Antonio Masala

Questo lavoro indaga l’evoluzione della teoria liberale contemporanea guardando al suo rapporto con espressioni storiche e politiche che ad essa si sono richiamate. Con riferimento alla lezione di Foucault, si muove dalla convinzione che per capire la filosofia politica del (neo)liberalismo sia necessario investigare come essa sia passata, e per quella via sia stata ripensata, attraverso associazioni, think-tank e soprattutto alcune esperienze politiche di governo.
Se da un lato l’obiettivo del neoliberalismo non è stato sottomettere la società al mercato, ma anzi usare il mercato per «educare» l’uomo ad essere libero, dall’altro le «pratiche liberali» hanno riproposto, in un apparente paradosso, il primato della politica per affrontare il vero (e nuovo) problema: non più solo limitare la crescita del potere dello Stato, bensì tornare indietro da una situazione nella quale il potere politico era già cresciuto troppo.

L’espansione incontrollata delle tecnologie se ha esposto l’individuo a nuove forme di vulnerabilità ha altresì cambiato radicalmente lo stile comunicativo tra personaggi pubblici e cittadini. L’interazione del corpo con la macchina espone a possibilità e, al contempo, a pericoli inediti. Districarsi tra centinaia di notizie, immagini, interazioni, conversazioni, offerte, identità, molte delle quali potrebbero essere malevole oppure generate da bot, diventa sempre più difficile, fino a rasentare l’impossibilità a causa della rapida ascesa del deep-fake. Possiamo dunque ancora pensare l’“infosfera” in termini di “verità”, “realtà” e “senso comune”, magari aggiungendo il prefisso “post-”, o si tratta di categorie oramai superate? Dall’altro lato, l’emergere di un registro personalistico e confidenziale tra pubblici poteri e cittadini, senza la tradizionale mediazione degli esperti, è alla base di molti fenomeni di difficile categorizzazione, che spesso sfociano in polarizzazioni estreme. I concetti politici tradizionali si dimostrano resilienti di fronte ad essi? Le nuove tecnologie hanno alterato il modo di concepire l’azione politica?

Il saggio ricostruisce la relazione scientifica tra Bruno Leoni e Friedrich A. von Hayek, prendendo in esame le lettere, gli scambi intercorsi alle riunioni della Mont Pelerin Society ed esaminando i saggi che Hayek pubblicò su “Il Politico” quando Leoni era ancora in vita. Ne emerge un dialogo molto intenso, nel quale Leoni rappresenta non solo un prezioso riferimento filologico per gli studi sul diritto e sul pensiero politico, ma anche una costante sfida alla riflessione hayekiana e uno stimolo ad andare oltre le proprie posizioni. Le differenze tra i due permarranno, e Hayek non metterà mai in discussione la necessità della rappresentanza politica e dunque di un processo elettivo (per quanto estremamente articolato e mediato) per la produzione del diritto, e di quelle che egli chiamava le “regole di condotta”. Tuttavia è possibile vedere un suo progressivo avvicinamento alle posizioni di Leoni. L’austriaco diventa infatti ben consapevole, grazie all’influenza di Leoni, che la libertà si era storicamente affermata grazie a un diritto che non era stato prodotto per via legislativa, per volontà degli uomini. In questa consapevolezza sta il suo grande cambiamento, e in fondo anche la messa in discussione dell’impianto teorico di The Constitution of Liberty. È dunque anche possibile sostenere che la “costituzione ideale’ hayekiana, presentata nel terzo volume di Law, Legislation, and Liberty, risenta di una forte influenza di Leoni. Ipotesi confermata anche dal fatto che Hayek scelse “Il Politico” per presentare le prime versioni di quella sua elaborazione.

