By Benito Mussolini
Were not the subject inexhaustible, I would willingly have refrained from speaking, for the bill submitted to your approval has been slowly and thoroughly prepared; it is no sudden birth. Its precedents can be traced back to what may be described as the proto-history of the Regime: the first meeting of the Fasci di Combattimento held at Milan fifteen years ago. After the March on Rome the first tentative action toward the corporations was taken by the meeting at Palazzo Chigi and by the Palazzo Vidoni Covenant.
Then came the Act of April 3, 1926, followed by the regulations of July 1, 1926. The Labour Charter is of April 21, 1927. The first corporative law is of March 1930.
The bill now before you was first examined by the Central Corporative Committee; the chrism of the Grand Council was conferred on it after long and detailed debates: it has been revised by the Council of Ministers, and has been presented to you accompanied by a report of the Ministry of Corporations. To this has been added a report, solid in substance and fervid in faith, of your reporter, the Quadrumvir De Vecchi.
The speeches delivered here have thrown further light on the project which you have examined. Senator Bevione surveyed the horizon and clearly individualized some characteristic aspects of the crisis through which we are still passing: Senator Schanzer's speech was extremely rigourous in its dialectics; Senator Cavazzoni emphasized the paradox of this truly paradoxical period of contemporary civilization which places us before such phenomena as wheat used for fuel by steam-engines, bags of coffee thrown into the sea, wealth destroyed, while there are millions of men who could use it to satisfy their needs.
An interesting speech was that of Senator Cogliolo who, in his brilliant opening, underlined the importance of the acceptance of the Regime and the organization within its cadres of the masses of the so-called "intellectuals": a typical Italian phenomenon and one unique in history if it be true that Plato, who was certainly not lacking in wisdom, excluded poets and their kin from his Republic considering them pernicious to the peaceful growth of the City. We are creating a Regime in which all those who were formerly called brain-workers, all those who earn their living by the exercise of a profession or an art, live within the Regime and bring to the Regime an irreplaceable contribution, the contribution of intelligence.
Senator Marozzi dwelt on some aspects of the guild in relation to agriculture. Last of all Senator Corbino, a physicist, as we all know, of world-wide reputation, has placed some interrogation marks of notable importance which convince me of the excellency of circumspection when walking in the field of economics.
This bill is not the fruit of doctrines only. Doctrines should not be unduly despised, for doctrine enlightens experience and experience tests doctrine. Not of doctrines only, but of twelve years of experience, living, practical, daily experience, during which all the problems of national life viewed from the economic standpoint, problems always prismatic and complex, have been brought before me: I have had to face them them and not infrequently to settle them.
What are the premises of this bill? The fundamental premise is the following: there is no such thing as an economic fact which is exclusively private and individual. From the day on which man resigned or adapted himself to living in the company of his fellows, from that day on not one of the actions he accomplishes is limited in its development and conclusions to himself, all have reactions which go beyond his person.
The phenomenon of capitalism, the form of economics known as capitalistic economy, must also be situated in its historic environment. Capitalistic economy is a phenomenon of last century and of the present. It was unknown to antiquity. Salvioli's book is exhaustive and final on this point. Nor was it known to the Middle Ages. A more or less vast phase of artisan economy then still prevailed. Capitalism implies machinery; machinery implies the factory. Capitalism is therefore bound up with the rise of machinery; it expands with the long-distance transmission of power and when conditions, widely different from those under which we are now living, allow of a rational and universal division of labour. It was this division of labour which in the second half of last century led a British economist, Stanley Jevons, to say:
"The prairies of North America and Russia are our wheat fields; Chicago and Odessa are our granaries; Canada and the Baltic States are our forests; Australia raises her flocks for us, America her cattle; Peru sends us her silver, California and Australia their gold; the Chinese grow tea for us and the Indians coffee; sugar and spices come to our ports; France and Spain are our vineyards; the Mediterranean our market-garden."Of course all this had as its counter-part, coal, cotton goods, machinery, etc., etc. In this first phase of capitalism (on another occasion I defined it as dynamic and even heroic) the prevalent character of economic facts may be conceived of as individual and private. At that time theorists were emphatic in excluding State intervention in business, all they asked of the State was that it be quiescent and that it give the country safety and order.
It is also in this period that the direction of capitalism had a family aspect which, whenever it has been preserved, has been of the greatest value; dynasties of great manufacturers transmitted from father to son not only the factory but a feeling of family pride and also a sense of honour. But in his book "The End of Capitalism" Fried, while limiting his remarks to Germany, was already led to note that in the years between 1870 and 1890 these great dynasties of manufacturers declined, broke up, dispersed, became insufficient.
It is during this period that the joint-stock-company appears on the scene. The joint-stock-company must not be thought of as a diabolical invention or a product of human malice (laughter). We should not bring the gods and demons too frequently into our affairs. The joint-stock-company arises when capitalism, as a result of its expansion, can no longer rely on the wealth of families or small groups, but has to appeal, through the issue of stocks and bonds, to impersonal, undifferentiated, colloidal capital. It is then that the manufacturer's name is replaced by the company's cypher. Only those who are initiated into the practices of this kind of financial mysteriosophy know how to read beneath "the veil of the strange verses".
