Paolo Sylos Labini
| Paolo Sylos Labini | |
|---|---|
| Born | October 30, 1920 Rome, Italy |
| 💀Died | December 7, 2005 (aged 85) RomeDecember 7, 2005 (aged 85) |
| 🏳️ Nationality | Italian |
| 💼 Occupation | |
Paolo Sylos Labini (Roma, 30 October 1920 - Roma, 12 July 2005) was an Italian economist and a key figure in the economic debate since the post-II World War period in Italy. He was a professor at Sapienza University of Rome, and an active member of Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei.
Paolo Sylos Labini married Maria Rosaria Azzone in 1955, and had two children Stefano (1960) and Francesco (1965).
Early life and education[edit]
After the secondary school, Paolo Sylos Labini would have liked to enrol in the Faculty of Engineering, but due to the limited financial means that forced him to work while studying, he enrolled in the Faculty of Law at University of Rome “La Sapienza”. Mainly interested in scientific subjects, he became passionate about economics, the only non-legal subject in its study program. He graduated with a thesis on "The economic effects of inventions on industrial organization" and in searching for references for his thesis he became aware of the limited interest of contemporary economists for innovations, and from then on felt the need to turn to the study of Classical economists, in particular Adam Smith, David Ricardo and Karl Marx. In these early years, his guide was Alberto Breglia (1900-1955), who had been teaching Political economy at University “La Sapienza” since 1942.
After graduating in Law in July 1942 with full marks (110) cum laude, he was appointed voluntary assistant and then assistant professor of Political economy at the Faculty of Economics of the University "La Sapienza”. The relationship with Alberto Breglia left to Sylos Labini the conception of economy to understand history, an economy therefore to be inserted in a wide cultural context. It was Alberto Breglia who encouraged Sylos to travel to the United States to complete his studies. Thus, Paolo Sylos Labini was among the first young people after World War II who went to study abroad, both to deepen his economic knowledge in general and to better understand the peculiarities of the Italian economic situation.
Contributions to economic theory[edit]
After coming back to Italy, Paolo Sylos Labini qualified as lecturer in Political economy, in 1953. He then devoted himself to university teaching in various venues. In 1954 he held a course entitled “Market forms”, at the Faculty of Economics of University of Rome "La Sapienza". The following year he became assistant professor of Political economy at the Faculty of Economics of the University of Sassari, then, from February 1958 he was appointed professor of Economic and financial policy at the Faculty of Law and, in the following year, of Political economy at the Faculty of Economics of the University of Catania. He then moved to the University of Bologna, and finally went back to University of Rome “La Sapienza” in October 1962. Here he taught Principles of political economy at the Faculty of Statistical, Demographic and Actuarial Sciences until his retirement in 1995, when he left tenured teaching (only to be appointed emeritus professor in 1997).
In the rich and stimulating environment of the Roman faculty of those decades, Sylos Labini trained several students and became their teacher in the most pregnant sense of the term. He then continued his research activity always in parallel with his civil commitment, which saw him personally involved until his death.
The econometric model of the Italian economy (MOSYL)[edit]
Between 1966 and 1967, Paolo Sylos Labini worked on developing an econometric model of the Italian economy. From the postwar period many hopes were placed in econometrics. Sylos Labini's model is the first systematic econometric research on the Italian economy. The model aimed to reconcile theoretical analysis with historical changes and has been gradually modified with the introduction of new variables. The econometric studies intertwined with the analysis of major Italian problems of economic policy, and between 1965 and 1975, Sylos Labini published a series of works on wages, productivity and inflation, taking into consideration the results of his econometric analysis.
Economics and Politics[edit]
According to Sylos Labini an economist is necessarily influenced by his or her own personal judgement, which determines, at a minimum, the choice of problems studied and which may also skew the outcome of analysis. That is why it is vital for an economist to be acutely conscious of the responsibility to study society for the sake of promoting progress—the economic, social and civil progress of society—and not one’s own personal interest.
Sylos Labini’s engagement in politics thus appears to grow naturally out of his understanding of the work of the economist. And while his ‘political’ statements certainly intensified in the last years of his life, they had been a frequent and important feature of his writing throughout previous decades. In his last book Ahi serva Italia (2006) Sylos Labini spoke as a civic-minded economist to all those Italians who refuse to understand that respect for the rules is an absolute requirement of a market economy, and, in particular, that a market economy needs rules to defend the community against the unbridled expansion of positions of power (as Adam Smith had explained, referring to the East India Company). Moreover, Sylos Labini argued, capitalism cannot function without a widespread moral sentiment which condemns the breach of rules.
On this subject, Sylos Labini used to refer to beautiful excerpt from Gaetano Salvemini:
Almost all of those old teachers belonged to a school of thought which today is viewed disparagingly as positivistic, enlightened, intellectualist. Their culture, and ours, was narrow, dry, and down-to-earth, inept when it came to rising to the lofty skies of intuitionism and idealism. In those times of unelevated culture, we were clearly split into believers or non-believers, the pro- or anticlerical, conservatives or revolutionaries, monarchists or republicans, individualists or socialists. White was white and black was black. White was good and black was bad. With us or against us. When we poor little empirical sparrows ended up in the clutches of the idealist eagles and were devoured, white became half-black and black half-white, good half-bad and bad half-good, the scoundrel was half a gentleman and the gentleman was half a scoundrel.
