Ricci joined, too: "Th e darlings [beniamini] of economic policy during the war and aft er have been the workers of the great cities. In other words, the savers were punished, and the squanderers rewarded" (Ricci 1921, 450). Th e economist architects of Italian austerity distrusted, and perhaps despised, the working classes for their ineptitude in the vital action of economic growth: saving. While it is impossible to ascertain whether or not pure economics was the primary source of the economists' classist convictions, it is safe to assert that pure economics at least reinforced their classism.

Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, loc. 1162