The economic slump between 1890 and 1896 produced an interesting paradox in the history of the Milanese esercente movement. The suffering wrought amongst individual proprietors created new opportunities for the shopkeeper movement and, above all, for the construction of shopkeeper identity. Adversity often breeds unity, but in the case of the esercenti there was a further paradox in that those factors on which they blamed their misfortunes, and that could only be combated by exercising the collective voice in the political sphere that the movement advocated, were not the root cause of the small traders' distress. Indeed, part of the movement's success arose precisely from its failure to address the most fundamental problem of shopkeeping in the period.

Chapter 1 illustrated the deep recession in the small retailing sector between 1889 and 1897. Consumption fell as did real prices, although protectionist duties on agricultural produce sometimes forced shop prices upwards, accentuating the drop in demand and contributing to the demands for cheaper bread that fuelled the public disorders of 1898 (see Figs. 1.3 and 1.7). Indicative of the decline in economic activity was the fall in the volume of bills of exchange discounted by the Cassa di Risparmio delle Provincie Lombarde after 1892.