The biggest obstacles for the growth of capitalism was poor land in reference to coal, iron and oil production and most importantly- remaining elements of feudalism from the past. These factors and also low industrialization (which mainly occurred in the north) is why at the end of the 19th century, Italy stayed mainly as an agricultural country.
The situation in the countryside at that time could be described as feudalistic pre-capitalism. South Italy and a bit of central Italy was dominated by a feudalistic use of land. Great land owners would rent their properties to individual farmers. Half of these farmers were actually proletarian (merely working class citizens), the other half resembled modern- day peasants. These peasants would only receive a small house, a small vegetable field and in good cases a small salary. Often they would have to give away half or even all of their harvest to the landowner. The harvest was much worse than in France or Germany for example. Until WWI, Italy harvested only one third than it actually needed. This is what caused the major immigration to France, Tunisia, Brazil, Argentina and the U.S. There was no hope in industry growth to boost up the economy, for it as well was at a terribly low level due to poverty. While other countries were counting their iron and metal gather production in millions of tonnes, Italy was counting theirs in thousands of tonnes- Italy was barely climbing into the ranks of the Great Powers.
In 1861, the united country of Italy was formed as a constitutional monarchy where the king was declared holy and was in complete charge. He had the right to appoint ministers or any other position to anyone he wished. He also had absolute right to the army. Constitutional and law forming rights belonged to two main sectors: the senate and the ambassadors. The senate consisted of princes and people appointed by the king from higher clerks, bishops and the richest of land owners and citizens. The ambassadors were mainly chosen by reputation of voting. The right to vote (only for men) started at the age of 25 and was only possible if that man paid 40 lyres of tax per year or a certain amount of rent. Out of 27 million people, only about 600 000 people had the right to vote at the end of the 19th century.
France was defeated in a war with Germany and thus became week, so in 1870, Italy got a hold of Rome. Pope Pius IX was removed as the leader and Rome was made the capital of Italy. In attempt to fix relationships with the Pope, a law was declared that the Pope would still continue to have complete sovereignty, but only in Vatican and would continue to lead the Catholic Church. He was also allowed to accept diplomatic visitors and to appoint representative diplomats abroad.
The Pope on the other hand was very active in going against this overthrowing. He put Italy under church oath, refused any kind of diplomatic contact and communication and declared himself as “prisoner of Vatican”. He found much support from catholic countries of the world, mostly from French monarchs.
Italy was mainly ruled by the right winged, though the left winged weren’t much different. The left winged stood highly towards democracy, but when they finally got into power, they immediately changed their views to monarchical. The left winged ministry removed obligatory study of religion in schools and also removed all church land for which they received about 500 million lyres. They also changed voting rights- now any person with literate skills could vote, also the age limit was now 21, instead of 25. Still there were only 2 million voters out of 27 million. In 1870-1880 the left winged started building the railway network across Italy. This was a heavy pressure for the working class and the railways networks were gradually given away to private companies.
The limitations in domestic marketing led Italy to look for marketing abroad, mainly in the Mediterranean African coast, such as Tunisia. In 1881, Italy fought France for it and failed. Tenser relationship with France, brought Italy closer to Austria-Hungary and Germany. Thus Italy, under King Umberto I, joined the military Triple Alliance with them. Immediately, Italy took advantage of this situation and increased its naval and military size. The navy occupied Messau port on the coast of the Red Sea. Further plans and attempts to occupy Abessinia failed and ended with Italy having to pay 10 million lyres to Abessinia for contribution. These pointless military attempts and economic contributions to the military and navy raised poverty and starvation in Italy and caused many revokes and dissatisfaction in the people.
The 1880’s basically ended with the agricultural working class being dissatisfied. It led to burnings of manors, ravaging of food supply storages and even killing of landlords.
The anger of illiterate farmers and working class people was used by the clergy to go against the so called “anti- religious” country, politics and parliament. The Prime minister at that time, Francesco Crispi was known for his aggressiveness to what he thought was right. In 1887 he declared a law which punished by jail, anyone who would speak against the government. But Crispi didn’t only act against the clergy. Actually, his more stronger, aggressive and brutal focus was on the dissatisfied, raging masses of working- class people, farmers and socialists. He completely succeded to suppress the violent movements of the farmers and working- class people.
But the situation in Sicily was still terribly poor due to the treatment given to private farmers by government officials. These officials would simply ravage the farmers’ homes and steal their money. This caused a major violent revolt against the government officials especially. This spread throughout Sicily and mainly consisted of armed farmers driving officials out and burning tax- logs. Crispi’s reaction was violent. He sent a whole army which burned down villages , killed anyone with a gun and ruined crops to starve the farmers. The Sicilian upbringing was stopped in blood.
In 1898 another upbringing came to event. This time by anarchists going against Crispi’s violent behaviour of power. This strengthened anarchist movements and organisations and in 1900 King Umberto I was murdered. The new king was to be the popular Vittorio Emanuele III. It would be only in Vittorio’s time, that Italy would see some kind of progress. This was because after Umberto’s focus on military elements of the country, Vittorio was more focused on the people. He made many democratic changes and also improved the conditions of the working- class and farmers. 1912 marks the great day when the right to vote was given to everybody.