Italian economists blamed railway decline on worker indiscipline rather than underfunding.

Evidence

Among many other economists, Giorgio Mortara was of the same opinion: “performance has diminished due to the spirit of indiscipline and negligence that looms over the railway workers” [ma ancora più il rendimento è diminuito per lo spirito di indisciplina e di negligenza che aleggia fra gli agenti ferroviari] (Mortara 1922, 298). — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 1710

Categorization

• XREF: Same blame-the-worker framing that recurs in austerity discourse from interwar Britain to post-2008 bailouts and the trope of ‘lazy bureaucrats’. — connects to: Italian economists blamed poverty on working-class moral defects rather than economic causes — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order: How Economists…, 1141

Broader Connections

• Italian economists blamed poverty on working-class moral defects rather than economic causes #exemplifies (0.85) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 1141