Abstract

This article returns to the classic problems of the industrialists’ and the middle classes’ growing distrust for liberal governments, and eventual support for Fascism, by placing them both in the context of the European post-war crisis and emphasizing their resistance towards labour unrest and progressive social and fiscal reforms. Focusing on different organised representations of economic interests, the article analyses the political struggles concerning industrial production and distribution/redistribution (notably, taxes). It concludes that the former was the field in which industrialists developed their ambition of exercising full control over the government, while the latter provided the ground for a convergence of the higher and middle classes against liberalism and labour.