The Limits of Economic Restructuring
This chapter examines the problems encountered by France, Germany, and Italy as they each embarked on economic restructuring after World War I. A new bourgeois equilibrium seemed attainable in each country during the period; it rested on a consensus that united elites and middle classes against militant working-class claims. Capitalism and bourgeois hierarchies proved more resilient than either defenders or attackers had assumed. Furthermore, the movement of restoration was wider than the three societies. Across the Atlantic, “red scare” and recession were ushering in the era of normalcy. The chapter considers the evolution of leftist objectives in France, Germany, and Italy that accompanied the transition from the turmoil of 1918–1919 to the bourgeois recovery of 1920–1921. It also discusses the strategies of bourgeois defense and the failure of socialization in the German coal industry.