A rentier class? Milanese nobility and the economy in post-unification Italy

ABSTRACT

The Lombard nobility’s loss of political power after the Napoleonic Wars has led economic historians to overlook the persisting role of traditional elites in social and economic life. The aim of the paper is to reassess the contribution of the Milanese aristocracy to Italian economic development, providing new insights into the business behaviour of the nobility in northern Italian areas. The article presents some new findings on noblemen’s investments and enterprises related to agriculture, manufacturing, trade and banking. The research focuses on the decades following Italian political unification, a period in which noblemen increased their interest in the financial sector and joint-stock companies (transport, banking, new sectors and industries) as a result of the transformations induced by the Industrial Revolution and the agrarian crisis of the 1870s and 1880s. Both quantitative and qualitative data will be used to assess not only the number of individuals involved and the capital they invested in new ventures, but also their role in orienting, stimulating, managing or supporting entrepreneurial activities and their openness to collaboration with the members of the middle class. The analysis combines the deeds produced by four notaries, chosen on the basis of their contiguity to the Milanese aristocracy, the foundation’s deeds of the main companies established in the city, conserved in the House of Trade, and the information provided by other local and national institutions. The cross-referencing of this data suggests that the Milanese nobility maintained a prominent economic role well beyond Italian political unification, contributing to the modernization of the national economy despite the weaknesses and contradictions that marked this process.     

The intellectual origins of Leninism, 1977

This essay is a general introduction to the special number on recent research on Atlantic history. While the topics here presented are diverse, most focusing on the first French Empire, particularly in North America during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the authors share several common themes: (1) In Africa and the Americas, they seek to view the question of the Empire as a series of contested, temporary, and uncertain alliances and collaborations, in which negotiation rather than submission was most often the basis of power relations; (2) In the realm of political economy in theory and practice, the authors refuse pre-established notions of an Atlantic “community” of commodities and merchants functioning within an Atlantic “system.” Instead, they focus on closed networks of merchants functioning within the dynamics of merchant capitalism. (3) The authors seek alternatives to traditional approaches focusing on the nation-state and its institutions. Instead, they examine communities and regions in the Atlantic that include social elites, such as, merchants, the nobility, the gentry, and intellectuals, as well as neglected native peoples and forgotten spaces such as Africa.     

后金融危机视角下对资本主义、马克思主义与社会主义的反思

席卷全球的金融危机既对资本主义社会造成很大破坏,影响十分恶劣,却也彰显出马克思主义的价值和魅力,更让社会主义透现出光明的发展前景。但这并不等于资本主义行将灭亡、社会主义取得胜利的时机已经来临。金融危机给人们提出了一系列需要更加深入反思和认识的有关资本主义与社会主义的理论与实践问题,需要确立理性看待资本主义的态度,坚定马克思主义、社会主义的信念与信心。     

Recent works on Italian capitalism: A review essay

Abstract

Italy's capitalism has traditionally differed from that of its major trading partners: state‐owned enterprises have played a larger role, securities markets have been relatively less developed, while corporate power in the private sector has been concentrated to an unusual extent in the hands of a few family‐controlled business groups. Since the 1970s, Italian big business has seemed unable to steer a new course in an increasingly global economy. When belatedly and under tight budget constraints Italy finally started privatizations in 1992, many hoped that this would bring about a long‐delayed modernization of financial markets, an increase in competitive market pressues, and some ‘democratization’ of corporate power. This article reviews a book edited by Fabrizio Barca which puts these recent experiences into a much‐needed longer historical perspective, and other books offering non‐scholarly views on the present state of Italian capitalism.

Fabrizio Barca (ed.) (1997) Storia del capitalismo italiano (Rome: Donzelli), pp. 1‐634, 60,000 lire, ISBN 88‐7989‐252‐5 hardback.

Filippo Cavazzuti (1996) Privatizzazioni, imprenditori e mercati (Bologna: Il Mulino), pp. 1‐83, 10,000 lire, ISBN 88‐15‐05562‐2 paperback.

Alfredo Macchiati (1996) Privatizzazioni tra economia e politica (Rome: Donzelli), pp. 1‐160, 18,000 lire, ISBN 88‐7989‐254‐1 paperback.

Giuseppe Turani (1996) Isogni del grande nord (Bologna: II Mulino), pp. 1‐138, 15,000 lire, ISBN 88‐15‐05721‐8 paperback.     

‘The Next Wave of Italians Has Come to America’: Italian Investments and Business in the United States, 1980-2013

Abstract

This article examines the economic and socio-cultural impact of Italian investments and business in the United Stated from the 1980s onwards. It investigates flows, networks and ideas that have cut national boundaries and politically-defined spaces. The article argues that the last three decades of Italian investments and business in the USA have re-defined the symbolic space held by Italy and Italians in the American imagination. It also argues that the distinctive Italian contribution to the American business environment lies in the so-called ‘fourth capitalism’ and in the family business aspects of Italian Capitalism.     

A Loving Attack on Caputo’s ‘Caputolism’ and his Refusal of Communism

Abstract

For various reasons, John D. Caputo is one of my favorite philosophers. However, one may identify two basic weaknesses or contradictions when it comes to his thoughts on political economy: (1) Caputo insists on capitalism—even if it be a significantly transformed capitalism (what I will be calling here “Caputolism”)—but he does not question whether capitalism can accommodate the required reforms; and (2) Caputo’s refusal to entertain the possibility of communism as a good/better alternative to capitalism, even though he has referred to an earthly “Kingdom of God” composed of a “radical community of equals”—which (strongly) resembles communism, thus rendering his refusal of communism all the more perplexing.     

《增校清朝进士题名碑录·附引得》进士籍贯刊误述论

文章以列表的方式,论述了《增校清朝进士题名碑录.附引得》中存在的6种进士籍贯刊误现象,即:省际进士籍贯刊载互误、省内进士县际籍贯互误、进士籍贯标注字误、以俗名标注进士籍贯、以府名标注进士籍贯及以府、县二级标注进士籍贯。文章并较细致地探讨了该书出现这些刊误的原因。     

明代中国历史趋势:帝制农商社会

Majority of contemporary Chinese historians have been employing a conceptual framework focusing on the difficulty of capitalistic development in China to analyze the historical trend and potentials of late imperial China. This approach based upon the presupposition of viewing the pattern of Chinese history as abnormal reflects with the remaining influence of the Western-centric methodology. Further, based upon a “normal” point of view, seven fundamental, irreversible, and systematical changes to the Ming society could be identified. By conclusion, China in the Ming period was transforming into an imperial agric-mercantile society. This process proves that late imperial China was not stagnate society without “history,” meanwhile, its pattern of development was clearly not identical to the Western style modernization progress. __________ Translated by Chen Cheng from Dongbei Shida Xuebao 东北师大学报(Journal of Northeast Normal University), 2007, (1): 5–13