ABSTRACT
Fundamental changes in the legitimatization system are involved as well as new values, new social standards and new patterns of behaviour. Property-owners supported the regime and, indeed, helped it to power, but the regime tried to provide itself with a more popular basis by increasing the number of small land-owners, winning over the peasants’ goodwill, and sequestrating a portion of the huge estates. The relationships existing between the larger and small land-owners were transformed, and incomes from agricultural holdings no longer formed a large source of capital investment in the rest of the Italian economy. The Italian bureaucracy is French in inspiration, but its technical structure partly follows the Belgian model, which was of partly Dutch origin, having been inherited by Belgium after the war of Belgian independence. The situation has been made even worse by high distribution costs, due to the profits of middle-men as wholesalers, customs officials, government inspectors, or local supervisory bodies.
