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Traders, taxpayers, citizens: The lower middle classes from Liberalism to Fascism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 January 2016

Jonathan Morris
Jonathan Morris*
Affiliation:
Department of History, University College London, Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT, UK. Telephone: + 44 020 7679 3601. E-mail: Jonathan.morris@ucl.ac.u k
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Summary

This article argues that it was through their common relationship to the commercial environment formed by the city that the independent lower middle classes were able to construct a collective identity. The article examines these identities first in the context of a comparison between Rome and Milan, and then within the provincial towns of Lombardy. It suggests that the concern of the petite bourgeoisie towards their city and its administration lay at the heart of an ‘apolitical’ conception of politics that privileged their own interests as traders, taxpayers and citizens over those of other residents. The consequences of this are explored in a final section devoted to the immediate post-war era.

Type
Research Article
Information
Modern Italy , Volume 7 , Issue 2: Special Issue: gender and the private sphere in Italy since 1945 , November 2002 , pp. 153 - 169
Copyright
Copyright © Association for the study of Modern Italy 

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References

Notes

1. In this article I use lower middle classes to denote both the ‘old’ or ‘independent’ lower middle classes or petite bourgeoisie, and the ‘new’ lower middle classes of white-collar private and public employees who did not perform manual labour, but lacked professional qualifications. As with most historians, I take the petite bourgeoisie to be that group of society which works its own capital, i.e. supplies the principal labour component within its own enterprise, using other labour as an extension, rather than a substitute for its own, following the definition first proposed by Bechhoffer, Frank and Elliot, Brian, ‘Persistence and Change: The Petite Bourgeoisie in Industrial Society’, Archives européennes de sociologie , 17, 1, 1976, pp. 76–79.Google Scholar

2. The Milanese case is covered extensively in Morris, Jonathan, The Political Economy of Shopkeeping in Milan 1886–1922 , Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1993.Google Scholar

3. Società Generale tra Negozianti e Industriali di Roma, L'organizzazione commerciale romana nazionale , Rome, 1933, p. 20. This institutional history is the main source of information available on the Società Generale, along with frequent references to its activities in retailer journals and contemporary conference publications.Google Scholar

4. Pasetti, Guelfo, I negozianti di Roma contro le Società cooperative di consumo fra gli impiegati in Roma , Rome, 1889, p. 6 (held in the Biblioteca Capitolino, Roma).Google Scholar

5. Ibid , pp. 4–5.Google Scholar

6. On Unione Militare see Militare, L'Unione, Il primo decennio di vita della Unione Militare 1890–1900 , Rome, 1900. The store's subsequent history can be traced via entries in the annual commercial guide to Rome, Guida Monaci. Guida Commerciale di Roma e Lazio, Monaci, Rome, various years.Google Scholar

7. For more on the national campaign against co-operatives and the growth of city traders’ associations in Italy, Morris, Jonathan, ‘Les Associations de détaillants en Italie à la fin du XIX siècle’, Histoire, Economie et Société , 16, 2, 1997, pp. 237–257.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

8. ‘Interessi degli esercenti’, L'Esercente , Milan, 27 April 1902.Google Scholar

9. On Unione Cooperativa, see Mellini, C., Storia dell'Unione Cooperativa , Milan, 1905; and Caroleo, Anna, ‘L'Unione Cooperativa di Luigi Buffoli’, in Sapelli, Giulio and Degl'Innocenti, Maurizio (eds), Cooperative in Lombardia dal 1886, Unicopli, Renate (Milan), 1986, pp. 199–215.Google Scholar

10. ‘I grandi magazzini e le cooperative’, L'Esercente , Milan, 15 December 1892.Google Scholar

11. ‘L'agitazione contro le cooperative di consumo’, ibid. , 23 March 1902.Google Scholar

12. Candiani, On, see Fiocca, Giorgio, ‘Il terzo partito: un aspetto della “milanesit à” in età giolittiana’, Passato e Presente , no. 36, 1995, pp. 33–54.Google Scholar

13. These can be found in the Biblioteca Nazionale Braidense, Milan.Google Scholar

14. On the decline of the guild system in Lombardy, see the essays in Mozzarelli, Cesare (ed.), Economia e Corporazione. Il governo degli interessi nella storia d'Italia dal medioevo all'età contemporanea , Giuffrè, Milan, 1988, especially Cesare Mozzarelli, ‘La riforma politica del 1786 e la nascita delle camere di commercio in Lombardia’, pp. 163–186.Google Scholar

15. ‘Elezione amministrativa pel Comune di Monza’, Bollettino del consorzio esercenti dazio consumo del Comune di Monza , I, 3, 1884.Google Scholar

16. ‘Cos’è il Consorzio’, ibid Google Scholar

17. ‘Può o non può il Consorzio mandare a tariffa?’, ibid. Google Scholar

18. ‘Altro Consorzio d'Esercenti’, ibid. , I, 6, 1884.Google Scholar

19. Carcano, Giuseppe, ‘Elezioni amministrative a Varese alla fine dell'Ottocento’, Storia in Lombardia , IX, 1, 1990, pp. 62–65.Google Scholar

