty parallels the class/identity politics described in ‘Complaints About Immodesty Go Way Back’ — same mechanism of blaming the dispossessed for their own condition.

Broader Connections

• Fascist economist Pantaleoni blamed rising wages for moral decline #exemplifies (0.90) — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 198
• Economists blamed working-class morality for postwar inflation. #corroborates (0.88) — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 13
• Italian austerity economists blamed wartime gains for working-class moral decline #corroborates (0.86) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 1142
• Italian neoclassical economists framed inequality as a natural, healthy social fact #expands (0.82) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 1705
• French social-science thinking redirected blame for poverty onto environments and germs #qualifies (0.72) — Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize_ The Republican…, 148