Wilhelm Röpke and Alexander Rüstow arrived at the University of Istanbul in 1933 and became part of a large group of ‘émigrés’ who were invited to teach in the newly-formed University. This article offers an analysis of their contribution to the University of Istanbul and their influence on the culture and politics of Turkey. It examines the writings they published exclusively in Turkish and reconstructs their opinion on the country that was hosting them – a country undergoing enormous political and social reforms at the time. In the final section, their converging views and reciprocal influence are examined by reconstructing their different intellectual trajectories

Questo lavoro indaga la teoria dell’ordine spontaneo e l’individualismo metodologico come paradigma della filosofia sociale. Tale paradigma analizza l’origine e l’evoluzione della società con categorie diverse da quelle della filosofia morale e della filosofia politica, propone una analisi del potere che guarda non alla sovranità ma agli individui e alle relazioni sociali, si propone di indagare come un unico campo di ricerca l’agire umano nei diversi ambiti della società. In questo modo esso configura la necessità di una forte vocazione interdisciplinare della filosofia sociale, che avrà come compito specifico proprio quello di operare una sintesi tra diversi campi del sapere

This work investigates the theory of the spontaneous order and methodological individualism as a paradigm of social philosophy. This paradigm explores the origin and the evolution of society differently from traditional moral and political philosophy; it introduce an analysis of power based not on sovereignty but on individuals and social relations; it aims to investigate as a common field of enquiry human action in different spheres of society. The theory employed in this essay advances the need for a strong interdisciplinary disposition for social philosophy, whose specific task will be to realize a synthesis among different fields of knowledge.

This essay analyse Thatcherism into the framework of the history of political ideas and political theory. The changing process of the Classical liberal tradition in Great Britain is the starting point to understand the political experience of Thatcher and her grandiose attempt to modify the dominant political values in the country. The author copes with the challenge to consider the popular capitalism as a new vision of democracy, and use the Foucauldian category of Biopolitics in order to understand newness and contradictions of Thatcherism.

his article considers the evolution of British conservatism, looking both to conservative political thought and to the history of the Conservative Party. It takes as a starting point an overview of the main political concepts of conservatism as an ideology and as a political theory, then the categories of individualism and collectivism are used to show how in British conservatism there exists two attitudes. On the one hand, there is the Paternalism, which was the base for the Disraelian Tory democracy, and then, starting with the early 1930 s, was the theoretical justification to promote a broad State’s intervention on economy and on society. On the other hand, there is the tradition of laissez-faire, solid during the late Victorian age with Salisbury, and more recently reintroduced, after a theoretical re- thinking, by Margaret Thatcher during the eighties. These two attitudes live side by side within the Party, and one was prevailing upon other according to the different historical circumstances and necessity. But both have been defended and advocated with the same purpose: defend some key values of the conservative political tradition. Values which for Disraeli were undermined by the egoistic individualism of the capitalists, and for Thatcher were profoundly threatened by the welfare consensus. The Big Society’s project by David Cameron tries to solve the tension between collectivism and individualism in a new way, but it clashes with some difficulties which make unconvincing its accomplishment.

