British technocrats understood that the groundwork for insulating capitalism in Italy would take the form of austerity, and implementing that austerity would require a strong government. Th e British found those conditions in the form of Mussolini’s dictatorship; Fascism imitated the principles of austerity. Th e British were not alone in this. Similarly to the austerity motives of liberal economists within Italy they refl ected a wider international consensus that proved fundamental in order for Fascism to gain legitimacy and consolidate its rule.

Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, loc. 1329