6,222 research outputs found
Brief von Roberto Scazzieri an Josef Steindl
No full textBRIEF VON ROBERTO SCAZZIERI AN JOSEF STEINDL
Brief von Roberto Scazzieri an Josef Steindl ([1]
International Workshop "Plurality in Causality"
No full textWorkshop tenutosi a Bologna il 12 maggio 2006, con la partecipazione di Maria Carla Galavotti (Univ. Bologna), James Lennox (Univ. of Pittsburgh), Francesco D'Alessandro (Univ. Cattolica di Milano), Giovanni federspil (Univ. Padova), Nancy Cartwright (LSE), Damien Fennell (LSE), Prue Kerr (Univ. of Perth) e Roberto Scazzieri (Univ. Bologna)
The Palgrave Handbook of Political Economy (edited by Ivano Cardinale and Roberto Scazzieri)
No full textThe aim of this Handbook is to outline the field of political economy as the domain of the interdependencies between the objectives of individuals and
groups within the polity and the internally structured constraints, posed by the material sphere, to the attainment of those objectives. This Handbook
transcends the received dichotomy between political economy as an application of rational choice theory or as the study of the causes of material welfare,
outlining a broader field of study that encompasses those traditions. The Handbook is divided into three parts. The first part (‘Foundations’)
addresses the areas of social life underlying the provision of material needs through social coordination. The second part (‘Research Themes’) reassesses
the fields of interaction between the economy and the polity on which political economy is built. The third part (‘Ways Ahead’) outlines a theory of
political economy that brings together means-ends action and the material interdependencies underlying the provision of needs.
The Handbook aims to provide new categories of analysis, which are grounded in the traditions of political economy and highlight its standing as
a central component of social science
Liquidity Architectures and Production Arrangements
No full textThis chapter argues that provision of liquidity detached from the liquidity requirements arising at the sectoral and inter-sectoral levels may be responsible for tensions at the macro-level. This contribution outlines a theory of liquidity as coordinating mechanism in a system of interdependent activities arranged along the time dimension and investigates the alternative liquidity requirements that one may identify by decomposing the aggregate economy into a set of vertically integrated sectors or, alternatively, into a set of horizontally integrated industries. Liquidity crises and structural dynamics are shown to be conditions generating strains and stresses in the debt-credit configurations of a credit production economy, which may require ad hoc policy responses. The contribution concludes by discussing alternative liquidity policy scenarios that are associated with different approaches to the decomposition and aggregation of economic activities in the Eurozone
Political Economy of Economic Theory
No full textPolitical Economy involves both the material conditions for the life of the polity and the political conditions for the governance of the economy. This chapter considers economic theory as a means to investigate this dual character of political economy. This is done by distinguishing in economic theory between the exchange-based approach (Hicks’s Catallactics) and the production-based approach (Hicks’s Plutology). It is argued that Catallactics and Plutology highlight alternative economic arrangements for the provision of material needs within the polity and different political conditions for those economic arrangements to be feasible and implemented. The chapter outlines the foundations of a political economy approach to economic theory and charts lines of further research in the field
Resources, scarcities and rents: technological interdependence and the dynamics of socio-economic structures
No full textThe relationship between scarcities and producibility calls attention to the relationship between resources and socio-economic structures, as alternative configurations of interests in society may lead to different patterns of re source utilization and different dynamic trajectories. In this way, the structural analysis of resources leads to the political economy of resources and structural change.
Both the structural and the macroeconomic approaches to scarcities and rents highlight the role of economic and technological history in making visible constraints and opportunities arising from the changing relationship between natural or technological scarcities and the producibility of resources and goods. Different historical contexts also had an important influence in drifting the economists’ attention from scarcity to producibility, or the other way round, and in shaping the economic theory of resources accordingly. The dynamic relationship between scarcity and producibility provides a useful heuristic for assessing the economists’ changing concentration of attention for the allocation of given resources or for the overcoming of re source bottlenecks through the transformation of production structure
L'illuminismo delle riforme civili: divisione del lavoro, commercio, produzione della ricchezza
No full textRIASSUNTO La formazione dell’economia politica e’ strettamente collegata alle tradizioni intellettuali dell’illuminismo. Tuttavia l’illuminismo degli economisti e’ un fenomeno complesso di cui e’ importante non dimenticare la pluralita’ di articolazioni. Non diversamente da quello che accade per l’lluminismo in generale, anche l’illuminismo degli economisti si esprime attraverso analisi e proposte spesso molto lontane fra loro, anche se non e’ difficile individuarne una matrice comune. Ad esempio, l’illuminismo di coloro che, come i Fisiocrati, assumono il punto di vista dei “consiglieri esterni” rispetto all’autorita’ sovrana e’ profondamente diverso dalla prospettiva degli economisti che adottano l’ottica dei “commercianti colti” e sottolineano l’autonomia relativa di divisione del lavoro e mercati rispetto agli stati; cosi’ come e’ diverso dalla prospettiva di quegli economisti che si collocano per cosi’ dire in una posizione intermedia fra mercati e strutture di governo e ne esplorano le interdipendenze sul piano analitico e su quello dell’azione politico-amministrativa.
