Accounting for propaganda and indoctrination: Calculative practices in the Ministry of Popular Culture (Fascist Italy, 1937-1943)

Both democratic and totalitarian States have shown considerable interest in art and culture. Nevertheless, the role of accounting in the artistic and cultural domain has mostly been analysed from the perspective of contemporary liberal States. The aim of the paper is to investigate the role played by calculative practices in a totalitarian regime, that of Italian Fascism, when a Ministry for Popular Culture was established to control the production of art and culture in all their forms, both ‘high’ and ‘low’. Archival evidence has allowed documentation of the attempt by the Ministry to control the producers of culture and also intellectuals between 1937 and 1945. The paper presents the first in-depth historical study of the relationship between accounting, art/culture and a totalitarian State. Moreover, it highlights the role of accounting in the service of the State’s plan to control the production of culture as a tool of the Fascist regime propaganda and indoctrination. It also offers an application of Hannah Arendt’s theory of totalitarianism to accounting history.