Following the economic interventions of their governments during World War I, the working classes of Britain and Italy were uninterested in a smooth reintroduction of capitalism. By 1919 the old system was in fullblown crisis, and its component parts— workers, union leaders, and economic experts— were all announcing the end of the old order. Postcapitalism, whatever its form, was on its way. … What was the basis for this conviction, which was mirrored by a sense of apocalyptic panic among the bourgeois establishment? Capitalism was strongly contested at its very core.

Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, loc. 455