Abstract
1. In 1861 Italy was united under the House of Savoy as a result of the war which had been fought against Austria in 1859 in alliance with Napoleon III and of the expedition of Garibaldi and his Thousand volunteers to the South. This was the event which realised the hopes of the small groupings of the urban and intellectual petty bourgeoisie, who had at the end been drawn into the dispassionate but highly effective political and military operation energetically carried through by the firm and victorious alliance created and led by Cavour, in which the land-owning classes had assumed a hegemonic position. Their interests were expressed, however, in a great variety of ways, and they were in particular increasingly drawn towards commercial and financial activities.
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Notes
Corbino, E., Annali dell’economia italiana, vol. I (Citta di Castello, 1931); Cen to anni di vita nazionale attraverso le statistiche delle regloni (Rome, 1961); Almanacco statistico europeo peril 1865 (Milan, 1865);
Mitchell, B. R., European Historical Statistics (London, 1975).
For a recent reference to the importance of this distinction see Crouzet, F., ‘Quelques problemes de l’histoire de l’industrialization au XIXe siecle’. Revue d’histoire economique et sociale, vol. 53 (1975) pp. 529–30.
Among the factories already in activity in Italy in 1861 were Ansaldo, Pignone, Guppy Macry & Henry (later I Granili), Breda (at that time called Elvetica), Pietrarsa, Crespi, Ponta, Mazzonis, Sella, Manifatture Cotoniere Meridionali (under various commercial names), Ginori, Cini and Richard (see: Fossati, A., Lavoro e produzione in Italia dalla metà del secolo XVIII alla seconda guerra mondiale, (Turin, 1951).
Mitchell, B.R., op. cit., passim, Rioux, J.P., La Révolution Industrielle (Paris, 1971) p. 87; Corbino, E., op. cit., vol. II, p. 93.
This is to use the term in a different sense from that adopted by Mendels, F.F., ‘Proto-industrialization: The First Phase of the Industrialization Process’. Journal of Economic History, vol. XXXII (1972) pp. 241–61, and is meant to characterise the period during which there is, once industrialisation has actually begun, a clear predominance of consumer goods, following the well-known typology of
Hoffmann, W., Stadien und Typen der Industrialisierung (Kiel, 1931)
which is in turn derived from Marx. The problem is discussed in Mori, G., ‘Il Tempo della Protoindustrializzazione’, L’Industrializzazione in Italia (1861–1900) (Bologna, 1977).
For levels of production see the still very valuable Svennilson, I., Growth and Stagnation in the European Economy (Geneva, 1954).
On economic and technical concentration see Caracciolo, A., ‘La crescita e la trasformazione della grande industria durante la prima guerra mondiale’, Lo Sviluppo Economico in Italia, vol. III (Milan, 1969) pp. 187–240.
Pollard, S., ‘Industrialization and the European economy’, Economic History Review, vol. XXVI (1973) pp. 636–48.
A similar interpretation can be found in Hobsbawm, E., ‘The XVIIth century in the Development of Capitalism’, Science and Society, vol. XXIV (1960) pp. 97–112.
Braudel, F., La Méditerranee et le Monde méditerraneen a l’epoque de Philippe II, vol. II, ch. VI (Paris 1949);
Perroux, F., Indépendance de la nation (Paris, 1969);
Robinson, E.A.G. (ed.), Economic Consequences of the Size of Nations (London, 1960).
Asis indicated by a number of recent studies which have served to weaken the older thesis put forward by Tarle, E.V., Le Blocus Continental et le Royaume d’Italie (Paris, 1928).
A fine example of this in Richard Cobden’s statement to D’Azeglio in 1847: ‘... the Italians’ steam is their sunshine’ (cf. Fossati, A., op. cit., pp. 344–5). Somewhat earlier he had expressed his disappointment that ‘the finest raw cotton which ought to be sold to us’ was being worked domestically in Egypt as a result of the initiative of Mohamed All (see Morley, J., The Life of Richard Cobden, vol. I, ch. 3 (London, 1893).
For an examination of this concept with reference to the appearance and subsequent predominance of the sector devoted to the production of the means of production, see: Mori, G., ‘Processo d’Industrializzazione e Storia d’Italia’, Belfagor, a. XXIX (1974) pp. 609–32
now in Mori, G., Il Capitalismo Industriale in Italia (Rome, 1977).
For the definition of imperialism as the ‘latest’ stage of capitalism, rather than the ‘highest’ or ‘final’, in the first edition of Lenin’s essay, and its implications, see Kula, W., Problemi e metodi di storia economica (Milan, 1972) pp. 138–9.
For an incisive methodological discussion of this see De Rosa, L., ‘La Rivoluzione Industriale in Italia’, Rassagne Economica, a. XXXV (1971), reprinted in
De Rosa, L., La Rivoluzione Industriale in Italia e il Mezzogiorno (Bari, 1973).
Polanyi, K., The Great Transformation, ch. 1 (New York, 1944).
