Long is the journey issue 6 by A Colorni-Hirschman International Institute

AC-HII

LONG IS THE JOURNEY Dossier N.6, Spring 2022

DOSSIER N 6 - SPRING 2022

LONG IS THE JOURNEY Dossier n. 6 - Spring 2022 Editors: Luca Meldolesi, Nicoletta Stame Translator: Michael Gilmartin Creative Director: Gennaro Di Cello (Entopan Company) Art Director: Brunella Chiodo (Entopan Company) Graphic Designer: Francesco Falvo D’Urso, Roberto Caroleo (Entopan Company) Web Development: Entopan Company Images: etchings by Domenico Marchetti (engraver), drawings by Giovanni Tognoli, works by Antonio Canova. Cover: Horse, engraving by Domenico Marchetti, drawing by Giovanni Tognoli, work by Antonio Canova.

Table of Contents

DEMOCRACY AND DEVELOPMENT. SOME HIRSCHMANIAN INVESTIGATIONS AND OBSERVATIONS by Luca Meldolesi

A Colornian Decalogue à retenir

Albert Hirschman’s debut

Hirschman as consultant

Some solid points

How governments behave

Doing better than we did

A lesson in method

Further generalizations

“Finally, a manifesto!”

Bibliography

DOSSIER N 6 - SPRING 2022

Democracy and Development. Some Hirschmanian investigations and observations by Luca Meldolesi

Democracy and Development. Some Hirschmanian investigations and observations

For Leibniz, wrote Eugenio Colorni,1 “philosophy proper was only one aspect of a larger whole: a fragment almost, in the big picture. For us [philosophy scholars] this fragment has become the center: we draw from it concepts and ideas that are still alive, methods that, translated into the language of current problems, might yield new and very interesting results. But in studying this philosophy, we must not forget that it was conceived as part of a whole, and this must be reckoned with, at least in the background. And of this harmonious and complex whole that Leibniz envisioned and was never able to achieve, of this universal panorama, we can get no better and clearer idea than by recounting his life.”

Where do they come from, the so-called “Hirschmanian lenses” that Ilena Grabel talks about?2 This is not easy to understand. This way of seeing, often considered “idiosyncratic” by its own author, is not part of standard behavior. We have the impression, sometimes, of having before us something attractive, but at the same time impenetrable. To make any headway in understanding it we need to proceed by trial and error. There are those who would like to understand it in its application (or perhaps reverse the thought-practice relationship as a way of indirectly recapturing such a work-style in instinctive daily activity—a sort of learning by doing). As for myself, my natural inclination has always been genetic—I have always needed to go looking for origins. I shall be returning then to the scene of the crime,3 because I have recently managed to distill into ten points a key epistemological lesson from Eugenio Colorni, friend, mentor and brother-in-law of Albert Hirschman, who was explicitly indicated by Hirschman as the intellectual who had had the most influence on his thinking. I asked myself if this long-sought Colornian harbor might help us reconsider Albert’s way of working which, going forward, he developed gradually, independently—and creatively. It is a question whose definitive solution would require a new analysis of the author’s work, a task that goes beyond my intentions and resources. I will therefore content myself with proceeding by way of example, trying to “give you an idea” of what the whole issue is about. And as a gateway to this exercise my intention is to utilize politics more than economics, and democracy more than development. The starting point on my itinerary (of the many that are possible) will be my ten points on Colorni’s theory of knowledge.

