The Political Economy of Shopkeeping in Milan, 1886–1922

This book analyses the business, geography and politics of shopkeeping in Milan between 1886 and 1922.

Jonathan Morris (Author)

9780521391191, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 25 March 1993

332 pages, 44 b/w illus. 21 tables
22.3 x 14.8 x 2.3 cm, 0.492 kg

'… provides a wealth of information not just on shopkeeping , but on local government, socialism and the Italian cooperative movement. Morris's book - exhaustively researched and excellently produced - shows us for the first time, the difficult, tortured and contradictory road towards some sort of shopkeeper unity and self-identity.' John Foot, Association for the Study of Modern Italy

From the mid–1880s a shopkeeper movement developed in Milan, centred around a shopkeeper newspaper, a federation of shopkeeper trade associations, and a shopkeeper bank. In 1904 shopkeeper representatives initiated a sequence of events that led to the fall of the first radical-socialist administration within the city. The author explains these events with reference to the business of shopkeeping itself. He analyses the trades, techniques, tax structure and topography of the Milanese retail sector, and traces the history of the contest between shops and cooperatives and the shopkeeper's changing relationship with his employees and with his clientele. The final chapter confronts the crucial question of why the Milanese shopkeepers were to be found on the political right in the years leading up to the Fascist takeover. This is the first book to deal with any aspect of the Italian petite bourgeoisie.

Introduction: Shopkeeping as a historical problem
1. The business of shopkeeping in Milan 1859–1915
2. The context of shopkeeping: trades and techniques
3. The economic geography of shopkeeping: the role of the dazio consumo
4. The esercenti enter the political arena
5. Constructing the esercenti movement 1886–1890
6. The esercenti and the Depression 1890–1897
7. Shopkeepers, cooperatives and the politics of privilege
8. Milan and the national small business movement 1886–1898
9. The allargamento debate 1895–1897
10. The end of century crisis and the enlargement of the dazio belt
11. Shopkeeping in the new century
12. Labour relations and class politics
13. The esercenti and the centre-left administration 1900–1905
14. Shopkeepers and socialists
Conclusion: Identity and autonomy.

Subject Areas: Economic history [KCZ]