Gli anni di governo di Margaret Thatcher, oltre che suscitare un continuo interesse tra gli storici e gli studiosi di economia politica, si pongono anche come un’ideale cartina di tornasole per analizzare una serie di problemi di teoria politica. Con l’esperienza storica del thatcherismo infatti vengono al pettine non solo una serie di tensioni tra conservatorismo e liberalismo, ma emerge anche come nel confronto con una mutata realtà storica queste teorie si possano mostrare inadeguate e debbano, per affrontare problemi nuovi, aprire ad una serie di mutamenti che possono apparire paradossali se analizzati solo con la chiave di lettura della teoria politica.
Dopo una breve ricostruzione storica delle vicende che portarono al trionfo della Thatcher prima come leader del partito conservatore e poi come premier, nel saggio si esaminerà il thatcherismo come tentativo di cambiare i valori, la cultura politica e la società nel suo complesso, usando l’economia come strumento per raggiungere questo fine. Un tentativo grandioso e, almeno in parte, coronato dal successo, che va analizzato in base ai diversi ingredienti che lo hanno reso possibile: le particolari (e forse irripetibili) circostanze storiche, interne e internazionali, degli anni Ottanta; l’importanza della “battaglia delle idee”, della quale in un certo senso la Thatcher stessa è il frutto maturo; il ruolo della leadership politica, e dei meccanismi istituzionali che la rendono possibile. Si cercherà poi di comprendere come collocare l’esperimento thatcheriano all’interno delle diverse correnti che compongono il liberalismo classico da un lato e il conservatorismo britannico dall’altro, e si analizzerà la contraddittorietà del thatcherismo rispetto alle teorie politiche cui la Lady di ferro faceva riferimento, ma anche la necessità di un’azione politica di quel tipo. In questo modo non si segnerà soltanto l’inevitabile distinzione tra teoria e pratica politica, ma si tenterà anche di capire se il thatcherismo sia in grado di dare delle indicazioni a quelle teorie politiche per superare una loro inadeguatezza davanti a una serie di problemi nuovi rispetto ai quali esse non hanno una risposta. In questa analisi si svilupperanno alcune osservazioni riguardo al rapporto tra teoria politica e ideologia, ma anche riguardo al rapporto tra mercato e teoria democratica, per proporre infine una lettura del thatcherismo alla luce dei concetti di biopolitica e governamentalità elaborati da Foucault.

The essay introduces the journal sections, outlining the relevance and the newness of Thatcherism in the prospective of historical studies, economics and the history of ideas. The author points out how the articles confront several issues of Thatcherism in a different way, and how they cope with its legacy.

Populism is an ideal litmus test to interpret the crisis of trust that today seems to affect liberal democracies and their institutions. It is by looking at this crisis that some deep motivations of populism can be understood. However, it is also by analyzing populism as a crisis of political trust that we can understand in which way the “prism of trust” is essential to understand political phenomena. This article shows how populism appears as a crisis of political trust in democracy, in representation, and in authority, and try to develop a theoretical framework about this phenomenon in terms of political theory.

Wilhelm Röpke and Alexander Rüstow were important intellectuals, crucial both for their scientific contribution and for their tangible influence on the political and economic rebirth of Germany after WWII. They were among the founding fathers of the Social Market Economy, and their philosophy had the ambition of combining the free market with a set of moral values which were intended to be well rooted in society. They arrived at the University of Istanbul in 1933, and became part of a large group of " émigrés " who were invited to teach in the newly-formed University. During their stay they published important works and wrote some textbooks for their students. Some of these works have never been properly analysed. It is apparent that between Röpke, Rüstow and Turkey there is a story of a missed opportunity for Turkish culture. Even though within Turkish academia they were respected as eminent scholars, they were marginalized because of their positions in favour of the free market. Investigating this relationship, so far largely unexplored, between Rüstow, Röpke and the nation that hosted them is particularly interesting, both from the perspective of studying the two authors' ideas, and from the point of view of studying Turkish culture.

