The fame of the Italian economist Maffeo Pantaleoni (1857-1924) is due in large part to the fact he was one of the greatest scholars of «marginalism» and the first to apply it to the problems of public finance in Italy in the last decades of the Nineteenth Century. Moreover, Pantaleoni with other Italian scholars such as Antonio de Viti de Marco and Ugo Mazzola can be considered the founding father of the modern public choice theory. At the beginning of the twentieth century, however, Pantaleoni focused his attention on the issue of the competitive society, which is the subject of this paper. Pantaleoni, a supporter of the Ricardian theory of comparative advantage at the end of the nineteenth century, was persuaded to side with the Socialists in criticizing the protectionist policy on corn adopted by the Italian government, a policy that clearly represented an attack on the competitive society. For the same reasons, before and even more after the First World War, Pantaleoni railed against the Socialist world. In fact, in his opinion, Socialism, by imposing political prices, denied the autonomy of the economic sphere from the political, thus preventing, once again, competition. This was the case of the cooperative societies, supported by the Socialist Party. In the light of this position, it is plausible to claim a notable degree of coherence in the evolution of Pantaleoni’s political attitudes; evolving from pro-socialist at the end of the nineteenth century to pro-nationalist and convinced Fascist in subsequent years, a coherence not recognized by many of his scholars.

Tedesco, L. (2018). In Defense of a Competitive Society: Tariffs and Cooperatives in Maffeo Pantaleoni’s Anti-socialist Thought. NUOVA RIVISTA STORICA, CII(III).

In Defense of a Competitive Society: Tariffs and Cooperatives in Maffeo Pantaleoni’s Anti-socialist Thought

Luca Tedesco
2018-01-01

Abstract

The fame of the Italian economist Maffeo Pantaleoni (1857-1924) is due in large part to the fact he was one of the greatest scholars of «marginalism» and the first to apply it to the problems of public finance in Italy in the last decades of the Nineteenth Century. Moreover, Pantaleoni with other Italian scholars such as Antonio de Viti de Marco and Ugo Mazzola can be considered the founding father of the modern public choice theory. At the beginning of the twentieth century, however, Pantaleoni focused his attention on the issue of the competitive society, which is the subject of this paper. Pantaleoni, a supporter of the Ricardian theory of comparative advantage at the end of the nineteenth century, was persuaded to side with the Socialists in criticizing the protectionist policy on corn adopted by the Italian government, a policy that clearly represented an attack on the competitive society. For the same reasons, before and even more after the First World War, Pantaleoni railed against the Socialist world. In fact, in his opinion, Socialism, by imposing political prices, denied the autonomy of the economic sphere from the political, thus preventing, once again, competition. This was the case of the cooperative societies, supported by the Socialist Party. In the light of this position, it is plausible to claim a notable degree of coherence in the evolution of Pantaleoni’s political attitudes; evolving from pro-socialist at the end of the nineteenth century to pro-nationalist and convinced Fascist in subsequent years, a coherence not recognized by many of his scholars.
2018
Tedesco, L. (2018). In Defense of a Competitive Society: Tariffs and Cooperatives in Maffeo Pantaleoni’s Anti-socialist Thought. NUOVA RIVISTA STORICA, CII(III).
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11590/344384
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