Italian Prime Minister Giolitti endorsed workers’ right to run firms in 1920

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: Giolitti here sounds almost like a proto-co-determination champion — worth chasing how this liberal stance related to his later anti-socialist role.
• XREF: connects to: Giolitti endorsed workers’ control as a needed transformation of labor relations — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order: How Economists…, 563; Italian workers seized factory production across sixty cities in 1920 — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism: An Intervention, 10

Broader Connections

• Giolitti endorsed workers’ control as a needed transformation of labor relations #corroborates (0.95) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 563
• Italian workers seized factory production across sixty cities in 1920 #expands (0.80) — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 10