Today, in Italy, the clerics are half-communists and the communists half-clerics. The same lamps that light the Communist celebrations serve in the pilgrimages of the Blessed Virgin. It is the Tower of Babel. As for myself, I have remained anchored, or if you prefer, aground there where my teachers had first led me: an odd boulder left behind on some plain by a receding glacier. (Salvemini, 1950, p. 87)[1]
.
Selected bibliography[edit]
Books
- Oligopolio e progresso tecnico. Milano, Giuffré 1956. Second edition 1957; following editions (3rd – 6th) Torino, Einaudi, 1964, 1967, 1972 e 1975 English edition: Oligopoly and Technical Progress, Cambridge (Mass.), Harvard University Press, 1st edition 1962, 2nd ed. 1969. Several translations:in Polish 1963, in Japanese 1st ed. 1964, 2nd ed. 1970; in Spanish 1966, in Czech 1967, in Portoguese 1980.
- Economie capitalistiche ed economie pianificate. Bari, Laterza, 1960.
- Problemi dell'economia siciliana. Milano, Feltrinelli, 1966.
- Problemi dello sviluppo economico. Bari, Laterza, 1970.
- Sindacati, inflazione e produttività. Roma-Bari, Laterza, 1972.
- Saggio sulle classi sociali. Roma-Bari, Edizione Laterza, 1974.
- Lezioni di Economia, Volume I: Questioni preliminari, La macroeconomia e la teoria keynesiana. Roma, Edizioni dell’Ateneo, 1979.
- Lezioni di Economia, Volume II: microeconomia. Roma, Edizioni dell’Ateneo, 1982.
- Il sottosviluppo e l'economia contemporanea. Roma-Bari, Laterza 1983.
- Le forze dello sviluppo e del declino. Roma-Bari, Laterza, 1984. (English translation: Forces of Economic Growth and Decline, Cambridge (Mass.), MIT Press 1984).
- Le classi sociali negli anni '80 Roma-Bari, Laterza, 1986.
- Nuove tecnologie e disoccupazione. Roma-Bari, Laterza, 1989.
- Elementi di dinamica economica. Roma-Bari, Laterza, 1992.
- Progresso tecnico e sviluppo ciclico. Roma-Bari, Laterza, 1993.
- Carlo Marx: è tempo di un bilancio (a cura di). Roma-Bari, Laterza, 1994.
- Il pensiero economico: Temi e protagonisti. Roma-Bari, Laterza, 1995. (with Alessandro Roncaglia).
- La Crisi Italiana. Roma-Bari, Laterza, 1995.
- Sottosviluppo - una strategia di riforme. Roma-Bari, Laterza, 2001. English translation: Underdevelopment A Strategy for Reform. Cambridge, CUP, 2001).
- Un paese a civiltà limitata. Roma-Bari, Laterza, 2001.
- Berlusconi e gli anticorpi. Roma-Bari, Laterza, 2003.
- Torniamo ai classici. Roma-Bari, Laterza, 2004.
- Ahi serva Italia: un appello ai miei concittadini. Roma-Bari, Laterza, 2006.
For the full bibliography of Paolo Sylos Labini see Di Falco, E. and Sanfilippo, E. (2007). Una bibliografia degli scritti di Paolo Sylos Labini, Economia & Lavoro, 41 (3): 79-109.
A large number of Paolo Sylos Labini’s publications is collected in a digital fund: https://www.syloslabini.info/online/pubblicazioni/fondo-sylos-labini/ The University of Tuscia hosts the fund on its Open Archive in agreement with the heirs Sylos Labini and the Paolo Sylos Labini Association. The acquisition and digitization of the materials began in 2007 thanks to funding from the Ministry of University and Research and the support of the Sapienza University of Rome. The archiving work has been coordinated by Proff. Marcella Corsi and Alessandro Roncaglia.
References[edit]
- ↑ Salvemini, G. (1950). Una pagina di storia antica, Il Ponte, 50 (3), [1994]: 69–90.
See Also[edit]
Wikiquote for citations about or of Paolo Sylos Labini.
Wikimedia Commons for pictures of Paolo Sylos Labini.
External Links[edit]
- Paolo Sylos Labini, su Treccani.it – Enciclopedie on line, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana.
- Paolo Sylos Labini, in Enciclopedia Italiana, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana.
- Paolo Sylos Labini, in Dizionario biografico degli italiani, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana.
- Opere di Paolo Sylos Labini, su Liber Liber.
- Opere di Paolo Sylos Labini, su openMLOL, Horizons Unlimited srl.
- (EN) Opere di Paolo Sylos Labini, su Open Library, Internet Archive.
- (FR) Pubblicazioni di Paolo Sylos Labini, su Persée, Ministère de l'Enseignement supérieur, de la Recherche et de l'Innovation.
- Registrazioni di Paolo Sylos Labini, su RadioRadicale.it, Radio Radicale.
- Sito dell'Associazione Paolo Sylos Labini.
Category: 1920 births Category: 2005 deaths Category: Italian economists
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