1 Colorni 1935, p. vi. 2 Grabel 2017, p. 14-5. 3 I refer, of course, to Meldolesi 1995.

DOSSIER N 6 - SPRING 2022

A Colornian Decalogue à retenir 1 – We have before us an intellectual style, a construction of ideas based on an “essential balance” between past and present, between the humanities (above all philosophy) and the natural sciences (especially physics); one that should be extended, in my opinion, to the social sciences and, more generally, to every area of life. 2 – Its starting point is a “conventionalist” conception of knowledge based on the five senses and on the forms, categories, and associative and interpretative criteria that we use (for science and for consciousness, without realizing it), “without which it is not possible for us to attempt or pursue anything.” 3 – To be specific, under the pressure of historical circumstances Colorni determined his point of view by maneuvering between his initial subjects, aesthetics and general philosophy (Kant, positivism, idealism, irrationalism) and those that followed—physics, mathematics, geometry, psychology and psychoanalysis. 4 – He argued for abandoning the use of capital letters as a way of progressively dethroning the anthropomorphic “idols” of contemporary views of the world (Space, Time, Causality, Number, Reality, Truth, etc.) in order to gradually achieve new, specific cognitive acquisitions. Knowing for Eugenio means taking possession of a certain phenomenon (human, natural, social, etc.)—it means knowing how to break it down and reassemble it so it can be used for one’s own ends. 5 – Women and men can never get outside themselves, even in the process of cognition. But the refutation of some aspects of their own theory

of knowledge allows them to acquire at the same time new ways of seeing and therefore new types of proficiency. For this reason, it is necessary to relentlessly question past knowledge in the light of the evolutionary processes we experience and our own observations concerning our surroundings. That is to say—in addition to books, it is essential to learn from experience. 6 – To successfully intercept stimuli that arrive from the external world it is useful to deploy our senses in a receptive position, reducing as much as possible our anthropomorphic projection onto an observed phenomenon. Furthermore, it is necessary to actually welcome messages that challenge what we have acquired previously. Indeed, we ourselves need to develop an acute sensitivity that will allow us to glimpse the openings through which this process of new understanding can manifest itself. 7 – The aim is therefore to arrive, case by case, at an awareness (short and long term) that places the subject in a relationship that corresponds as closely as possible to “how things actually are.” Discoveries, innovations, and individual and collective changes concern every aspect of human life. For each event, positive or negative, the outcome depends on the circumstances, as well as on intuition, imagination, learning in other fields, and the ability to find an access point, along with mobility and the capacity of the person or persons involved to pull things together. 8 – As this transformative process becomes better understood and more conscious, it can become commonplace, routine. But it can also suggest new stimuli both near and far, even far removed from the usual ones. It can engage and infect other

Democracy and Development. Some Hirschmanian investigations and observations

subjects through love (as in “do unto others what others would like”). It can spread, suddenly setting in motion unexpected economic, political, and social processes. It can inject into our societies, all at the same time, freedom, development, democracy, federalism, fraternity, social justice, peace, respect for the environment, art, beauty, etc. It can promote a process of “becoming civilized,” a “magnet effect” that attracts the attention of peoples and promotes the evolution of humanity. 9 – Awareness (with its consequences of discovery, innovation and change) can therefore emit a powerful individual and collective force capable of holding back (and gradually taming) the aggressive tendencies that have long bloodied humanity’s violent past—up to the appalling nationalist tragedy of the Second World War (and beyond). 10 – On scales both small and large, the art of the possible (possibilism) involves continuous efforts to widen the spectrum of opportunities and choices, along with “optimal imbalance” initiatives (intentional and/or incidental), both of these aimed at accelerating positive processes that can play a cutting-edge role in providentially correcting existing negative trends. Luca Meldolesi – February 2020.

Albert Hirschman’s debut 1 – Eugenio Colorni loved to talk and loved to tell his own story—even Ursula Hirschmann said so.4 Her brother Albert, on the other hand had 4 Hirschmann U, 1963, p. 3. “I write,” Colorni himself said (1936, now in 2009, p. 38), “because I take great pleasure in describing and telling, and because I sometimes think of things that I then enjoy seeing set out in front of me. […] Anyone who can think feels an irresi-

