Total war and social reform: Administrating work, population and life in the "Rava Committee" plan (1918)

Abstract

The article focuses on the most important Commission for the reform of the Italian welfare state during the twentieth century: the “Rava Commission”. It conducts a first time prosopographical study of its members aiming to analyse the ideas and proposals of the social reform as well as the agents. At the beginning, the article brings to light the educational background of the components of the Commission, highlighting the central role of statistic knowledge. Then it explores the professional composition which excludes the subaltern classes and – at the end – the political culture of the commissioners. Finally, the prosopography shows the features of a reformer area which crosses traditional political organizations. It is a sort of irregular cloud unified by the aim to address social question with reforms and therefore prevents the fracture of society.