20. Ibid p. 92.Google Scholar

21. ‘Otto giorni dopo’, Il Commercio. Giornale commerciale industriale agricolo , Pavia, 28 February 1891.Google Scholar

22. ‘Consorzio che cessa onorevolemente’, Bollettino del consorzio esercenti dazio consumo del Comune di Monza , II, 6, 1885.Google Scholar

23. ‘Quello che siamo e ciò che desideriamo’, Il Commercio. Organo Ufficiale della Federazione Commercianti Industriali di Cremona , 22 June 1910 (emphasis in the original).Google Scholar

24. ‘Pantalone’, ibid. Google Scholar

25. Il Cittadino, Brescia, 22 January 1881 cited in Spinelli, Giovanni, ‘Treni e potere politico in periferia: progressisti, moderati e cattolici bresciani di fronte alla questione ferroviaria’, Storia in Lombardia , VI, 1, 1987, p. 28.Google Scholar

26. Carcano, , ‘Elezioni amministrative a Varese’ p. 92.Google Scholar

27. Ibid. , p. 72.Google Scholar

28. ‘Elezione amministrativa pel Comune di Monza’, Bollettino del consorzio esercenti dazio consumo del Comune di Monza , I, 3, 1884.Google Scholar

29. ‘Dazio consumo ed Appalti’, ibid. , II, 5, 1886.Google Scholar

30. Carcano, , ‘Elezioni amministrative a Varese’, p. 62.Google Scholar

31. Spinelli, , ‘Treni e potere politico in periferia’, p. 75.Google Scholar

32. ‘Cucine economiche in Monza’, Bollettino del consorzio esercenti dazio consumo del Comune di Monza , I, 5, 1885.Google Scholar

33. For an account of this administration and its impact on shopkeeper politics in the city see Morris, , The Political Economy , pp. 238–264.Google Scholar

34. ‘Il Pantalone’, Il Commercio. Organo Ufficiale della Federazione Commercianti Industriali di Cremona , 22 June 1910.Google Scholar

35. ‘Quello che siamo e ciò che desideriamo’, ibid. , 19 July 1910.Google Scholar

36. ‘Abassa la politica!’, ibid. , 23 July 1910.Google Scholar

37. Ibid Google Scholar

38. ‘Il Pantalone’, ibid. , 22 June 1910.Google Scholar

39. For an attempt to do this see Morris, Jonathan, ‘Retailers, Fascism and the Origins of the Social Protection of Shopkeepers in Italy’, Contemporary European History , 5, 3, 1996, pp. 285–318.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

40. On the wartime provisioning economy see Dentoni, Maria Concetta, Annona e consenso in Italia 1914–1919 , Angeli, Milan, 1995.Google Scholar

41. The latest analysis of the riots is Bianchi, Roberto, Bocci-Bocci. I tumulti annonari nella toscana del 1919 , Olschki, Florence, 2001. See also Foot, John, ‘Eliminated as a Class? Milanese Socialism, Consumers, and Shopkeepers during the Period of the Cost-of-Living Riots, June–July 1919’, The Italianist, 18, 1998, pp. 245–271.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

42. Punzo, Maurizio, La giunta Caldara. L'amministrazione comunale di Milano negli anni 1914–1920 , Laterza, Bari, 1986, p. 122.Google Scholar

43. On retailer associationism in this period see Morris, , ‘Retailers, Fascism’, especially pp. 297–301.Google Scholar

44. ‘Primo Congresso Nazionale’, Piccolo Esercente , Rome, 12 October 1922 (copies in Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, Florence).Google Scholar

45. ‘Da Trieste’, ibid. , 9 March 1922.Google Scholar

46. Primo Congresso Nazionale’, ibid. , 12 October 1922.Google Scholar

47. On post-war Milan see Morris, , The Political Economy , pp. 272–284. The paragraphs in this article are based on an analysis of the journals L'Esercente, L'Esercente Lombardo, Il Commercio Zootecnico and La Panificazione, all published in Milan and available in the Biblioteca Nazionale Braidense.Google Scholar

48. ‘Ciò che si è fatto e ciò che si può fare’, L'Esercente , Milan, 21 November 1920.Google Scholar

49. ‘L'Assemblea generale dell'Associazione Esercenti’, L'Esercente Trevigliese , 1, 4 (April 1920) (emphasis in the original).Google Scholar

50. ‘Domanda la parola’, ibid. , 1, 7 (October 1920).Google Scholar

51. ‘Assemblea generale dei soci del 4 febbraio 1923’, ibid. , 4, 1 (February 1923).Google Scholar

52. Archivio Centrale dello Stato (Rome), Pubblica Sicurezza 1922, b. 61, Bergamo.Google Scholar

53. ‘Assemblea generale dei soci del 4 febbraio 1923’, L'Esercente Trevigliese , 4, 1 (February 1923).Google Scholar