real trouble “speaking his mind” (as I can testify personally).5 Perhaps it was for reasons of character, discretion, reserve, because of the “conspiratorial” conditions in which he lived his youth, or because he shied away from hagiography and of drawing erroneous conclusions from historical facts (so that he preferred vignettes—or so he said). Perhaps it was because he felt he had a sword of Damocles with his name on it (which he effectively did).6 Perhaps it was so as not to inadvertently give ammunition to his enemies, or because he had discovered from his experience in academia that confessing only part of what you had to say was a way of awakening public curiosity (and perhaps keeping at a safe distance anyone who might want to “extract” some secret of his intellectual success). For all these reasons (and others as well), it is in any case a fact that, when Nicoletta and I met Albert Hirschman (in the spring of 1983), he was still, in a certain sense “wearing a mask.” Our friendship was in fact sparked by the spontaneous complicity that came from the shared awareness of a particularly rough stretch of road, now past. Fortunately, we turned up at the right time (speaking of circumstances…), because Albert had already been talking with Marcello de Cecco about his writings on Italy before and after the war.7 “In a flash” we realized the extraordinary interest the whole issue held for us. And so it hapstible desire to communicate their thoughts to others. This desire is why I write. My friends are no longer enough: I need to imagine that the whole world can hear me. This is what paper is for.” 5 Of course his most famous half-truth is the one he wrote in “A Dissenter’s Confession” (1984a). But it was certainly not the only one. For example, when I asked him what he thought of the events of ‘68, he said he could not comment because at that time he was busy in California writing Exit... 6 Adelman 2013, Chap. 9. There was an FBI file on him that was closed only at the end of 1966. 7 Hirschman 1987.

DOSSIER N 6 - SPRING 2022

Democracy and Development. Some Hirschmanian investigations and observations

pened that Albert, presenting me to friends and acquaintances at the Institute at Princeton as “an Italian scholar,” said (with a mischievous smile on his lips) that this guy had become fascinated by “a very interesting topic—me!” Indeed, Hirschman enjoyed my “company” (let’s call it), as he was struggling with the painful decision to gradually subdue his traditional reserve. This led to some small political-cultural tests—like getting us to tell him our reactions at the Butte Jewish museum in Paris.8 It led to the discussion concerning what would later become his introduction to the new edition of Fry’s book.9 It led, where I was concerned, to my article on his early years—a 1987 essay that he liked and had published in French as well.10 It led to an entire season of editing and presenting four of his books in Italian,11 and the laborious, supervised writing of Discovering the Possible.12 And finally, it led to his long polyglot interview with Marta Petrusewicz, Claudia Rusconi and Carmine Donzelli.13 2 – And yet, many of the details we only learned about after the party, so to speak—at the time when, with Hirschman gravely ill, his wife Sarah gave Jeremy Adleman essential support in writing her husband’s biography. But the overall intellectual result is in my estimation still unsatisfactory. In retrospect, my sketch of the young Albert14 looks thin in the light of successive disclosures, while Adelman’s biography mostly follows the 8 A sort of litmus test for our attitude. As if to say: with these leftists, you never know.... 9 Hirschman 1993. 10 Meldolesi 1987 (and 1993).

succession of events and perhaps reflects Sarah’s sensibilities more than those of Albert—the sui generis economist who, as we know, turned into a social scientist. What can I contrive, then, if I am to chase down in a few pages, as I intend to do, the typical Hirschmanian relationship-in-the-making between democracy and development? There are many things we already know. And we know about Albert’s possibilist interest in details (as opposed to “Annales,” of course15). One possibility is to try and follow (in part) the road I’ve already taken with Colorni (and that he invented for Leibniz).16 Except that instead of fishing the details out of a fine book,17 I shall draw on my own experience and what I’ve read, seeking above all to highlight those pieces of the mosaic that (to me) are especially significant—including certain details drawn from the long association I had with him, and which, not by chance, I still remember in a particularly clear and revealing way. Because it may in fact be true that (in a good way) the devil is in the details. Many of the things that I know about Albert Hirschman may lead to better understanding, and it may be that emphasizing some useful and occasionally unpublished aspects of his story (and keeping others in the background) will help bring out a guiding thread, or rather some key strands in a tangled skein. The idea, therefore, is to think about some “nexuses” which I believe will in the end give us back the living and breathing Albert in his captivating concreteness, the Albert we have known for so long—passionate beyond question about democracy and development. Yet the topic is so vast and complex that trying to ‘conquer’ it will require

