Rischio e incertezza in una dimensione storica. Le dinamiche dell’economia di fronte agli scenari della nuova pandemia[Risk and uncertainty in a historical dimension. The dynamics of the economy facing the scenarios of the new pandemic]

The current Covid-19 pandemic is rapidly calling into question the functioning models of both the economy and society at large that until recently were taken for granted. This challenge is urging scholars and research centres to ponder the perspectives of the globalization process which started at the end of the XXth Century. Such considerations are spurred by the scope of the impact that Coronavirus is having on the economy, which goes beyond the temporary interruption of commercial exchanges and the disruption to the mobility of people. The pandemic is creating a sense of insecurity which has few precedents in the current age, pervading wider and wider sectors of the population, whose future now appears confused. According to several authors, this crisis is momentous in scope and may have an effect comparable to, if not greater than, that of the 2008 and 1929 economic crises. This essay aims to set the current emergency phase within a historical perspective by analysing the concepts of risk and uncertainty as characterizing features of the economic processes, because of their connection to several endogenous and exogenous factors, to the production structure, and to the actions of the forces operating within society. The historical dimension of this phenomenon does not concern so much the permanence of these two concepts in different epochs, but rather the way they present themselves, their incidence on economy and development processes, their interpretation by scholars and operators, as well as the consequences they have on the organization of society and the life of individuals.