=================== HES POSTING ======================
EH.NET BOOK REVIEW
Published by EH.NET (February 1998)
Mario Baldassarri, editor, _Maffeo Pantaleoni: At the Origin of the
Italian School of Economics and Finance_. New York: St. Martin's
Press and London: Macmillan Press (in Association with _Rivista
di Politica Economica_, Sipi, Roma), 1997. v + 209 pp.
$79.95 (cloth), ISBN: 031217358X.
Reviewed for EH.NET by Luigino Bruni, School of Economic and
Social Studies, University of East Anglia, Norwich (UK).
<[log in to unmask]>
Maffeo Pantaleoni (1857-1924) is one the most original and
complex figures in the history of Italian economics. One of the
founders of pure economics, his _Principii di Economia pura_
(Barbera, 1889) [English Translation _Pure Economics_ (Macmillan,
1898)] introduced Vilfredo Pareto to the "new economics," and
brought marginalism to Italy.
"We do not know," wrote Irving Fisher reviewing _Pure Economics_
in 1898, "where else in English can be found so compact and
excellent an epitome of modern economic theory". The _Principii
di Economia pura_ was Pantaleoni's "gem" (Edgeworth), a book
characterised by the hedonist hypothesis on which economic
science is based, and from which every theorem has been derived.
In Pantaleoni's system, hedonism was linked to Spencerian
evolutionary philosophy (it functions to conserve the
organism), and gave a strong normative connotation to economic
theory. For him, economics should provide a criterion to
distinguish economic (rational) from non-economic (irrational)
behavior.
In his obituary for Pareto, published in the _Giornale degli
economisti_ (1924), Pantaleoni restated his argument that
psychological hedonism is more scientific than other hypotheses
upon which choice theory can be based (including Pareto's theory
of choice). His reasons were that: a) the history of economics,
from Bentham to Jevons and Edgeworth has shown the efficacy of
the hedonistic economics; b) the approach is based on the
observation of concrete reality, on psychological and biological
studies; c) and since people reveal their preferences, economists
can know much more about mankind's behavior than natural
scientists. Spencer, Sidgwick, Marshall, Edgeworth, but also
Beccaria, Verri, and Ferrara in the Italian tradition, were the
sources of his original and still relevant vision of economics
(in the contemporary debate over rational choice, Kahneman,
Tversky, Sugden and the cognitivist movement would find
Pantaleoni a good ally).
However, the "pure economics" season of Pantaleoni's career did
not last long. Near the end of the last century he started
analysing "impure economics"; the relations between economics and
statistics, history, and institutions. These issues occupied his
attention for the remainder of his career.
Is it possible to form a coherent interpretation of Pantaleoni
from the _Principii_ to _Erotemi_ (the title of the volumes
collecting his papers)? This question, linked to the significance
and originality of Pantaleoni's work, arose soon after his death.
The International Congress "Maffeo Pantaleoni. Dal Paese' al
Villaggio Globale", held in Macerata, Italy in December 1994,
tried to take the question seriously, examining a variety of
answers. Now the proceedings of the congress have become a book,
edited by Mario Baldassarri, with contributions by congress
attendees Piero Bini, Italo Magnani, Nicolo Bellanca, Luis
Chauvel and Jean-Paul Fitoussi, Pierluigi Ciocca, Marcello de
Cecco and Paolo Sylos Labini. The book is a welcome initiative
that can contribute to our knowledge of an economist largely
forgotten (unfairly) in contemporary international economic
debates (and also often overlooked in the history of economic
thought).
Paolo Sylos Labini provides the argument for the position that
"there are at least two Pantaleoni." The first is the author of
the _Principii_; the other authored the _Erotemi_. He focuses on
the analysis of the economic dynamics of the "second Pantaleoni."
On the other side of the issue, Piero Bini, Nicolo Bellanca and
Italo Magnani attempt an unitarian interpretation of the thought
of Pantaleoni.
Searching for the originality of Pantaleoni's work, Bini argues
that it must be somewhere other than in his marginalist framework
because, as B"hm Bawerk, Pareto, Gide, and Schumpeter have
pointed out, "the marginalist framework of the work cannot be
considered original" (p. 15). Bini argues that Pantaleoni's
originality lies in his attempt to overcome marginalism by
including elements of historical and sociological investigation
as well as applied economics, into economic analysis. A
Pantaleoni closer to Marshall than to Pareto. Where does Bini
find the thread which links together the whole Pantaleonian work?
It is in the hedonistic approach, the pillar of the _Principii_,
which according to Bini is the central hermeneutic category of
Pantaleoni's reflections on economics and society from the first
essays to his obituary of Pareto, published near the time of his
death. This is the same common thread spotted by Italo Magnani,
in his interesting paper dedicated to marginalism and role of the
state in Pantaleoni's work.
Bellanca's interpretation of Pantaleoni, the most original and
ambitious paper of the book, is built upon two ideal type
categories. The first is Panteleoni's attempt to place side by
side the "perfection" of marginalist theory and the "imperfection"
of its starting points, or of power relations. Only by keeping
together the two sides of analysis it is possible, in
Pantaleoni's view, to understand the complexity of the economic
phenomenon. The second category is dynamic analysis, which proved
to be the most important and original aspect of Pantaleoni's latter
work. Pareto in his first works tried to extend his analysis of
equilibrium from static to dynamics, by means of the analogy with
mechanics (D'Alambert's principle). However Pareto himself found
out that this approach to dynamics did not work, and, after 1901,
he gave up the attempt to dynamize his economic system, devoting
himself instead to sociological study. Pantaleoni, who knew well
the intellectual evolution of his genial friend, tried, on the
contrary, to develop a dynamic analysis based on a non-mechanical
(or non-physical) paradigm. His paper "Alcuni problemi di
dinamica economica" (1909) opened the most interesting Italian
research program between the two wars, when such economists
as Bresciani Turroni, Demaria, Del Vecchio, Fanno, and Einaudi
attempted to go beyond "static" Paretian equilibrium theory by
introducing "dynamic" analysis into economics. This tradition
still continues in the works of contemporary Italian economists
like Pasinetti or Sylos Labini.
Marcello De Cecco provides a link between Pantaleoni and
contemporary economic research by highlighting "the importance of
the analysis contained in [his] works for research on the
relationship between economics and institutions" (p. 189).
I would like to finish this review, in which only a few aspects
of the importance of Pantaleoni's work have been mentioned, by
encouraging readers to see Sraffa's obituary of Pantaleoni
(originally published in the _Economic Journal_, 1924), which
opens the volume and reveals another way in which Pantaleoni has
influenced modern economics.
Luigino Bruni,, PhD in History of economic thought from
the Univeristy of Firenze (Italy), is visiting fellow in economics at the
school of Economic and Social Studies, University of East Anglia, Norwich
(UK). His doctoral thesis was on Pareto's theory of choice.
Copyright (c) 1998 by EH.NET and H-Net. All rights reserved. This work
may be copied for non-profit educational uses if proper credit is given to
the author and the list. For other permission, please contact the EH.NET
Administrator. ([log in to unmask], Telephone: 513-529-2850; Fax:
513-529-6992)
============ FOOTER TO HES POSTING ============
For information, send the message "info HES" to [log in to unmask]
|