Economic Soul/7 - During the twenty years of Fascism, economists converged on the model espoused by Fascism: a deceptive but convincing temptation
by Luigino Bruni
published in Avvenire on February 22, 2026
“It is an anti-historical attitude par excellence to consider the problems, opinions, and feelings of the past in the same way as the feelings and convictions of a completely different era” (A.C. Jemolo, Stato e chiesa in Italia, p. 23). However, this correct and necessary methodological warning must not become a straitjacket that prevents scholars from reading documents, trying to discern spirits, and evaluating choices and decisions. Without the responsibility of interpreters, the facts and words of yesterday would remain closed monads, inhabited only by apologetics, which is the greatest enemy of any serious research work.
The convergence between the thinking of some Catholic economists and that underlying fascist corporatism may surprise us, and perhaps sadden us. However, this convergence must be placed within a much broader phenomenon. Adherence to corporatism was common to almost all economists of the time: “It can be said that all Italian economists of the twenty-year period were ‘corporatists’, but each had his own idea of ‘corporation’” (Francesca Duchini, Aspetti e problemi della cultura economica italiana fra le due guerre, 1994). We must bear in mind that when the corporatist era exploded, it was in the aftermath of the Great Depression of 1929 (which for many had decreed the end of the liberal economy) and in the midst of Russian Stalinism; the search for a new path was very lively and concrete.
Without embracing the extreme positions of Massimo Fovel, Gino Arias, or Filippo Carli, who proposed the fascist ‘homo corporativus’ as a substitute for the ‘homo oeconomicus’ of classical economics, almost all the best economists of the time were seduced by corporatist ideas. Among them were Marco Fanno, Costantino Bresciani Turroni, and Guglielmo Masci, who wrote in 1940: “Corporatism establishes a system designed to mediate extremes, overcoming them; it blends individual and collective economies into a higher synthesis” (Corso di economia politica corporativa). And Luigi Amoroso, probably the best student of the great Pareto, stated that “the corporative system surpasses all previous currents of economic thought” (Principles of Corporative Economics, 1933). Even the liberal Luigi Einaudi wrote in La riforma sociale (Social Reform) that “the study of prices in a corporative regime may, over time, give rise to some of those investigations that we call elegant” (Economic Trenches and Corporatism, 1933, §15). However, Einaudi's moderate corporative openness did not please his very fastidious colleagues: “Poor corporative economy, which in vain claims to build the only true political economy!” (Arias, ‘Rassegna Corporativa’ 1934, II). In the same issue of the magazine, Arias concluded his editorial as follows: “Pantaleoni was absolutely right when he said that there are only two schools of economics: the school of those who know and the school of those who do not know. It should only be added that the economists of the economic puppet and its disguises belong to the second school” (Economia e antieconomia [Economics and Anti-Economics]).
There is also a second theme. Many of those economists were also fascinated by the fascist critique of the anthropological and ethical premises of economics, which focused on the critique of homo oeconomicus, the ‘economic puppet’: “The condemnation, as a false and nefarious concept, of one of the fundamental postulates of economic science and economic life, namely homo oeconomicus” (Aldo Contento, Difesa dell'Homo Oeconomicus, 1931). A homo oeconomicus, ‘which not only has no philosophical value, but also has no scientific value’ (Ugo Spirito, Critica dell'economia liberale, 1930). And Margherita Sarfatti, commemorating Luigi Luzzatti, wrote: “political economy did not help him to construct the aberrant monstrosities of the ‘economic man’” (Gerarchia, 1927, 4). And again, Angelo Brucculeri, in his article “Le doglie dell'homo oeconomicus” (Civiltà Cattolica, I, February 1934, p. 359), praising Mazzei, whom he defines as ‘Toniolo's pupil’, wrote with remarkable narrative acumen: “Among the many crises that loom today over the unfortunate inhabitants of planet Earth, there is one that exhausts and tears apart a class of valiant intellectuals, namely the followers of pure economics, the tenacious worshippers of homo economicus.” In a footnote, he adds: "If any of our readers do not have a clear idea of homo economicus and his beloved pure economics, read this anecdote. One day, a hunter had the idea of calculating the speed of greyhounds and hares, starting from the assumption that both ran on one foot. Being a good mathematician, he was able to put together a volume of calculations, which he titled: The Science of Pure Hunting. Then, with the first hypothesis, he realized he was too far from reality, and made a second hypothesis: he assumed that dogs and hares jumped with only two feet, and based on this new formula, he modified his initial calculations, obtaining an approximation of quadrupedal reality. Then he wanted to get even closer to the aforementioned reality, and made calculations based on the hypothesis that greyhounds and hares ran on three feet. Now, the pure economist does something similar. He assumes that man is motivated not by a complex set of feelings, but by a single one, the hedonistic one; the man animated by this single impulse is called homo economicus (Ibid., p. 359).
Toniolo, too, and most Catholic economists, had for decades placed homo economicus at the center of their criticism of liberal economics. Jacopo Mazzei, for example, wrote: “The more complex the economic reality, the more the hedonistic motive of the individual is restrained, guided, and perhaps in some cases prohibited” (Sul carattere etico della scienza economica, 1934). The pursuit of individual utility had to be replaced by collective and corporate utility.
