Th is technocratic ethos permeated De Stefani's 1927 speech in front of an audience at the English Institute of Bankers: "We still judge of sound fi nance by the strict adherence of government practice to those laws that are not political but natural and human; and in all countries the people are inexorably forced to pay the penalty for disobeying them" (De Stefani 1927, 316, my italics).

Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, loc. 1173