The Istituto per la Ricostruzione Industriale (IRI), a state-controlled holding company, was founded in 1933. Its original mission was to prevent the collapse of Italy's largest universal banks by taking over their huge industrial shareholdings. As a consequence, the historiography traditionally associates it with the concept of ‘entrepreneurial state’. This article aims to challenge this interpretation by focusing on the ideas and actions of three prominent figures: Alberto Beneduce, the IRI's first chairman; Donato Menichella, Beneduce's right-hand man who became governor of the Bank of Italy after World War II; and Pasquale Saraceno, a technocrat who spent his entire career as one of the IRI's top managers. Beneduce and Menichella regarded the IRI as a financial intermediary open to private shareholders. To Saraceno, by contrast, the IRI was an expression of a Catholic ideology that entrusted to the state the mission of promoting the industrialization of the south. This view, which aimed at reducing regional inequalities in order to complete the country's political unification, prevailed only in the second half of the 1950s. By trying to blend profit maximization with political and social goals, this strategy sowed the seeds of the IRI's decline and eventual demise.

中文翻译：

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IRI：金融中介还是创业国家？

这Istituto per la Ricostruzione Industriale(IRI) 是一家国有控股公司，成立于 1933 年。其最初的使命是通过接管意大利最大的全能银行的巨额工业股权来防止其倒闭。因此，史学传统上将其与“企业家国家”的概念联系起来。本文旨在通过关注三位杰出人物的思想和行动来挑战这种解释：IRI 第一任主席 Alberto Beneduce；多纳托·梅尼切拉，本内杜斯的得力助手，二战后成为意大利银行行长；还有 Pasquale Saraceno，他是一名技术官僚，他的整个职业生涯都是 IRI 的高级经理之一。Beneduce 和 Menichella 将 IRI 视为对私人股东开放的金融中介。相比之下，对萨拉切诺来说，IRI 是一种天主教意识形态的表达，它赋予国家促进南方工业化的使命。这种旨在减少地区不平等以完成国家政治统一的观点仅在 1950 年代后半期盛行。通过试图将利润最大化与政治和社会目标相结合，这一战略播下了 IRI 衰落和最终消亡的种子。