[:it]
Università di Catania, 24 giugno 2016
I am deeply honoured to present, in this context, the attribution of the STOREP honorary membership to Prof. Cosimo Perrotta.
Professor Perrotta is a first rate international scholar that provided with his scientific work, spanning nearly 50 years, a significant contribution to the development of the history of economic thought and has been the main promoter of the birth of the Italian association for the history of economic thought (STOREP).
He served as professor mainly of History of economic thought and Economics at the University of Salento, and for two years as Director of Department. He was member of the board of ESHET and STOREP, invited professor in many international universities, where delivered a very large number of seminars and conferences.
The results of his extensive scientific production have given rise to a significant number of books and a large number of publications, mainly, in the most prestigious international journals of history of economic thought.
For synthesis duty, I shall simply illustrate the “fil rouge” that links his research program, consisting of three main intersecting topics: underdevelopment, productive and unproductive labour and Southern Italy’s backwardness.
Underdevelopment is the topic of his first monograph, where, on the one hand, he presents, an effective critique to the ideological positions on the aid to the third world: those of a simple “moralistic” complaint that result in unrealistic proposals of aid, or utopian alternatives routs to capitalism. On the other hand, he offers a careful analysis of underdevelopment, as an element intrinsically linked to the issue of growing global proletarianization.
His works in this area are extremely topical, because they allow us to also fully understand the deep link between who today dramatically emigrate from the third world, to the inhumane conditions of seasonal illegally workers; the children horribly exploited by Chinese multinationals in Africa or the Syrians children in Turkey, who paint with their bare hands the blue jeans. Or again, the dead workers in Bangladesh in the collapse of decrepit factory’s clothes for the West, the extensive use of the vaucher or the exploitation of highly qualified young people in the call centres, by offering starvation wages (often illegally). And so on.
Only a critical overview, articulate and deeply rooted in the history of its evolution, like that proposed by Perrotta, allows us to understand the problem of underdevelopment as a whole, and to articulate effective proposals of resolution, very different from those expressed, more and more frequently, with spot suggestions.
The topic of productive and unproductive labour, directly connected to the vast literature on the under-consumption, has been systematically and comprehensively dealt with and it is impossible, in a context like this, to even imagine to offer a simply summary, given the richness of the themes of historical and philosophical matrix and the economic analysis addressed the demand side, production and distribution, highlighted by Cosimo Perrotta. I will just mention only two aspects: the revaluation of the relevance of Mercantilist and Enlightenment thought, in which the idea of productive labour is directly linked to an evolutionary concept of labour in dynamic terms, much richer than the Physiocrats, Smith and in general the Classics, and the extraordinary modern theory of the stages, proposed by Antonio Genovesi.
This is a dynamic conception. What is productive in a stage can become unproductive in a successive stage and furthermore, this lecture, includes also the artistic production as a higher stage.
Through a careful and accurate study of all the extensive literature on the subject, carried out over decades, Perrotta shows how this theory has a higher potential than many of today’s theories of development and is able to effectively explains the phenomenon of unproductive labour which occurs today in the protection of privileged positions, such as those defended by some professional association, or the waste of resources in the public sector, which are configured as real incomes, whose resources should instead be transferred to the unmet needs in the many areas of inequality.
The third theme concerns Southern Italy’s backwardness. Even here the proposed approach is surprising: we can grasp the underlying processes and the continuity of the structural imbalances, which still emerge desolately every years, as dramatically evidenced by the reports of SVIMEZ, only trough an overview of the complexity of the phenomenon that interweaves economic, historical, social, geographical and legal dimension.
Only the reconstruction of what happened over a period of almost a thousand years, in the Italian “Mezzogiorno”, allows us to understand why the extraordinary productivity growth in the South, in the next twenty-five years, after the Second World War, remained an isolated case, or why it produced deeper imbalances. This was not the result of a virtuous productivity growth in terms of profit, which replaced the traditional rent, but caused by the support of production and social spending by public sector, which allowed to the pre-modern élites to survive in a different guise.
Only the study of the evolution of the latifundium, from the feudal economy until the mid-twentieth century, enables us to understand this phenomenon, alongside the chronic dependence of the South by stronger external economies, since the autonomy repression of the Cities carried out by the different Monarchs. Moreover, by interweaving these two aspects we understand the widespread sense of hostility of the “public dimension”, which is at the base of the bad relationship between institutions and individuals, and a lack of civic sense, still so evident today.
Any proposal for an autonomous elaboration of a policy of development of Southern Italy’s economy remains on the ability to overall read this large problem, such as the proposed interpretation, which aims to fight waste and privileges.
