Page 197 - Mediterranea-ricerche storiche, n. 48, aprile 2020flip

To contain and control: work organization and poor government in the... 197

Trying to make a comparison between the two institutions, we can
see that both present a complex hierarchical organizational model
with an administrator appointed by the political power, while the
financing – at least in the initial phases – came mainly from private
individuals (alms and bequests) as well as from the church. While, the
public funding only came in a second moment and usually as a form
of rescue after a financial crisis of the institution. However, it appears
evident that the idea (present in both cases studied) of an institution
that should generate profit to maintain itself supports the thesis that
alongside the idea of regulating non-integrated subjects, there was the
idea of extracting labour from labour power . The coercive form of
67
bureaucracy supported valorisation pressure encouraging subjective
socialization that is part of re-educative task of the two reported cases.
«The shift form handicraft and manufacture to large-scale industry
and automation creates the need for technical-scientific training and
for greater ideational flexibility on the job» .
68
The mixed public/private/church organizational model, which
takes over in a second phase, seems to be the prevalent solution
adopted to deal with the problem of scarce resources for the
functioning and management of poor relief institutions. In both cases
it is interesting to note the clearer definition of the care and healing
functions demonstrated by the presence of the infirmary and
formalized medical personnel. The presence of doctor, pharmacist and
surgeon already denotes the structuring towards more complex and
differentiated forms that will lead to the separation between assistance
and care during the nineteenth century.
We can see the main differences between the two case studies by
going deeper into the accounting aspects. First, the weight of the
wages of the inmate’s weighs, as seen for 2.4% for the Mexico City Poor
House and for 8,4% of the total expenses for the Real Albergo dei Poveri
in Palermo. Secondly, the expenses for ecclesiastical offices amounted
to about 3.5% of the total expenses for the Real Albergo dei Poveri and
less than 1% for the Mexico City Poor House. These data allow us to
hypothesize, on the one hand, a greater weight of the work of the
inmates for the Palermo case than the Poor House of Mexico City,
although the absence of data on sales does not allow us to go beyond
a simple hypothesis. Probably, this datum would also denote a
different market for the products of the Real Albergo dei Poveri of
Palermo – with greater added value since it is silk – compared to the
low-quality wool or cotton fabrics produced by the Mexico City Poor

67 P.S. Adler, The future of critical management studies cit., p. 1325.
68 Ibidem.

Mediterranea - ricerche storiche - Anno XVII - Aprile 2020
ISSN 1824-3010 (stampa) ISSN 1828-230X (online)