ABSTRACT
In the nineteenth century the fiscal state maintained a strong tie between debt reputation, fiscal tolerance and political responsibility. This tie was strengthened through an intergenerational solidarity that implicitly acknowledged the principle of debt sustainability. In modern fiscal states, the problem of government debt is how to redeem it, but the author thinks each regime has its own way to make it. In a democracy, the ruling classes have many more signals of fiscal discontent, but they maintain the same fiscal instruments for pursuing greater stability. Thus they are more prudent and more inclined to use every available means of fiscal illusion. The Italian kingdom rose on debt because its political elite was too weak to extract more funds from taxation in order to cover the high expenses of Risorgimento wars. The fiscal illusion could not bring about a monetary illusion that could discharge public debt through an inflationary tax.
