“Robbery Made the Kingdom of Italy, Misery Will Unmake It”
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Maria Stella Chiaruttini
Maria Stella Chiaruttini is a University Assistant (Post-doc) at the Department of Economic and Social History of the University of Vienna. She obtained her PhD in History and Civilisation at the European University Institute in Florence in 2019. She has worked as a research and teaching assistant at the University of Zurich (Department of Economics) and Göttingen (Institute for Economic and Social History) and has lectured at the Universities of Turin and Lüneburg. In 2019 she was a visiting fellow at the University of Naples Federico II and was awarded the ASMI Postgraduate Essay Prize. In recent years she has presented at numerous international conferences and has published several contributions on economic integration and financial history.
Abstract
This contribution analyses the nineteenth-century debate on one of the most hotly debated topics of Italian history: public debt and taxation. Starting in the 1850s, fiscal policies were weaponised by liberal nationalist elites and their opponents alike to promote their contrary worldviews by arguing over the merits of national unification and a parliamentary system on the basis of their fiscal outcomes. First Piedmont, then unified Italy, were eagerly expected by Catholics and Bourbon legitimists to default on their debts as a result of their moral and fiscal profligacy, while liberals were concerned about popular support for the national cause in a context of rising taxes. Southern Italy in particular was very vocal in denouncing its perceived fiscal mistreatment by the Italian government, an accusation the North rejected by portraying Southerners as unpatriotic tax evaders. Today, these narratives are re-emerging not only in public debates questioning the Risorgimento as the nation’s founding myth but also in the discourse about European integration.
About the author
Maria Stella Chiaruttini
is a University Assistant (Post-doc) at the Department of Economic and Social History of the University of Vienna. She obtained her PhD in History and Civilisation at the European University Institute in Florence in 2019. She has worked as a research and teaching assistant at the University of Zurich (Department of Economics) and Göttingen (Institute for Economic and Social History) and has lectured at the Universities of Turin and Lüneburg. In 2019 she was a visiting fellow at the University of Naples Federico II and was awarded the ASMI Postgraduate Essay Prize. In recent years she has presented at numerous international conferences and has published several contributions on economic integration and financial history.
© 2021 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Abhandlungen
- Einleitung: Staatsfinanzen und Konflikt
- Eine moralische Ökonomie der Steuern?
- Kommunaler und kollektiver Widerstand gegen fiskalische Abschöpfung in der alten Eidgenossenschaft (Schweiz vor 1800)
- “Robbery Made the Kingdom of Italy, Misery Will Unmake It”
- Notstand und Sachverstand
- Economic Cultures and Debates on Taxation in Italy after World War II: 1943–1948
- Steuerzahlverhalten quantifizieren
- Die Entwicklung des „Steuerstaates“: Ursprung, Aufstieg und Ende eines finanzwirtschaftlichen Fortschrittsparadigmas
- Forschungs- und Literaturbericht
- Wann ist ein Unternehmen profitabel?
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Abhandlungen
- Einleitung: Staatsfinanzen und Konflikt
- Eine moralische Ökonomie der Steuern?
- Kommunaler und kollektiver Widerstand gegen fiskalische Abschöpfung in der alten Eidgenossenschaft (Schweiz vor 1800)
- “Robbery Made the Kingdom of Italy, Misery Will Unmake It”
- Notstand und Sachverstand
- Economic Cultures and Debates on Taxation in Italy after World War II: 1943–1948
- Steuerzahlverhalten quantifizieren
- Die Entwicklung des „Steuerstaates“: Ursprung, Aufstieg und Ende eines finanzwirtschaftlichen Fortschrittsparadigmas
- Forschungs- und Literaturbericht
- Wann ist ein Unternehmen profitabel?