11 Hirschman 1987a, 1988, 1990, 1990a. 12 Meldolesi 1995.

15 Meldolesi 1992 and 1995, Chap. 5.

13 Hirschman 1994.

16 Colorni 1935; Meldolesi 2020.

14 Meldolesi 1987.

17 Like Sandro Gerbi’s on Piovene and Colorni, 1999.

DOSSIER N 6 - SPRING 2022

Democracy and Development. Some Hirschmanian investigations and observations

multiple assaults ‘at close quarters.’ So I thought, as a start, I would set out what follows. 3 – Otto Albert Hirschmann was born in Berlin on April 7, 1915, the second child of a well-off Jewish family. Like his sisters – the elder Ursula and the younger Eva Estella – he was baptized in the Protestant rite.18 His mother, Hedwig Marcuse, belonged to a prominent banking family.19 Her second husband, Karl Hirschmann, was a surgeon from the East. Albert always respected his mother,20 but he admired his father.21 The well-known Weltanschauung episode comes to mind,22 along with many other things, like the visit we made together to the (beautiful) grave in a Berlin cemetery, or the huge photo of his father Karl that a friend gave him after the fall of the Wall that 18 Hirschman’s relations with his sisters were always very close, but marked by a certain caution regarding Ursula’s influence. She was a woman with a strong personality and a “big heart,” Albert told me. Eva Estella, on the other hand, more welcoming and understanding, played an important role of balance and support, first with regard to their mother, and later in Ursula’s large family (and in remembering Eugenio—providing me with many of his letters). 19 In 1952, in a well-known essay that Hirschman considered his masterpiece, Alexander Gerschenkron explained that, financially, German industrialization, a “late comer” compared to that of England, had hinged on banking... 20 Although in his heart he probably considered her rather frivolous. Despite this (and the difficulties he would encounter as an exile), he always tried to help his mother financially (for example, when Hedwig moved to England with Eva). Ursula probably shared this attitude. Indeed, it surprised me that Eugenio, in spite of his recent separation from his wife, was concerned in his last will and testament with creating a sort of life annuity for his former mother-in-law (Colorni 2017, p. 148). 21 Even though he chided him under his breath for not making enough use of the weapon of self-deprecation. Cf. also n. 24 and 26. 22 And his declaration that “the subsequent history of my life and thought could probably be written in terms of the progressive discovery on my part how right my father had been” not to have a Weltanschauung. if his father had actually explained himself he would have spared his son the long and persistent memory from his “childhood or early adolescence” (one of those, as he told me, that we are still ashamed of years later) of “how I found out to my intense surprise and disappointment that my father did not have what I then thought was a basic necessity for any real person” (Hirschman, March 1993a).

hung on the staircase of his house in Princeton, with the surgeon’s hands in full view. I think too of the desire he expressed personally to Nicoletta Stame and myself (never realized) to study hands in the history of painting… Where had his father grown up? We do not know. We only know that the fact of his having come from the East in some unspecified manner prompted (in Marta Petrusewitcz) a suspicion that he had avoided (or escaped from) some pogrom… There is also another interesting detail. Hedwig did not know her future husband’s parents, and it is possible that Karl wanted to raise himself socially, including through marriage. For this reason he couldn’t bring himself to tell Hedwig that his parents were deceased. And to top it off, for their wedding he got a friend to send a congratulatory telegram in their name. Hedwig was enraged when she learned the truth and could never let go of it, constantly accusing her husband of having tricked her. Albert thought, instead, that this stratagem in a good cause was a sin that was essentially venial (and felt, if anything, inspired by it). Indeed, ingenuity in difficult situations23 was in a sense a hallmark of his life—starting with his well-known anti-Nazi and anti-fascist beginnings… Where did it come from, I have often wondered—that disarming caution, that ability to be thoughtful and silent, to say only what was expedient in that precise moment? That “long knowledge” (“saperla lunga,” as Andrea Ginzburg called it), without the least prevarication. That ability to draw the interest of people who might be useful to what he was building (or had built). That vein

