Italian Socialists explicitly demanded cancellation of state debt

Evidence

Its immediate agenda targeted “the socialization of fi nancial capital, the suppression of state debt, the socialization of housing, means of transportation and of big agrarian property and of the big industrial and commercial business” (L’Avanti, August 8, 1919). — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 347

Categorization

• SEED: ‘Suppression of state debt’ as a socialist demand inverts the modern austerity logic where debt repayment is sacrosanct — a strong historical contrast for the reader’s foundation-building on austerity as class weapon.