La riflessione economica degli illuministi lombardi si caratterizza per la capacita’ di visualizzare, all’interno di uno stesso sistema di analisi e di proposte, sia il punto di vista “orizzontale” della divisione del lavoro e degli scambi sia la prospettiva “verticale” degli apparati amministrativi. Si delinea in questo modo uno schema di economia politica e di governo dell’economia che e’ lontano dall’illuminismo radicale di Condorcet, Morellet, Paine, cosi’ come e’ lontano dal punto di vista del laisser faire “dirigista” di Quesnay e della sua scuola, e dal riformismo più aperto a interventi mirati di Genovesi, Galiani e Tanucci. Il duplice inserimento di molti dei suoi esponenti (e in primo luogo di Cesare Beccaria e Pietro Verri) all’interno della classe dirigente milanese ma anche nelle strutture di governo dell’autorita’ centrale rende il loro contributo di particolare efficacia. L’obiettivo principale di questa relazione e’ discutere il contributo degli illuministi lombardi alla definizione di un corpus di economia politica caratterizzato dalla sovrapposizione fra punto di vista della societa’ commerciale e punto di vista degli apparati di governo (sovrapposizione che in questo convegno abbiamo inteso caratterizzare con l’espressione di illuminismo civile). I risultati di questo intreccio sono spesso di grande interesse per quanto riguarda la comprensione dei nessi tra divisione del lavoro e mercati, ordinamemento giuridico e governo dell’economia. Come si è prima osservato, divisione del lavoro e mercati costituiscono ambiti privilegiati di attenzione per economisti che assegnano alle capacità di iniziativa di individui e gruppi un’efficacia autonoma rispetto alle decisioni politiche e alle loro conseguenze sul piano amministrativo. Questo spiega la centralità rispettiva di divisione del lavoro e commerci negli scritti economici di Beccaria e Verri. In particolare, il punto di vista dell’illuminismo civile suggerisce immediatamente la necessità di inserire la divisione del lavoro in un tessuto complesso di organizzazione “gerarchica” delle strutture produttive (Beccaria); lo stesso punto di vista indica l’esigenza di studiare commerci e mercati mettendo in risalto architetture istituzionali e configurazioni amministrative piuttosto che situazioni e criteri di scelta derivati per via inferenziale da principi di razionalità astratta (Verri).
In questa prospettiva, assume un ruolo centrale l’analisi delle azioni di governo intese come interventi “interni” alle stesse strutture della divisione del lavoro e dei mercati, e proprio per questa ragione efficaci a sollecitare e orientare capacità già esistenti all’interno del tessuto sociale. Diritto, amministrazione e politica monetaria configurano un quadro di analisi e di proposte che colloca al centro dell’interesse i processi di formazione della ricchezza e li considera parte integrante della struttura sociale nelle sue articolazioni istituzionali e amministrative. Si delinea in questo modo un insieme di implicazioni reciproche fra economia, politica e società che costituisce l’aspetto più caratteristico dell’illuminismo delle riforme civili.