In this context the pioneering remarks made by Habbakuk, H.J., during the roundtable debate held in 1952 by the International Economic Association at St Margherita Ligure on the types of imitative and non-imitative reactions to Britain’s industrial primacy in the different European states are still worth remembering. The issue of imitation naturally relates to objectives. The quotations of Gerschenkron are from G., A. ‘Reflections on the concept of “pre-requisites” of modern industrialization’, L’Industria, a. XLII (1957) p. 363, reprinted in Economic Backwardness in Historical Perspective (N.Y., 1962). For an example of the case of a bank with extensive capital available which was not attracted to industrial investment, see Luzzatto, G., L’Economia Italiana dal 1861 al 1914 (Milan, 1963) pp. 151–2.
This and the earlier quotation from Labriola come from Labriola, A., ‘Da un secolo all’altro’ in Labriola, A., La Concezione materialistica della Stork, ed. Garin, E. (Bari, 1965) pp. 347–8.
On the treaty with France see Fohlen, C., ‘Il trattato di commercio franco-italiano del 17 gennaio 1863’, Archivio Economico per l’Unificazione Italiana, s. I, vol. XII (Rome, 1963). The figures on silk and natural products are from Sommario di Statistiche storiche 1861–1955 (Rome, 1958).
On the termination of Italy’s sulphur monopoly see Colonna, M., L’industria zolfifera siciliana (Catania, 1971) pp. 188–92;
also Haynes, W., Brimstone, the stone that burns (Princeton-New York, 1959); the slenderness of the internal demand for industrial products has not been discussed by anyone.
Romeo, R., Risorgimento e Capitalismo (Bari, 1963) p. 110.
Merli, S., Proletariato di fabbrica e capitalismo industriale (Florence, 1972).
For the two extremes see Organski, A.F.K., The Stages of Political Development (New York, 1965) p. 157;
FOA, V., Introduction to Grifone, P., Il Capitale Finanziario in Italia (Turin, 1971) p. xxiv.
As has rightly been pointed out: ‘... it is too frequently not taken into account that a rushed, violent and chaotic renewal of some sector of the economy may in the short term lead to ... a rapid increase in production and to intense growth, but that it may also bring about a profound fracture between what is modern and what is not in the economic system. As a result a whole series of tensions and conflicts come into being which tend to upset the social, political, spiritual and cultural life of a nation, even their very moral and religious foundations’ (Rosenberg, H., Grosse Depression und Bismarckzeit (Berlin, 1967) pp. 57–60).
On this last point see Galli della Loggia, E., ‘Problemi di sviluppo industriale e nuovi equilibri politici alla vigilia della prima guerra mondiale’, Rivista Storica Italiana, a. LXXXII (1970) p. 862
which is also useful on the attitudes of Ansaldo, and also Mori, G., ‘Le guerre parallele’, Studi Storlci, a. XIV (1973), now reprinted in Mori, G., Il Capitalisme ..., pp. 170–3.
Maraviglia, M., ‘Per l’indipendenza economica d’Italia’, L’Idea Nazionale, 3 March 1915, was among the first, if not the first, to use the phrase.
Although Gualerni, G., Industrie e fascismo (Milan, 1976) seems to do so, albeit departing from a new line of argument.
As was stated shortly after: ‘IRI is involved in a complex of share-holding companies whose capital amounts to 44.15% of the capital of all share-holding companies in Italy; it holds majority shares equivalent to 17,80% of that total and minority shares equivalent to 2.37% (Lefebvre d’Ovidio, O., ‘L’azione dell’I.R.I. per la riorganizzazione dell’industria’, Rassegna Economica, vol. VIII (1937) p. 192).
The best reconstruction of the events leading to the founding of IRI is in Toniolo, G., Crisi economica e smobilizzo pubblico delle banche miste: 1930–1934 (a discussion paper delivered to the Convegno of Ca’ Foscari, Venice, 15–16 April 1977).
See Sarti, R., Fascism and industrial leadership in Italy (Berkeley, 1971) and
Maier, C.S., Recasting Bourgeois Europe (Princeton, 1975).
On wages see Zamagni, V., ‘La dinamica dei salari nel settore industriale’, L’economia Italiana nel periodo fascista, ed. Ciocca, P. and Toniolo, G. (Bologna, 1977).
For a local study see Sapelli, G., Fascismo, grande industria e sindacato. Il caso di Torino (Milan, 1975).
On an aspect of employer-worker relations which is of great interest see Preti, O., ‘La regolamentazione delle controversie “individuali” di lavoro in regime fascista’, Studi Storici, a. XVIII (1977) pp. 125–69.
It even came to the point that the German Minister of Economics, Walther Funk, argued openly that Italy should be asked to strengthen its agriculture, while all industrial growth was reserved for Germany. This is evident from the memoirs of the former Italian Minister Guarneri, F., Battaglie economiche tra le due grandi guerre, vol. II (Milan, 1953) pp. 312–13.
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© 1981 Paul Bairoch and Maurice Lévy-Leboyer
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Mori, G. (1981). The Process of Industrialisation in General and the Process of Industrialisation in Italy: Some Suggestions, Problems and Questions. In: Bairoch, P., Lévy-Leboyer, M. (eds) Disparities in Economic Development since the Industrial Revolution. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-04707-9_15
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