Th is chapter has set out to explore the birth of austerity in Italy under the “impartial” guide of four renowned professors of economics. Despite their ideological divergence, the four shared a deeper set of beliefs and a precise mission: they worked in concert as guardians of a universal economic science— a science that, despite its purported purity, had the intrinsic practical aim of “taming” citizens to consume less and produce more. Th e emerging Fascist regime endowed the professors with the opportunity of a lifetime: to actually mold society to correspond to the ideal of their models.

Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, loc. 1303