23 Starting with his nickname, ‘Beamish’—“a demon of ingenuity with a puckish smile” (Bell, 1984, p. 2 )—that set him apart (more than making up for his lack of charisma—of that character trait, that is, that he recognized as necessary in leadership [Hirschman 1968], but which in any case..., he never loved).

DOSSIER N 6 - SPRING 2022

of self-irony.24 His long partnership with Sarah Chapiro Hirschman, an expert in French literature from the East (Russo-Lithuanian), and the push to lift himself socially, which his wife (whom we affectionately called “the baroness”) encouraged with her invaluable work as his literary and anthropological advisor, not to mention as organizer of their shared life and steadfast personal advisor. Where did it come from then, this passion of Albert’s for democracy and well-being (the economy, development) that probably revealed an original experience in which he suddenly lost both these terms of reference?25 Whence these thoughts of how far democracy and development still had to go—so much farther than they had come? And this ability to feel at home in Colombia, an attitude that anticipated by half a century the interaction between Latin America and Eastern Europe (which in part Hirschman describes,26 and in part he would have liked to achieve after the fall of the Wall). Observing all this from Berlin in the autumn of 2019, I found myself thinking of how Albert’s life had played out on three continents and how it indeed fits a dominant pattern of paternal inspiration. This it does. But it is also true that the son wanted to “direct” this outlook... to the advantage of the people. 24 Directed towards oneself, Albert explained, irony that has a true and sincere basis is an important weapon—not least because its intelligent use creates a pleasant, amusing and friendly atmosphere. When directed at others, however, it can create (or exacerbate) conflict. Not to speak, finally, of derision, which violates the respect due to every human being and which consequently should be banned...

4 – The Hirschmanns and their household staff lived in Berlin in a beautiful apartment next to the “Tiergarten,” in a strategic location behind the Italian Embassy. All that remains of the house today is a single wall (Sarah and Albert showed it to Nicoletta Stame and me)—the wall where the family youngsters had played with the ball. But the Hirschmann abode was not necessarily all that modern and comfortable, as Albert realized when he arrived in Paris—if only because the apartment had no indoor running water… It is also likely that his father’s desire for upward mobility led to his decision to send Albert to study at the Französiche Gymnasium. Concerning his studies (which, besides German and French included Latin and Greek, philosophy, literature, science, etc.) and his Austro-Marxist political background, we now know more, as well as about the beginning of his and Ursula’s activism, his sympathy with the “Neu Beginnen” (a somewhat leftist social democratic youth organization), and his mentor at the time, Heinrich Ehrmann.27 Very early on Albert came into contact with the three great “subverters” of German culture— Marx, Freud, and Nietzsche. But it is still not clear why for the rest of his life he dragged around with him something he had written on Hegel (incomprehensible, according to him) for a high school study group.28 My guess is that it was a kind of double-faced “memento” addressed to himself. In other words, we see a typical characteristic of his starting to emerge here—that of working hard, but in a subtle way, without getting carried away. Indeed, he was all the while developing a particular ability to move away ex abrupto from something that had initially captured his interest, simply because he became convinced that the game (and

25 To be more precise, having been born into an affluent family of professionals and having grown up during the Weimar period, Albert had abruptly lost his original social and political position with the coming of Hitler. The death of his father and then of Eugenio Colorni further aggravated his situation (not least psychologically) as an exile, a stateless orphan. At length he found the means to react to all this with extraordinary tenacity and intelligence.

