Economia Civile

The present booklet puts together a few short contributions on the recent work by Stefano Zamagni and Luigino Bruni on the notion of civil economy. Among recent works by historians (perhaps the best known is Robert Putnam’s work on the Italian civic tradition), economists and social scientists, the book here discussed deserves a special place for delving into the history of economic thought as a method of finding new ways and establishing new paradigms in economic theorizing. After an introductory exposé by the editor, the booklet hosts a comment by Gloria Vivenza (University of Verona) which traces some the Classical roots of the notion of civil economy. Thomas Hobbes notoriously changed the phrase homo homini deus, which is sometimes quoted from Caecilius Statius, into homo homini lupus. The latter also, indeed, comes from Roman playwriters and is commonly attributed to Plautus. Today we have to go back to Statius’s sentence if we aim at an understanding of reciprocity, which is the core concept of this book. Gloria Vivenza, as a scholar on the Greek and Roman background of Political Economy, is an excellent guide in the field. The subsequent comment by Roberto Scazzieri (University of Bologna, now visiting at the University of Cambridge) puts the notion of civil economy in context with some of main strands of economic thought in the 18th century. In particular Scazzieri’s contribution highlights similarities and differences between the Italian civic tradition and the Scottish paradigm. Finally a young scholar from the Bocconi University, Francesco Boldizzoni, adds his remarks on the formative stages of the civic humanist paradigm in Italy and on the proliferation of the paradigm in Europe and, more particularly, in Britain. This booklet is closed by ‘conclusions’ by the authors of the book. The comments given here were first presented at the 8th annual Conference of ESHET, the European Society of the History of Economic Thought, held in Treviso 27-29 February 2004. A special session of the Treviso Conference was organized by the editor the present booklet on the concept of Economia civile. Thanks are due to the authors of the various comments for readily making their texts available for reproduction in this booklet. An obligation must be recorded also to dr. Elisa Portale, who has been helpful in the editing of this booklet.