In sum, in all the ways discussed above— from industrial production to land cultivation and pricefi xing— the British and Italian states barged into the realm of the economic. For the fi rst time, capitalism witnessed a threat to the inviolability of private property. Private property had to subordinate its prerogatives to a political and national interest and even to people's basic needs. In this way the state shook one of the supposedly unshakeable pillars of capital accumulation. Th e tremors in laissezfaire capitalism did not stop here, however, reverberating to another fundamental pillar: wage relations.

Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, loc. 149