27 Fleck 2020.

26 Hirschman 1995, Ch. 15, 16 and17.

28 Hirschman 1984.

Democracy and Development. Some Hirschmanian investigations and observations

therefore his commitment to it) “was no longer worth the effort”…29 5 – The rise of Hitler and his father’s sudden death, along with the decision to expatriate and the beginning of the great tragedy he would actively witness represented a genuine trauma for young Albert, who from then on, and for decades, refused to speak German even with his sisters. Having begun his economics studies at Humboldt Universität (in the wake of the crash of ‘29), he unexpectedly found himself penniless in Paris, although able to count on the support of a double network—Jewish and social democratic. He intended to enroll at the Science Po., but he was dissuaded by Regis Debré (since foreigners were barred from administrative and diplomatic careers). Thus he ended up at the École des Hautes Études Commerciales (HEC), a business school.30 Here again, in another way, that typical trait of his mentioned above expressed itself. Years later, Hirschman recalled mainly the misery of having to deal with accounting and the technology of production processes such as those that ended up with “concassage”… So corporate business was not for him either.31 Nevertheless, some of the courses at the HEC showed him a way forward and were at the root of some later developments in his work. Pomméry’s course on money and banking, for example, was the starting point of his thesis on the Poincaré 29 In this way Albert would call to mind what he had learned from Hegel whenever he thought it appropriate, but without having to free himself laboriously from the latter’s inflexible way of thinking (as has happened, directly or indirectly, to so many authors—including the present writer). All other things being equal, this is the attitude that Hirschman would also adopt with regard to economic theory.. 30 This to some extent reflects the way things used to be in Italy as well, when economics departments were considered less prestigious than political science or law. 31 As he said, he did not wish to turn himself into a “pepin” of the HEC’s commercial “pepinière”: see Hirschman 1990b.

franc and its devaluation.32 Also useful up to a point, he recalled, was the course on international trade, which later served him as a jumping-off point for his work with Condliffe at the League of Nations and for his first monograph, National Power and the Structure of Foreign Trade.33 And finally, Demageon’s course on economic geography in a certain sense seems to ‘re-emerge’ in Hirschman’s Colombia papers—such that in retrospect he traced back to it his idea of linkages.34 These, however, were only Albert’s first steps as an autodidact economist sui generis, as he defined himself. Because it was only in 1935-36 at the London School of Economics that he realized “what Economics is all about.” And on that note, we again run into the problem just mentioned. Albert wrote that he had bought Keynes’s General Theory when it first came out in 1936 and (after the brief parenthesis of the war in Spain) had taken it with him to Trieste to study at his leisure. But later he claimed to have been relieved when he realized that he could enter the profession of economics without having to establish in advance whether or not Keynes’s major work was entirely correct.35 Therefore, even the profession of theoretical economist (which inevitably involves, among other things, establishing the internal consistency of the various theories) wasn’t right for him. This leads us to the conclusion that not only is what I wrote back then true—that is to say that as an economist, his uneven and “Frenchified” education ended up (inadvertently) giving him an advantage—it is also true that it matched, in a certain sense, his spontaneous inclination to try to understand in order to choose. And these choices, 32 Hirschman 1938. 33 Hirschman 1945. 34 Hirschman 1995, p. 116. 35 Ibid., p. 118.

DOSSIER N 6 - SPRING 2022

one after the other, ended up delimiting a specific field—what he would call the field of técnicos (consultants, professional economists)—long before he entered the academic profession, however sui generis, by which he is generally known.

