The Italian white-goods industry and the European Common Market during the years of the ‘economic miracle’ (1958–63): quantitative evidence and interpretative hypotheses

The white-goods industry is one of the key fields of Italian economic development following the Second World War, and it represents the most resounding example of how, in just a few years, Italian entrepreneurs managed to reach the top of a market already occupied by the largest foreign multinationals. This article offers a quantitative view of the role played by foreign markets during the ‘economic miracle’, which is generally taken to be the first five years of the European Common Market (1958–63). There is a lack of an aggregate study of this subject for the Italian white-goods industry. As well as supplying some starting points for new research into the rapid international success of Italian producers, this study has allowed two inter-connected objectives to be reached. Firstly, it has highlighted how intense the inter-dependence of foreign markets was when the Common Market was set up, and therefore before the date claimed by the literature: the first important process of the rationalisation of the sector and the consequent formation of a national oligopoly was the result of the battle with competitors in foreign markets. Secondly, it seems to confirm how the process of European integration was not a substitutive factor, but the accelerant for a process of development that had already started.     

古希腊人的自由观念

古希腊人在对自由的不懈追求中 ,也使这种自由观念随着当时社会历史条件的变化而呈现出曲折的变化 :从最初的不敢相信自身的力量 ,用幻想出来的神祗代替人实现意识上的自由 ,到强调社会生活当中的集体自由权利以及对这种自由身份的誓死捍卫 ,再到充分相信人的主观能动性而依据自身认知对世界做出判定 ,最后由于对社会和自身力量失去信心而将世界内在化、完全退入到个人的内心世界当中。这一过程反映了古希腊人在人与自然、人与社会、人与自我关系问题上的态度变化 ,体现了古希腊人的心路历程 ,是开启解读希腊文化之门的一把钥匙     

市场经济在当代中国起动之历史透视

尽管有在计划经济体制下20年的经济增长,70年代后期中国依然是一个低收入国家。1978年中国经济体制改革的逻辑起点。实质是用高投入的方式保持经济增长已走到尽头。要继续使经济高速增长就必须提高生产率的增长率,这在逻辑上必然导向市场取向的改革。在双轨体制下市场体制的高效率昭彰在人耳目,为市场体制的改革创造了条件。邓小平的南方谈话极大地推动了中国理论观念的革新及其有关政策的确立。     

European plans for the smart city: from theories and rules to logistics test case

City evolution is connected to social, economic and technological evolutions. New technologies induce further changes, which are highly innovative, which again affect the urban and territorial systems. The city once again adjusts to new opportunities in relation to information and communications technologies, energy and mobility. In this paper, smart city, configured as a set of interacting systems with people, is focused as a possible model to follow for pursuing sustainability in real cities of the twenty-first century. Three processes are recalled: city development, city planning theories and city rules. Smart city seems to be the convergent point for all processes evolving in European urban areas. Theoretical definitions of smart city are recalled. At the same time, the European Commission is promoting smart city rules for implementation. Moreover, in the last years some local decision-makers implemented specific measures that today can be considered in the class of smart city measures. The objective of the paper is to analyse the European perspectives for smart city, trying to separate the three processes that are strongly integrated, but without formal links. To verify the European smart city approach, a study case concerning city logistics is considered.     

From laissez-faire to supranational planning: the economic debate within Federal Union (1938–1945)

This article focuses on the early years of Federal Union (FU), the leading British federalist association created in 1938. It sets out to demonstrate that FU members heavily disagreed about the economic powers of the future Federation and that these divisions weakened the appeal of the federalist cause. Archival evidence suggests the organisation shifted from economic neutrality, favoured by allegiance to nineteenth-century liberalism, which emphasized the benefits of free trade while keeping a minimum of centralized force in order to prevent interstate rivalries from boiling over into war, to a radical advocacy of supranational planning, aimed at enforcing social rights and welfare entitlements granted to all the citizens of the member-states. This swing to the Left had several implications, including abandoning the prospect of an Anglo-American union, developing a more sympathetic attitude towards the Soviet system, and breaking ties with influential members of the British establishment who had initially lent support to FU, such as Lionel Curtis and William Beveridge. By pointing at the tension between the models of ‘Federation Pure and Simple’ and ‘Federation Plus’, this article also highlights the supple and muddled nature of federalism as an ideology.     

Towards a Language of ‘Europe’: History,Rhetoric, Community

From Herder to Benedict Anderson, language and nation have been at the centre of ideas about (imagined) community. This hypothesis, however, poses a problem for analysing ideas about Europe. How can we understand “Europe” as a concept or form of identity when language and nationality are considered the foundation of imagined communities and loyalties? This article addresses this difficulty. It uses J. G. A. Pocock’s definition of “sub-languages” to suggest that one can investigate the rhetorical strategies, images and vocabularies with which texts articulate ideas about Europe. These sub-languages evoke imagined communities, most obviously when texts name and identify particular groups of people as “Europeans.” But by using images and rhetorics about Europe, these texts also appeal to a readership that comprehends—even if it does not fully accept—certain assumptions about the continent. In this way, texts evoke an imagined community of readers who purportedly share a similar way of understanding Europe, or who can perhaps be persuaded to think about it in similar terms. These processes are historically particular, and so the article concludes with concrete examples. It focuses on how early-nineteenth-century philhellenes evoked a European imagined community to solicit support for the Greek Revolution (1821–32).     

中国文化核心价值观“人”的观念的近代转型

"人"的观念的现代转型是全世界思想家数百年的研究主题,也是中国社会现代转型不可回避的问题。中国古代文化从人性善,即人与至善本体(仁、天理之类)同体共在出发,在抽象的意义上把人提到万物之灵的高度,但倡言去除人的天然欲望和政治权利,造成对人的千年桎梏。由西方发源的现代人论则把物欲满足、政治权利、思想自由视为人的根本自由。在中国近代,戊戌维新和辛亥革命领导人始公开承认人的私利的合理性,倡导人的解放。但他们未能把人的解放置于理性范围,最终放弃了初衷。新文化运动激进人士在更广泛的层面提倡人的解放,也讨论了人的私欲与社会亲和的关系问题,但因时间太短和过分强调精神解放,思想的局限性仍十分明显。五四以后,大多数启蒙者转入政治革命道路,国民党大倡文化回归,少数思想家继续人的解放的讨论,但对问题的思想源头缺乏探讨,研究未能深入下去。中国近代以来"人"的观念的转型探索任务远未完成。