Bruno Leoni e Michel Foucault sono stati senza dubbio due pensatori diversi, e i loro destini non si sono incrociati. Leoni non ebbe la possibilità di conoscere il pensiero di Foucault, e niente può farci pensare che il filosofo francese abbia conosciuto l’opera di Leoni, se non in maniera indiretta per ciò che di essa si trova nella riflessione di Hayek. Diversa è stata la loro vita e la loro fortuna. Leoni è un importante autore che viene oggi riscoperto, ma che è stato, in vita e poi per molti anni dopo la morte, a torto sottovalutato e dimenticato. Foucault è sempre stato, a ragione, considerato come uno dei grandi intellettuali del Novecento, e il suo pensiero ha sempre attratto  innumerevoli ammiratori e studiosi. Diversa, certamente, era anche la loro sensibilità politica. Leoni era un liberale con tendenze libertarie ante litteram, ma per alcuni aspetti anche un conservatore nel senso più filosofico e genuino del termine. Nonostante la sua energia gli avesse fatto conquistare posizioni, nell’accademia e nella stampa, di discreto prestigio, egli fu un esule in una patria troppo diversa da lui per riuscire a comprenderne e apprezzarne il pensiero. Foucault al contrario è stato un pensatore estremamente influente, in Francia e nel mondo, e la sua riflessione è stata ammirata e presa come punto di riferimento dalla variegata gauche francese e non solo.
Eppure, al di là della diversa terminologia utilizzata, e ferme restando delle importanti differenze, entrambi riflettevano su una dimensione del potere che non fosse (solo) quella statale, ma che partisse dagli individui e dai loro rapporti, dalle loro relazioni. Muovevano entrambi da una forte insoddisfazione per il concetto di sovranità, per la teoria del contrattualismo e per la concezione formalistica del diritto. Erano entrambi convinti che si dovesse guardare ai reali rapporti tra individui per comprendere cosa sia il potere, e che si dovesse partire “dal basso”, dalle manifestazioni concrete e individuali (o locali, per usare la terminologia foucaultiana) del potere per capire cosa sia la società e come sia possibile comprendere, analizzare, dare ragione del problema dell’ordine sociale.
Nessuno dei due ha scritto un libro organico sul potere, e nessuno dei due ci ha lasciato una teoria compiuta del potere, come ad esempio quella che si trova nella riflessione di Bertrand de Jouvenel. Entrambi invece si sono concentrati sul funzionamento del potere, su cosa esso produce e su cosa emerge dal potere inteso come relazione tra uomini. In questo senso, pur partendo spesso da presupposti diversi, essi ragionano per tanti versi intorno allo stesso problema, e ci offrono una rappresentazione del potere per alcuni aspetti convergente e una metodologia di analisi che ha interessanti punti di contatto. Una metodologia di analisi forte e innovativa, capace di gettare una luce nuova sullo studio della politica e di alcuni dei suoi concetti chiave, e capace di ribaltare la concezione classica del diritto e della sovranità.

The so-called “Thatcherism” provides us an interesting case study to investigate the relation between Neo-liberalism, political authority and civil society from the prospective of political philosophy and political science. This investigation is based on the idea that Thatcherism was not only, or mainly, an attempt to change the economic structure of the United Kingdom, but it was also a project to change the values, the political culture and the society as a whole, and economic reforms were used in order to reach that aim. This intention was clear in the words of Margaret Thatcher herself, who in a famous interview in 1981 said “Economics are the method; the object is to change the heart and soul” of the country. Some of the issues that can be explored trough Thatcherism are: the relationship between a charismatic political leader and the people, the possibility/opportunity to use a political leadership in order to change the dominant moral values in a society, and the related risk of populist authoritarianism.
To work on Thatcherism from the perspective of political philosophy means on one hand to study the role of ideas in a process of political change, and on the other hand to study the role of a charismatic leadership in a process of cultural change. The first aspect involve the issue of the role of economic development as sources to legitimate the political power, while the second involve the issue of the role of myths and of the risk of populism in a process of reforms realized by a charismatic leadership. In this regard it is interesting to observe that one of the peculiarity of Thatcherism is that it was an attempt to conquer not only the consent of the élites, but also the consent of the whole society in favour of capitalism and free market. Furthermore the outcome of our analysis will show several paradoxes that we face observing the historical experience of Thatcherism with the lenses of the political theories of Liberalism and Conservatism, which were the references of Mrs Thatcher, and these paradoxes could lead us to a better understanding of Thatcherism as an attempt to use the political power in order to induce cultural changes in the society.

In this article, moving from the mengerian theory of institutions we argued that lockean Natural Rights and Hayek's theory of law are, at least, compatible. Analizing Hayek's thought we refused the accuse of relativism, arguing, on the contrary, that an evolutive theory of the law can discriminate between 'good' and 'bad' institutions. Hayek's theory of the law protects individual liberty even if liberty is not considered valuable in itself.

