Postwar fiscal and labor reforms made Italian capital fear a slide into socialism.

Evidence

Th e neutralist behavior of the government was not the only factor that incensed industrialists and agrarian capitalists. Th ey viewed the events’ concluding agreement in apocalyptic terms. Th ere was also the presence in parliament of a socialist minister of labour, Arturo Labriola, who in interviews and statements spoke openly of a phase of transition from a capitalist to a socialist economy. Moreover, as we have seen in chapter 3, those years marked an assault on capital through reforms, including measures against speculation, the taxation of excess war profits, the extraordinary tax on property, the compulsory registration of shares in the owners’ names, steeper death duties, the legalization of land occupation, and much more. — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 573

Categorization

• XREF: The specific list of anti-capital reforms (excess war profits tax, forced share registration, land occupation legalization) parallels the interwar British assault by property that Mattei contrasts elsewhere; also connects to contemporary debates about capital levies and wealth taxes. — connects to: Postwar Italy’s citizenry was seen by economists as needing taming after revolt — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order: How Economists…, 1123; Italian economic elites saw worker cooperatives as a revolutionary threat to the bourgeoisie
• SEED: An essay angle: how capital reacts to incremental reform — the moment a propertied class reads a reform agenda as the opening gambit of socialism, and how that perception (rather than actual expropriation) triggers counterrevolution.

Broader Connections

• Italian economic elites saw worker cooperatives as a revolutionary threat to the bourgeoisie #corroborates (0.78)
• Postwar Italy’s citizenry was seen by economists as needing taming after revolt #expands (0.72) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 1123