Liberal governments voluntarily ceded power to Mussolini rather than face a capitalist crisis

Evidence

Mussolini’s fascist regime was not the result of a coup d’état that seized power through violence. Rather, it was the result of a pernicious process in which bourgeois and liberal government bodies handed over power, knowing they couldn’t manage the existential crisis of capitalism in any other way. … Liberals and fascists shared the common goal of protecting the capital order and aligned on the method to do so: aggressive austerity policies. — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 354

Categorization

• XREF: Gives a second mechanism — voluntary handover, not conquest — that parallels Pinochet and Yeltsin cases for the reader’s cross-case tracing. — connects to: Italian fascism emerged by consent of liberal elites, not military seizure — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 354; The liberal individual was destroyed by capital, not by dictators — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism, 659; Liberal financial powers welcomed fascism as a tool for subjugating labor — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order: How Economists…, 70
• QUESTION: Worth chasing: does Mattei provide evidence that this handover was really ‘knowing’ and coordinated, or is it post-hoc rationalization?