The brief and partial Cosimo Perrotta’s intellectual profile here traced brings out in a clear manner the richness and relevance of the historical approach to the economy. I would say an essential approach to be able to avoid the “fraud to present economics as a neutral technical discipline”, as Francesco Sylos Labini writes in his recent book Risk and Forecast.
On the contrary, for a scholar like Perrotta befitting Luigi Einaudi’s “learn to act”.
But it’s not enough to study carefully. Results of this scientific level are the outcome of enormous sacrifices, always dealt with attention, respect, humility and willingness to listen. And also from this point of view, Cosimo is a master.
Since he took his first steps as a young professor of history and philosophy at the secondary 
school, his period of further training and temporary jobs in England, his long “pilgrimages” in the most important libraries of the world, in an exhaustive search of every possible source, until the extraordinary network of international relationships that he braided, starting from a small and young University of the deep south of Italy, he has always turned its interest in the defence of the weakest, consistent with Marshall’s teaching that the task of the economists to be to improve the conditions of the poor. From this point of view, I want to also remember his continued political commitment, his proverbial clashes in university, as consequence of a strong intolerance of injustices and inefficiencies, which have not prevented to give life, with many difficulties of course, to some extraordinary cycles of seminars and conferences, as well the foundation of the Centre for economic studies and finally the blog, “Sviluppo felice“, by involving with enthusiasm in all these activities more students, pupils and colleagues.
In a sense, all his life turns around his work. Among his pupils are famous some “Perrotta’s advices and behavioural prescriptions”, assimilated to his serious and frugal style of life. But, if for the pupils these are pleasant traits of his character, we are also sure that for his wife these could sometimes represent a calamity.
By the way, and more seriously, Cosimo is a very generous person, on both human and professional sides, as people we met him always affirm in every circumstances.
I am also privileged in knowing in detail the painstaking work he has put to create Storep. It must be indisputable recognized to him about this, as a direct consequence of his extraordinary intellectual itinerary today we look with admiration, but in which each of us, in this room, can be reflected with pride and with the awareness to be explorers of very complex paths, unlike those who choose easier shortcuts.
If it is true what Hayek says, that an economist is not a good economist if it is only an economist, I believe that an economist is a good economist if he’s proud to be a serious historian of economic thought, as Cosimo Perrotta, very distinguished scholar and, for some of us, a great and sincere friend.
Salvatore Rizzello
[:en]
Università di Catania, 24 giugno 2016
I am deeply honoured to present, in this context, the attribution of the STOREP honorary membership to Prof. Cosimo Perrotta.
Professor Perrotta is a first rate international scholar that provided with his scientific work, spanning nearly 50 years, a significant contribution to the development of the history of economic thought and has been the main promoter of the birth of the Italian association for the history of economic thought (STOREP).
He served as professor mainly of History of economic thought and Economics at the University of Salento, and for two years as Director of Department. He was member of the board of ESHET and STOREP, invited professor in many international universities, where delivered a very large number of seminars and conferences.
The results of his extensive scientific production have given rise to a significant number of books and a large number of publications, mainly, in the most prestigious international journals of history of economic thought.
For synthesis duty, I shall simply illustrate the “fil rouge” that links his research program, consisting of three main intersecting topics: underdevelopment, productive and unproductive labour and Southern Italy’s backwardness.
Underdevelopment is the topic of his first monograph, where, on the one hand, he presents, an effective critique to the ideological positions on the aid to the third world: those of a simple “moralistic” complaint that result in unrealistic proposals of aid, or utopian alternatives routs to capitalism. On the other hand, he offers a careful analysis of underdevelopment, as an element intrinsically linked to the issue of growing global proletarianization.
His works in this area are extremely topical, because they allow us to also fully understand the deep link between who today dramatically emigrate from the third world, to the inhumane conditions of seasonal illegally workers; the children horribly exploited by Chinese multinationals in Africa or the Syrians children in Turkey, who paint with their bare hands the blue jeans. Or again, the dead workers in Bangladesh in the collapse of decrepit factory’s clothes for the West, the extensive use of the vaucher or the exploitation of highly qualified young people in the call centres, by offering starvation wages (often illegally). And so on.
Only a critical overview, articulate and deeply rooted in the history of its evolution, like that proposed by Perrotta, allows us to understand the problem of underdevelopment as a whole, and to articulate effective proposals of resolution, very different from those expressed, more and more frequently, with spot suggestions.
