I NUOVI ASSETTI DELLA RAGIONERIA GENERALE DELLO STATO NELLA RIFORMA DE STEFANI-DE BELLIS QUALE PRESUPPOSTO ECONOMICO-ORGANIZZATIVO DELLO STATO INTERVENTISTA

reform and the progressive consolidation of a season of substantial public intervention in all sectors of Italian economic and social life over the years 20s-70s. This expansive season, with particular reference to the welfare sector, marks in Italy the progressive transition from the liberal State (so-called “night watchman”) to the interventionist State. The basic hypothesis from which the work originates is that the expansion process of the public role in the socio-economic sphere as rapid and intense as that which characterized Italy at the time, even if conveyed by more general historical and political reasons, could hardly have been realized in the absence of a preventive work of unification of the economic and administrative organization of the State and strengthening of the powers of control by central administration on the expenditure processes. In these terms, it is possible to assume that the General Accounting Office of the State, whose transformation in a modern sense begins under the Ministry of Alberto De Stefani and the direction of Vitantonio De Bellis, laid the technical and administrative premises of the interventionist State. The study was conducted according to the diachronic comparison method typical of the History of Accounting, having as its historical reference period the 20s and 30s years. In this framework, the historical and political scope of the De Stefani-De Bellis reform is investigated, with particular reference to the economic significance of the role played by the General Accounting Office of the State, as an institution at the same time preparatory to the managerial season and as guarantee for financial sustainability of the new public investments in the socio-economic sphere. The research underlying the paper makes it possible to verify the formulated hypothesis, identifying the General Accounting Office of the State as the main institution at the basis for an orderly development of the new public interventionism. In particular, it is demonstrated how the 20s and 30s years are characterized by the contemporary presence of two opposing trends which, on the whole, have guaranteed a certain equilibrium to the development process of the Country: on the one hand, a strongly “centrifugal” push, which was resulted in the increase of public assistance bodies for workers and the poorest sectors of the population; on the other, as a response to the multiplication of spending centres (which presented the risk of being confused and risky in terms of financial sustainability), a strongly “centripetal” push in terms of the management and control of public finance processes. Therefore, it can be argued that the reform of the economic and accounting organization of the State (the 1920s) led to the establishment of the fundamental technical infrastructure for the development of the interventionist State throughout the following fifty years (from 30 to 70s). This assumption allows the History of Accounting studies to take a step forward in terms of evaluating the economic and institutional role played by the General Accounting Office of the State and the reform of public accounting in the development process of Italy until the 1970s, it revealing as a key-driver in a much broader context than that which characterized its setting-up.