A third area where fascist corporatism focused its energies was the corporate sphere: the corporate enterprise. Federico M. Pacces had a vision of the enterprise that some of his colleagues of pure fascist faith still considered too moderate (Piero Corti, On the subject of the corporate enterprise, ‘Rassegna corporativa’, 1934, II). Pacces (PS: I was a close friend of his daughter Simonetta (in Colonnetti)), in fact, saw the corporate enterprise as a ‘harmonious composition of divergent interests’, but did not share the vision of those who postulated a ‘corporate guild in which entrepreneurs and workers should be equally interested in the profits of the enterprise and share equally in the risks’, because, in his opinion, ‘this corporate enterprise resembles the company soviets too closely’. But he also disliked the other ‘tendency to want to permeate the company with a corporate spirit understood as converging interests’ (Pacces, Corporate Enterprise, ‘Critica fascista’, 1934, no. 5). Ugo Spirito, the leading philosopher of corporatism, also returned to the theme of the corporate enterprise on several occasions. In agreement with Pacces, he wanted the corporate enterprise to be the place where “two elements, capital and labor, could collaborate more intimately,” while criticizing those who wanted to “strengthen labor to the point of giving it the ability to take possession of capital. The latter path, as we know, is that of socialism.” (Residui liberali e socialisti contro la Corporazione, ‘Critica Fascista’, 1934, no. 20). And according to R. De Leva: “Fascist corporatism has only theoretically validated the company, giving it political content and making it one of the main links between the private and public elements of the economy” (Dal capitalismo all’azienda corporativa, 1936).
This concept of collaboration between capital and labor was very close, if not identical, to that indicated by the Church in its social encyclicals: “The papal social encyclicals, a worthy precedent, as Gemelli has well demonstrated, of fascist corporatism” (G. Arias, Economia e antieconomica, 1934) . And the main architect of the Carta del Lavoro (Charter of Labor), Alfredo Rocco, wrote in 1924: “Catholics will not only find nothing in it that is repugnant to their religious conscience. On the contrary, they will find in it the most suitable environment for the realization of those religious and social ideals that the Catholic Church advocates.” And again Brucculeri: “This is the edifice created by fascism: do we not see in it coincidences with the social doctrines and directives promoted by Christianity?” (“Dal corporativismo dei cristiani sociali al corporativismo integrale fascista” [From the corporatism of social Christians to integral fascist corporatism], La Civiltà Cattolica, 1934, I, p. 237). Brucculeri—who is understood to have been a key figure in Catholic corporatism during Fascism: he wrote eighteen notebooks on “Social Doctrines of Catholicism”—also in 1934 (an important year for the affirmation of corporatism) wrote an article in his newspaper, La civiltà cattolica, entitled “Corporatism and Thomism” (III, 85, pp. 462-475), in which the Father, taking up a thesis by Gino Arias, argues that corporatism is “permeated with spirits and also articulated on Thomistic dictates.” Massimo Fovel, one of the economists of pure fascist faith, summarizing the article (in which he had read an attack on himself, as he was still too attached to Pareto's economics!), thus evaluates Brucculeri's thesis: "proclaiming the similarity of two programs of concrete historical economics... Brucculeri asserts that corporatism therefore also expresses true economic science in theory, and he expressly states that traditional economic science is pure of ethical elements and, precisely because it is so pure, is a false science“ (M. Fovel, ”La civiltà cattolica e la scienza economica corporativa" [Catholic civilization and corporate economic science], in Nuovi problemi di politica, storia ed economia [New problems of politics, history, and economics], VII, 1934, p. 5).
Here we are faced with another paradox of this story. The philosophy of contemporary big business, even if it is unaware of it, is in fact very similar to the realization of the corporative dream. It has not followed the cooperative path or that of worker participation in ownership, but is increasingly based on stakeholder theory, on a supposed harmony of interests among all, and on the religion of leadership. Even the use of the word ‘collaborators’ instead of employees was already present in corporatism: “Neither old-fashioned masters nor servants. Our aspiration is that there should only be collaborators” (B. Mussolini, in Brucculeri, 1934, p. 144).
It is thus increasingly clear that for Catholic economists, the corporatist temptation was (almost) irresistible. On the one hand, there was the old corporatism recommended by Leo XIII, Pius XI, and Toniolo as a third way; on the other, there was the common criticism of socialism, capitalism, and homo economicus. It was a perfect trap, into which almost everyone fell, most of them in good faith—prophecy cannot be imposed on anyone, least of all retroactively.
Father Brucculeri, a Jesuit, is a perfect example of this. One of the main authors of La Civiltà Cattolica, he soon became convinced that the corporatist proposal was the right one: “Catholicism and fascism, although starting from different points, converge in the same condemnation of today's capitalist regime” (Angelo Brucculeri, Intorno al corporativismo, La civiltà cattolica, 1934). And he was right. Furthermore, “like social Catholicism, fascism also admits the convergence of class interests.” He concludes: “Let us give the world back its soul and we will have ensured a non-illusory success for today's corporatism” (L'economia nazionale corporativa, 1929). Here, however, the prophecy did not come true.
To conclude this difficult series of articles on corporatism, we must acknowledge that fascist ideology was very popular because it linked itself, in a distorted way, to some good words from the Latin and Catholic tradition - every ideology is an abuse and manipulation of good and great words. And so some of the key ideas of corporatism—strong public intervention, criticism of liberalism and homo economicus—can also be found in anti-fascist economists such as Caffè, Sylos Labini, and Fuà, who in this respect were not very different from their teachers close to corporatism (A. Breglia and G. Masci). And if we look honestly at the great experience of Adriano Olivetti's ‘community enterprise’, it is not difficult to see the collaboration between capital and labor and the harmony of interests. Similarities can be found in authors who are very different from each other but who have all drawn on the same ancient tradition.
Italian society, and with it the Church, were greater than corporatism. They reacted, overcame it, and gave life to the Italian civil miracle, the Second Vatican Council, and other encyclicals, which we will begin to look at next Sunday.