Senator Bevione in his remarks quoted the Sofindit, but I fancy many of you do not exactly know what is hidden behind that word of vaguely Ostrogothic flavour. The Sofindit is not a business; it is a convalescent home where more or less deteriorated concerns are kept under observation and treatment. You will not be so indiscreet, I hope, as to ask me who pays the bill for these more or less lengthy stays in hospital. In this period, when industry is unable on the strength of its own prestige and vigour to float its capital issues, it turns to the banks. When an enterprise appeals to the capital of all, its private character ceases, it becomes a public, or if you prefer, a social fact.
And this phenomenon, which made its appearance before the war, profoundly modifying the whole capitalistic organization—you can find the facts by reading Francesco Vito's book "Industrial Syndicates and Cartels"— this transformation accelerated its rhythm during and after the war.
State intervention is no longer deprecated, it is sollicited. Should the State intervene? There can be no doubt as to the answer. But how? The forms of Government intervention have of late been diverse, varied, contrasting. There has been disorganic, empirical intervention, case by case, as the need arises. This has taken place in all countries, including those which until quite recently flew the flag of economic liberalism.
There is another form of intervention, the communistic, with which I have no kind of sympathy, not even spatial, Senator Corbino. For my part I deny that if communism had been applied in Germany it would have had different results from those it has had in Russia. Anyhow, it is evident that the German people will have nothing to do with it. In some of its manifestations of exasperated Americanism (extremes meet) this communism is only a form of State socialism, it is nothing more nor less than the bureaucratization of economic activities. I believe none of you wish to bureaucratize, that is to say to freeze the realities of the economic life of the nation; complex, changeable realities, bound up with world events, and above all of such a character that when they lead to the commission of errors, those errors have unforeseeable consequences.
The American experiment should be followed very closely. In the United States, Government intervention in business is direct; and sometimes it takes a peremptory form. The codes are nothing more nor less than collective contracts to which the President compels both parties to submit. We must wait before passing judgement on that experiment.
I should however like to anticipate my opinion on one point, and it is that monetary maneuvers cannot bring about a real and enduring price rise. If we wish to delude mankind we can have recourse to what used to be known as "clipping the coinage". But all who do not obey the dictates of economic and social empiricism have formed a quite definite opinion. The path of inflation leads to catastrophe. Who indeed can really think that the multiplication of monetary instruments can increase national wealth? The comparison has already been drawn: it is like thinking that by printing a million times the same negative of the same person the population is increased by a million men.
Have we not moreover had experiences in this field? From the assignats of France to the post-war mark of Germany?
A fourth experiment is the Fascist. If liberal economy is the economy of individuals in a state of more or less complete liberty, Fascist guild economy is that of individuals, and also of associated groups, and also of the State. And what are its characteristics? What are the characteristics of guild economy?
Guild or corporative economy respects the principle of private property. Private property completes human personality. It is a right, and if it be a right it is also a duty. So true is this that property should be considered in its social function, not therefore as passive ownership but as active ownership, which does not merely enjoy the fruits of wealth but develops, increases, and multiplies them. Corporative economy respects private enterprise. The Labour Charter specifically states that it is only when private enterprise is deficient, lacking, or inadequate that the State intervenes. It is obvious, for instance, that only the Government, with the powerful means at its disposal, can reclaim the Pontine Ager. Corporative economy introduces order in the economic field. If there be one phenomenon which requires regulating, and which should be directed toward certain fixed objectives, it is precisely the economic phenomenon for it concerns the whole nation.
Not only must industrial economy be regulated, but agricultural economy, commercial economy, banking and even artisan activities.
How should this regulation be carried out in practice? Through the self-discipline of the categories concerned. It is only in the second resort, when the categories fail to agree and to secure the due balance of forces, that the Government may intervene; and it has the sovereign right to do so, in this field as in others, for the Government represents the other term of the equation: the consumer, the anonymous mass, which being unorganized must be safeguarded by the organ representing the collective body of citizens.
And here some one may be inclined to ask: "And if the depression were to end?" I reply: Then more than ever! We must not nurture deceptive hopes of a rapid conclusion of this depression. It will leave behind it long trails. But anyhow, even if there were to be a general economic revival tomorrow and we were to return to the easy business conditions prevailing in 1914, to which reference has been made, then more than ever regulation would be necessary, for men have short memories and they would be induced to commit once more the same foolish acts, they would repeat the same follies.
The bill before you, honorable Senators, has already penetrated the conscience of the Italian people. In these last few days the Italian people has shown that this is so. This admirable Italian people, labourious, indefatigable, thrifty, has cast eight thousand million votes of one lire each in favour of this law; while you have been holding this debate the people has shown that this law is not a threat but a guarantee, not a danger but a supreme safeguard.
The stages of execution? When the law has been passed we shall proceed to set up the Corporations. The Grand Council has already examined and discussed the text of the bill, and has defined their character and composition. When these are set up we shall watch their procedure, which must be rapid, not weighted down by bureaucracy. In the working of this institution as of all others the cost must be taken into account. In judging an institution its yield must be considered in relation to its cost. Nor should some increase of bureaucracy be feared. It must be remembered that no human organization can be conceived which does not require a minimum of bureaucracy. When we have watched, followed, controlled the practical and effective working of the corporations (guilds) we shall have reached the third stage, that of constitutional reform. Only when that third stage is reached will the fate of the Chamber of Deputies be decided.
As you see from all that I have previously said and from these brief statements, we are proceeding very quietly. We are far from precipitating events; we are sure of ourselves; for inasmuch as we are the Fascist Revolution, we have the whole century before us.