THE ENLIGHTENMENT OF CIVIL REFORMS: COMMERCE, DIVISION OF LABOUR, AND THE PRODUCTION OF WEALTH
ABSTRACT
The formation of political economy is closely associated with the intellectual traditions of the enlightenment. However, the economists’ enlightenment is a complex process characterized by a plurality of roots and expressions. It encompasses analyses and policy proposals remarkably distant from each other and yet pointing to a common matrix of concepts and beliefs. To take one example, the enlightenment of the Physiocrats, who take the standpoint of ‘external advisors’ to the Sovereign, is different from the enlightenment of those ‘cultivated traders’ who emphasize the relative autonomy of division of labour and markets relative to the state; as it is different from the standpoint of economists who focus on the middle ground between markets and governmental structures and explore that interdependence both at the level of analysis and at that of administrative and political action. The contributions of the Lombard Enlightenment are characterized by the ability to visualize, within a given analytical framework, both the ‘horizontal’ standpoint of division of labour and exchange, and the ‘vertical’ perspective of administrative structures. In this way, the Lombard economic enlightenment brings into being a scheme of economic analysis and economic governance that is distinct from the radical Enlightenment of Condorcet, Morellet and Paine, as it is distinct from the ‘top-down’ laisser faire of Quesnay and Physiocracy in France, and from Genovesi’s, Galiani’s and Tanucci’s more active and context-dependent approach to economic policy in Naples. Many economists of the Lombard Enlightenment, such as Cesare Beccaria and Pietro Verri, were part of the Milanese social elite but were also active in the administrative structures of government. This makes their intellectual and policy activity of special interest. The principal objective of this paper is to discuss the contribution of the Lombard Enlightenment to the definition of a body of economic knowledge in which it is possible to see a clear overlap between the point of view of commercial society and that of governmental structures (an overlap that is characteristic of the intellectual make up of civil enlightenment). This overlap is of distinctive importance for investigation of the relationship between division of labour and markets, legal arrangements, and governance of the economy. Division of labour and markets are central to economists considering the initiatives of individuals and groups independently of political decisions and of their administrative consequences. This explains the central position of trade and division of labour in the writings of Beccaria and Verri. However, the perspective of the civil enlightenment suggests including division of labour within a complex organizational hierarchy of productive activities (Beccaria). The same point of view also calls attention to the need of investigating commerce and markets by focusing on institutional and administrative conditions rather than on choice criteria derived from abstract rationality principles (Verri). The Lombard enlightenment economists emphasize the central position of governmental actions as external interventions with respect to division of labour and markets, and for this reason capable of triggering the activation of possibilities existing within the given social context. Law, administration and monetary policy bring about an analytical and policy framework focusing on the process of wealth formation and considering this process as embedded in the institutional and administrative arrangements of society. In this way, the economists of the Lombard Enlightenment emphasize the mutual relationship between administrative governance, economic improvement , and social structures, and take this relationship to be at the core of that enlightenment of civil reforms to which they contribute
La formazione delle 'Idee Cardine': rivoluzione industriale e Economia Politica. Introduzione
No full text(...) L'economia politica si è cosi fondata sull'opera dei grandi economisti a cui va il merito di aver formulato le idee cardine dovute a vere rivoluzioni di pensiero, spesso visioni alternative della natura e funzionamento dei sistemi economici con radici cosi profonde da non essere intaccate o quasi dal tempo. Ed è da tali id:::e che si deve partire per un corretto studio dell'economia politic
Political Economy: Outlining a Field
No full textPolitical economy has regained a central position among the academic subjects dealing with the polity and the economy. This development is not a
mere reclaiming of intellectual traditions. It is also the expression of increasing awareness that the linkage between the economy and the polity is fundamental
to the understanding of contemporary societies. This paper argues that the mutual relationship between the economy and the polity is rooted
in the collective dimension of the provision and utilization of material resources. This collective dimension presupposes the coordination of human
actions such as those entailed by the division of labour, which in turn requires multi-layered organizational arrangements and governance structures.
The organization of this field depends on the way in which the objectives of different individuals and groups relate to one another, and on the
constraints posed by the material sphere on the attainment of those objectives. Because the organization of the material sphere depends on the weights attached to the objectives of different individuals or groups, the provision and utilization of material resources are inherently political. At the same time, achievement of
objectives requires complex arrangements concerning the material sphere, which poses internally structured constraints that also depend on the specific objectives
being pursued. For example, the division of labour required for pursuing full employment may be different from that required for pursuing maximum growth.
The objectives and constraints relevant to the material needs of the polity belong to multiple levels of analysis (micro, meso and macro) and relate to
multiple levels of agency (say, individuals, productive sectors and states)
Political Economy as Theory of Society
No full textPolitical economy is concerned with the material life of the polity. It historically developed by emphasizing the interdependencies between relevant
economic units in the polity under consideration and/or the relationship between political (systemic) objectives and the means available to achieve
those objectives.The intertwining of the instrumental and positive points of view has remained a feature of economic reasoning ever since. However, the two
points of view entail a different emphasis on different features of the economy. This difference led Lionel Robbins to contrast the ‘materialist’ and
the ‘scarcity’ definition of the subject matter of economics. The split between the ‘materialist’ and the ‘scarcity’ approach relates to the point of
view adopted in addressing that issue. The scarcity approach considers the dispositional activity per se, independently of which specific objectives that
activity should achieve (the ‘de gustibus non est disputandum ’ condition is central to that point of view). The materialist approach identifies a specific
objective (how to achieve a self-sustaining economic system) and highlights the material requirements to fulfil that objective. In short, the scarcity
approach presupposes but does not investigate material (structural) conditions, while the ‘materialist’ approach presupposes but does not investigate
dispositional activity. This paper puts forward a view of political economy that brings together the attention for dispositional activity and for the
structure of material conditions within the polity
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