Il Seminario Pisano di Filosofia Politica si costituisce nel gennaio del 2020, su iniziativa del Dipartimento di Civiltà e Forme del Sapere dell’Università di Pisa e dell’Istituto Dirpolis della Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna. Il suo intento è quello di essere un luogo permanente di incontro e discussione sui principali temi della Filosofia Politica, intesa nelle sue diverse declinazioni. Nei cicli di seminari, di cadenza annuale, filosofe e filosofi politici italiani e stranieri vengono invitati a presentare e discutere criticamente le proprie ricerche. Il seminario si propone anche di cercare un dialogo costante con le discipline affini, e di coinvolgere nelle proprie attività giovani studiose e studiosi.

Wilhelm Röpke, Alexander Rüstow and Turkey: a missed encounter?

Abstract
Wilhelm Röpke and Alexander Rüstow were important intellectuals, crucial both for their scientific contribution and for their concrete influence on the political and economic rebirth of Germany after WWII. They were among the founding fathers of the Social Market Economy. Their philosophy had the ambition of combining the free market with a set of moral values well rooted in society.
They arrived at the University of Istanbul in 1933, and became part of a large group of “émigrés” who are invited to teach in the newly formed University. In that period they were publishing important works and wrote some textbooks for their students. Some of these works have never been properly analysed.
Apparently, between Röpke, Rüstow and Turkey there is a story of a missed encounter. Even though within the academy they were respected as eminent scholars, they were marginalized because of their positions in favour of the free market.
Investigating the relationship, so far largely unexplored, between Rüstow, Röpke and the nation that hosted them is particularly interesting, both from the point of view of studying the two authors’ ideas, and from the point of view of studying Turkish culture.

Keywords: Wilhelm Röpke, Alexander Rüstow; Social Market Economy; Turkish economic and political history.

Between Two Continents: Röpke’s Years in Istanbul
This paper aims to analyze Röpke’s scientific work during his years at the University of Istanbul (1933-37), with particular attention to his publications in Turkish language. The existence of Röpke’s unknown essays in Turkish will be studied throughout this research. Moreover we will try to investigate his influence on Turkish academia and to examine if his stay in a newly constructed Republic had any impact on his works. Finally, we will explore the relationship of mutual influence he had with Alexander Rustow.

Röpke contributed a lot to the Istanbul University, where he was among the founders of the Faculty of Economics and its library. During his stay he has written many important works and also some interesting student textbooks. Among the textbooks there is Cemiyet Ekonomisi (1937) which was later published in German and that he was also using for his courses in Geneva. His other textbooks were exclusively dedicated to the students of Istanbul and, apparently, never translated to other languages. One of them is Ekonomi ilminin tekâmül tarihi (1936), a large and interesting history of economic thought. The other one is iktisat Ilmi (1934) a course which examines especially methodological aspects of his discipline.  He was also editing the proceedings of a series of seminars on the relationship between politics and economics. The title of this book is called Ekonominin bugünkü meseleleri (1934), and it contains many essays written by German and Turkish scholars; Röpke’s essay was dedicated to the relationship between economical systems and ideology (Iktisat sistemi ve iktisat ideolojisi). His presence in Istanbul, his donations to library and relations with his colleagues had probably influenced economic scholars in Istanbul. We can try to see the legacy of Röpke in Turkey by analyzing the later works of his assistants, recurring names are those of Muhlis Ete, Ömer Celâl Sarc, Bülent Cemil, Ali Hüseyin.

Another part of the research is related to Rustow. It is now acknowledged that the philosophical view of Rustow presents strong similarities with some of Röpke’s ideas. For example, one of Röpke’s major book (e.g. Gesellschaftskrisis der Gegenwart, 1942) deal with themes that we can also find in Rüstow’s works, in particular those concerning the importance of social institutions, family and rule of law as the key elements to support the free market. The ideas of Rüstow had a definitive formulation mainly in the 1950s (see Ortsbestimmung der Gegenwart, 1950-57) but it is assured that they were already developed during his early years in Istanbul (Rüstow lived there from 1933 until 1949), when his relationship with Röpke was very faithful. By investigating Rüstow’s publications in Istanbul, during the years when Röpke was also there, could shed new light on the relationship between the two authors.