The topic of productive and unproductive labour, directly connected to the vast literature on the under-consumption, has been systematically and comprehensively dealt with and it is impossible, in a context like this, to even imagine to offer a simply summary, given the richness of the themes of historical and philosophical matrix and the economic analysis addressed the demand side, production and distribution, highlighted by Cosimo Perrotta. I will just mention only two aspects: the revaluation of the relevance of Mercantilist and Enlightenment thought, in which the idea of productive labour is directly linked to an evolutionary concept of labour in dynamic terms, much richer than the Physiocrats, Smith and in general the Classics, and the extraordinary modern theory of the stages, proposed by Antonio Genovesi.
This is a dynamic conception. What is productive in a stage can become unproductive in a successive stage and furthermore, this lecture, includes also the artistic production as a higher stage.
Through a careful and accurate study of all the extensive literature on the subject, carried out over decades, Perrotta shows how this theory has a higher potential than many of today’s theories of development and is able to effectively explains the phenomenon of unproductive labour which occurs today in the protection of privileged positions, such as those defended by some professional association, or the waste of resources in the public sector, which are configured as real incomes, whose resources should instead be transferred to the unmet needs in the many areas of inequality.
The third theme concerns Southern Italy’s backwardness. Even here the proposed approach is surprising: we can grasp the underlying processes and the continuity of the structural imbalances, which still emerge desolately every years, as dramatically evidenced by the reports of SVIMEZ, only trough an overview of the complexity of the phenomenon that interweaves economic, historical, social, geographical and legal dimension.
Only the reconstruction of what happened over a period of almost a thousand years, in the Italian “Mezzogiorno”, allows us to understand why the extraordinary productivity growth in the South, in the next twenty-five years, after the Second World War, remained an isolated case, or why it produced deeper imbalances. This was not the result of a virtuous productivity growth in terms of profit, which replaced the traditional rent, but caused by the support of production and social spending by public sector, which allowed to the pre-modern élites to survive in a different guise.
Only the study of the evolution of the latifundium, from the feudal economy until the mid-twentieth century, enables us to understand this phenomenon, alongside the chronic dependence of the South by stronger external economies, since the autonomy repression of the Cities carried out by the different Monarchs. Moreover, by interweaving these two aspects we understand the widespread sense of hostility of the “public dimension”, which is at the base of the bad relationship between institutions and individuals, and a lack of civic sense, still so evident today.
Any proposal for an autonomous elaboration of a policy of development of Southern Italy’s economy remains on the ability to overall read this large problem, such as the proposed interpretation, which aims to fight waste and privileges.
The brief and partial Cosimo Perrotta’s intellectual profile here traced brings out in a clear manner the richness and relevance of the historical approach to the economy. I would say an essential approach to be able to avoid the “fraud to present economics as a neutral technical discipline”, as Francesco Sylos Labini writes in his recent book Risk and Forecast.
On the contrary, for a scholar like Perrotta befitting Luigi Einaudi’s “learn to act”.
But it’s not enough to study carefully. Results of this scientific level are the outcome of enormous sacrifices, always dealt with attention, respect, humility and willingness to listen. And also from this point of view, Cosimo is a master.
Since he took his first steps as a young professor of history and philosophy at the secondary school, his period of further training and temporary jobs in England, his long “pilgrimages” in the most important libraries of the world, in an exhaustive search of every possible source, until the extraordinary network of international relationships that he braided, starting from a small and young University of the deep south of Italy, he has always turned its interest in the defence of the weakest, consistent with Marshall’s teaching that the task of the economists to be to improve the conditions of the poor. From this point of view, I want to also remember his continued political commitment, his proverbial clashes in university, as consequence of a strong intolerance of injustices and inefficiencies, which have not prevented to give life, with many difficulties of course, to some extraordinary cycles of seminars and conferences, as well the foundation of the Centre for economic studies and finally the blog, “Sviluppo felice“, by involving with enthusiasm in all these activities more students, pupils and colleagues.
In a sense, all his life turns around his work. Among his pupils are famous some “Perrotta’s advices and behavioural prescriptions”, assimilated to his serious and frugal style of life. But, if for the pupils these are pleasant traits of his character, we are also sure that for his wife these could sometimes represent a calamity.
By the way, and more seriously, Cosimo is a very generous person, on both human and professional sides, as people we met him always affirm in every circumstances.
I am also privileged in knowing in detail the painstaking work he has put to create Storep. It must be indisputable recognized to him about this, as a direct consequence of his extraordinary intellectual itinerary today we look with admiration, but in which each of us, in this room, can be reflected with pride and with the awareness to be explorers of very complex paths, unlike those who choose easier shortcuts.
If it is true what Hayek says, that an economist is not a good economist if it is only an economist, I believe that an economist is a good economist if he’s proud to be a serious historian of economic thought, as Cosimo Perrotta, very distinguished scholar and, for some of us, a great and sincere friend.
Salvatore Rizzello
[:]
Mario Cedrini