All of this came to a head in June 2011, when the Italian people turned out in record numbers to vote on a referendum to halt the privatization of all public utilities, including water, with the objective of transforming them into common goods. It had been more than fi ft y years since the country had successfully utilized its constitutional instrument of direct democracy in this way. Many read the episode as a signifi cant manifestation of popular agency, or perhaps more radically a step toward a modifi ed organizing of Italian social life. Two months later, and as had been the case in Italy for nearly a century, the austerity refl ex kicked in.

Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, loc. 1562