Charismatic Leadership, Populism and Social Values: The Case Study of Thatcherism
The years of Margaret Thatcher’s government are an interesting case study for political philosophers, because the so-called “Thatcherism” provides us a good opportunity to investigate some classical problems of the discipline, related with the role of politics in society and the problem of the foundation of the political obligation. Some of the issues that can be explored by investigating that historical event are the relation between a charismatic political leader and the people, and the possibility/opportunity to use a political leadership in order to change the dominant moral values in a society.
The foundation of this kind of analysis rests on the idea that Thatcherism was not only, or mainly, an attempt to change the economic structure of the United Kingdom, but was also a project to change the values system, the political culture and the society as a whole. From this point of view economic reforms were used as an instrument for a broader change in the country. This interpretation comes out from some interesting works of political philosophy (especially S. Letwin, Anatomy of Thatcherism, 1993 and A. Gamble, The Free Economy and the Strong State. The Politics of Thatcherism, 1994), but also from the words of Margaret Thatcher herself, who in a famous interview said «Economics are the method; the object is to change the heart and soul». That ambitious attempt has to be understood in its peculiar historical circumstances, but also as a consequence of the “battle of ideas”, of which Thatcherism was for several aspects a consequence.
To work on Thatcherism from the prospective of political philosophy means on one hand to study the role of ideas in a process of political change, and on the other hand to study the role of a charismatic leadership in a process of cultural change. The first aspect involve the issue of the role of economic development as sources to legitimate the political power, while the second involve the issue of the role of myths and of the risk of populism in a process of reforms realized by a charismatic leadership. Furthermore the outcome of the analysis will show several paradoxes that we face observing the historical experience of Thatcherism with the lenses of the political theories of Liberalism and Conservatism, which were the references of Mrs Thatcher. Finally in the paper we will try to cope with the challenge to consider the popular capitalism, that was the heart of Thatcher’s project to reform the society, as a vision of a new political regime, and by doing that I will use the Foucauldian categories of Biopolitics and governmentality in order to understand originality and contradictions of Thatcherism.

Neo-liberalism, political leadership and civil society: the case study of Thatcherism.
The so-called “Thatcherism” provides us an interesting case study to investigate the relation between Neo-liberalism, political authority and civil society from the prospective of political philosophy and political science. This investigation is based on the idea that Thatcherism was not only, or mainly, an attempt to change the economic structure of the United Kingdom, but it was also a project to change the values, the political culture and the society as a whole, and economic reforms were used in order to reach that aim. This intention was clear in the words of Margaret Thatcher herself, who in a famous interview in 1981 said “Economics are the method; the object is to change the heart and soul” of the country. Some of the issues that can be explored trough Thatcherism are: the relationship between a charismatic political leader and the people, the possibility/opportunity to use a political leadership in order to change the dominant moral values in a society, and the related risk of populist authoritarianism.
To work on Thatcherism from the perspective of political philosophy means on one hand to study the role of ideas in a process of political change, and on the other hand to study the role of a charismatic leadership in a process of cultural change. The first aspect involve the issue of the role of economic development as sources to legitimate the political power, while the second involve the issue of the role of myths and of the risk of populism in a process of reforms realized by a charismatic leadership. In this regard it is interesting to observe that one of the peculiarity of Thatcherism is that it was an attempt to conquer not only the consent of the élites, but also the consent of the whole society in favour of capitalism and free market. Furthermore the outcome of our analysis will show several paradoxes that we face observing the historical experience of Thatcherism with the lenses of the political theories of Liberalism and Conservatism, which were the references of Mrs Thatcher.