Against the dictatorship of rationality. Austerity and consumption in Italy during the seventies

Abstract

ABSTRACT Consumption is always subjected to discursive strategies, and hierarchised to influence the behaviour of citizens: productive and unproductive consumption (J. S. Mill), efficient and inefficient consumption (A. Marshall); these classifications may be designed for moral, economic, and political purposes, in order to set specific boundaries to people’s behaviour in the private sphere, which in turn heavily influence public action, too. During the Seventies, while Italy was marked by an energy crisis and political unrest, the political ruling classes formulated a particular rhetoric of sacrifices and austerity: a common effort of the nation was necessary to solve the economic crisis. The rhetoric of rationality was a political tool promoted by economic elites and various political groups, which were motivated by different reasons. Women were an important part of this discourse, since they were depicted both as big spenders and as the nation’s savers. Another famous opposition to this rhetoric was promoted by left-wing movements, a heterogeneous universe: in some cases, irrationality was promoted as a revolutionary behaviour. This article, after a brief introduction to the Italian context and to the outbreak of the oil crisis, focuses on how the concept of rationality was used to justify specific moralities and behaviours or to delegitimise certain social and political subjects.