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Forms of Organization of Italian Public Undertakings
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 September 2013
Extract
Contrary to expectation, widespread when the Fascists acceded to power, no notable retreat by the national government from the field of economic undertaking has been witnessed under the present Italian régime. The theoretical advocacy of public ownership of business concerns as a goal in itself has, indeed, passed entirely from the political stage with the suppression of the once powerful Socialist party, but the enterprises already operated by the Italian government have for the most part been continued under Mussolini's administration. Fascist theory concedes the private entrepreneur to be the normal and proper producer and distributor of economic goods. The Fascist attitude toward the government in business is expressed in the doctrine of state intervention. When any phase of the national economy fails to operate properly, the state has a right to intervene, even to the extent of becoming an entrepreneur itself. In the ninth declaration of the Charter of Labor, the Fascist social creed, the doctrine is expressed thus: “The intervention of the state in economic production takes place only when private initiative is lacking or is insufficient or when political interests of the state are involved. Such intervention may assume the form of control, assistance, or direct management.”
- Type
- Foreign Governments and Politics
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © American Political Science Association 1933
References
1 Certain local telephone systems, formerly operated by the government, were, however, given over to private enterprise, the state retaining the long-distancelines.
2 The theoretical side of Fascism has recently been well set forth in Mussolini, Arnaldo, Il Fascismo e le Corporazioni (Rome and Milan), 1931 Google Scholar, and in Goad, Harold E., The Making of the Corporate State (London, 1932)Google Scholar.
3 The English word “corporation” is avoided in this paper because of the tendency to use it to translate the Italian term corporazione, meaning guild or association, in Fascist terminology the organic national association of one branch of production.
4 Relatively little appears to have been written in the field of present-day Italian public undertakings. The following secondary sources, however, have been consulted by the author: the section on the Italian state monopolies in Dr. Herbert Gross, Die Organisationsformen des Finanzmonopols in Europa; Dr. Benvenuto Griziotti, Die Organisationsformen der öffentlichen Unternehmungen in Italien (both articles contained in 179.3 Band, Schriften des Vereins für Sozialpolitik, Müinchen and Leipzig, 1931 Google Scholar); and the section on the Italian state railways in Dr. jur. Bernhard Witte, Eisenbahn und Staat, ein Vergleich der europaischen und nordamerikanischen Eisenbahnorganisationen in ihrem Verhältnis zum Staat (viertes Ergänzungsheft, Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv, Jena, 1932)Google Scholar.
5 Besides frequent specific authorization for the elaboration of legislative provisions by royal or ministerial decree, the government has power under the law of January 31,1926, No. 100, to issue “royal decree-laws” on any subject when in its judgment reasons of urgent and absolute necessity require it, such decree-laws to be submitted to Parliament within two years for conversion into law. While the rejection of the bill of conversion by either house would operate as an immediate veto, the Italian Parliament, as at present constituted, in practice never opposes the policy of the government, though the enactment of the law of conversion is some times found by the government to be a convenient time for the insertion of amendments.
6 A summary of the general financial system of the Italian state may here be useful. The expenses of the ordinary governmental services are authorized by Parliament in laws approving, with modifications introduced by legislative action, the tables of estimates submitted by the several ministries through the minister of finance. Besides the income and expense accounts corresponding to the budget, the Italian treasury keeps a patrimonial or property account. In addition, each service maintains a current inventory. The supervision of the raising of revenue, the final verification of expenses, the checking of inventories, and the auditing of all governmental accounts are functions of a central auditing body, the Court of Accounts.
7 From 1907, when they were first permanently organized, until their reorganization by the Fascists in 1922, the Italian State Railways possessed a more independent organization under a council of administration having considerable authority.