In 1920 Luigi Einaudi wrote a polemic in the Liberal newspaper Il corriere della sera bemoaning Marxist economists and their labor theory of value: “Why should a capitalist profi t only because the machine is his? Why shall he live without doing anything? Is it not obvious that his profi t comes from the exploitation of someone else’s labour?” he asked, sarcastically. “Th is is the celebrated and vulgar sophism of Marx’s Capital. . . . But it is enough to ask: how much would be produced if the savers did not produce capital? Th e answer: nothing. Without capital, labour produces zero.”

Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, loc. 1126