Passage 4/15

simon66 — 3 years ago

Italy's involvement in World War II as a member of the Axis powers required the establishment of a war economy. This put severe strain on the corporatist economic model applied by Mussolini, since the war quickly started going badly for Italy and it became difficult for the government to persuade business leaders to finance what they saw as a military disaster. The Allied invasion of Italy in 1943 caused the Italian political structure - and the economy - to rapidly collapse. The Allies, on the one hand, and the Germans on the other, took over the administration of the areas of Italy under their control. By the end of the war, the Italian economy had been all but destroyed; per capita income in 1944 was at its lowest point since the beginning of the 20th century. The Italian economy had very variable growth in the 1950s and early 1960s. In Italy, state economic intervention was delayed. It began during the 1950s and was not fully achieved until the 1960s under the centre left governments. There is a question as to whether or not a mixed economy in a Western European country like Italy was connected to the goal of establishing a consensus policy by the political elites. What is clear is that unemployment was high in this period – especially in southern Italy. Dora’s limited recollection of the war shows both that children are often less affected by world events than is expected by adults and that her parents had been able to retain normality in the lives of their children.