Alberto Beneduce, an Italian professor of economic statistics and CEO of the National Institution of Insurance (INA)— who would go on to have a lasting career as parliamentarian, senator, and economic adviser of Mussolini's regime— had no doubt: it was necessary to "act upon public opinion, on the psychological state of the masses, so that they would no more impede but help to reestablish the budget of the State" (Verbatim Record, Brussels 1920, 75, my italics). Beneduce gave voice to these preoccupations during the plenary discussion of September 20, 1920. Th e date is signifi cant: on that day in his own country an unprecedented class struggle was at its peak. Th e factory occupation had been going on for almost a month. Th e "psychological state of the masses" seemed rather projected toward a postcapitalist society where private ownership and wage relations were to be abolished.

Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, loc. 743