Wartime necessity forced both Britain and Italy to abandon free-market capitalist dogma.

Evidence

Mussolini’s industrial austerity forced underpaid work on Italy’s population through a form of political coercion that was unthinkable in Britain: the Duce outlawed independent unions and slashed wages by decree. However, intersections between the two examples are abundant. In fact, the austere British government did not fear enacting explicit, repressive labor laws against strikers to complement the economic coercions imposed by the market. On the other hand, once unemployment rose, the Italian state’s violent political attacks on dissenting workers were complemented by the economic coercion of impersonal market forces. — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 1519 (#expands, via linked claim)

It followed that the prewar tradition of selfregulation and industrial autonomy had to be abandoned in favor of forceful state regulation. As observed by Humbert Wolfe, controller of the laborregulation department at the British Ministry of Munitions, “[l]abour ceased to be a commodity to which the laws of supply and demand applied” (Wolfe 1923, 102). — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 153 (#exemplifies, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Fascist Italy and liberal Britain both paired market coercion with state repression of labor — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order: How Economists…, 1519; Labor shortage forced Britain to abandon free-market wage distribution — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order: How Economists…, 153; WWI forced Britain and Italy to abandon free-market doctrine for state intervention — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order: How Economists…, 214

Related

• Fascist Italy and liberal Britain both paired market coercion with state repression of labor (similarity 0.89)
• Labor shortage forced Britain to abandon free-market wage distribution (similarity 0.88)
• WWI forced Britain and Italy to abandon free-market doctrine for state intervention (similarity 0.84)
• Austerity directly reversed wartime gains in workers’ wages and bargaining power (similarity 0.81)
• Democratic and Fascist austerity achieved the same compliance through different coercive means (similarity 0.80)
• Fascist Italy drove industrial real wages to historic lows by 1936 (similarity 0.80)
• Fascist Italy suppressed independent unions to enforce collaboration in production (similarity 0.80)
• Austerity reversed postwar labor income gains in both Italy and Britain by 1929 (similarity 0.80)
• Austerity needed strong government, which Fascism supplied (similarity 0.79)
• World War I compelled Britain and Italy to subordinate private profit to political need (similarity 0.79)
• Austere interwar policies raised measured rates of exploitation in both Britain and Italy (similarity 0.78)
• State control of labor made capitalist surplus extraction explicitly political during the war (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Fascist Italy and liberal Britain both paired market coercion with state repression of labor #expands (0.85) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 1519
• Labor shortage forced Britain to abandon free-market wage distribution #exemplifies (0.82) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 153