Hirschman as consultant 6 – If we then look at these kinds of issues from the vantage point of the Trieste years (193738), things come into sharper focus. Because the tragic shift produced by Hitler’s rise in the German-speaking world affected Colorni and Hirschman at different times in their lives. Eugenio had a well-defined profession that allowed him to commit himself fully in his intellectual work and his teaching, as well as in his underground political activities. Albert, on the other hand (while not neglecting his anti-fascist activism) still needed to graduate and find a suitable occupation. He received credit for most of his previous courses. He took several exams. He was rejected twice in law (another field canceled from his mental horizon). Finally he got his degree—after having translated from French a manuscript he had mostly written at the London School of Economics36—and this already provided breathing space for his intellectual curiosity and potential. On the other hand, Albert had come to Trieste with the (probationary) assignment of writing an article on Italy’s finances and economy for a Parisian magazine.37 He later said that he had found delight in doing “detective work” on the Fascist economy—above all when, from the perusal of the Italian financial press he was able to reconstruct some less than commendable elements that the regime would rather

have kept hidden.38 In addition, working with the Institute of Statistics directed by Prof. Paolo Luzzatto Fegis, he developed a keen interest in that discipline, in which he wrote, published and tried to establish himself.39 This was very useful for launching a career as an economics journalist, which was what he felt suited to. But as we know, Hirschman’s most important lesson from Trieste was the theoretical-political lesson taught him by Colorni. The brothers-in-law saw each other almost every day. They spoke at length about many issues. They found common interests (in literature, philosophy, politics, psychology…), and developed between them a remarkable mutual intellectual effervescence.40 But clearly it was mainly Albert who was learning, and who emerged from this period notably invigorated, both on an intellectual level (epistemology, research methodology, politics) and on a practical one as well in his antifascist initiatives. “The ideal micro-foundation of a democratic politics”41 was how he saw the ongoing efforts of Eugenio and his friends to engage willingly with every field of human knowledge, questioning their own findings in order to improve them and increase their own knowledge day by day. And this while drawing from these “mental exercises” the determination and psychological and moral strength to fight an oppressive dictatorial regime with continuity and intelligence. This is an important autobiographical insight, not least because it is here that we begin to glimpse the economist sui generis, passionate about democracy as well as development whom I would like to bring into focus. However, I think that the experiences of the 38 Hirschman 1990c; now in Hirschman 1995, Ch. 9. 39 Hirschman 1937, 1938a.

36 Il franco Poincaré e la sua svalutazione Hirschman 1938; now 2004.

40 Meldolesi 2013, Ch. 2.

37 Hirschman 1938b.

41 Hirschman 1990c; now in Hirschman 1995, Ch. 9.

Democracy and Development. Some Hirschmanian investigations and observations

two brothers-in-law should not be superimposed on one another. Indeed, while Eugenio’s life unfolded within a political horizon of struggle against the Fascist and then Nazi dictatorships and within a predominantly Italian-German cultural environment (of which he tried to re-evaluate and develop the most interesting aspects), Albert’s wanderings in Europe42 had begun to open up to him, perhaps unconsciously, new perspectives that he would take advantage of in the decades that followed.43 In reality, Albert was the offspring (rebel though he was) of the typical attraction of the German democratic intelligentsia for French culture, which remains quite significant even today. 7 – All this affirms the need for a deeper study of Albert’s professional articles from the point of view (first and foremost) of democracy and development. It is no surprise, in fact, that the debate on Hirschman’s beginnings, in the presence of the author, at one point concerned the thesis of the “methodological hiatus” between the pre- and

42 Mostly in a French cultural environment. Cf., for example, the “crush” he had on Pascal, Montaigne, La Rochefoucault, Diderot, the entire 18th century, etc., which then seemed to him much more accessible (and pleasant), but also equally profound, as compared with their German language counterparts; and above all with respect to the then much revered German classical philosophy (Hirschman 1984). Albert always thought of Paris as “his city.” It was a Francophile tendency that would shape his life. This choice (together with his love for languages) would eventually lead to the problem of recomposing European cultures, which Hirschman sought to address in the 1990s, making his own work available for this purpose—not least in order to re-propose, under other guises, the great theme of European unification... 43 In fact, it is well known that back in Paris after Colorni’s arrest, Hirschman (1939) published some notes on economic developments in Italy in Rist and Marjolin’s magazine, L’activité economique. He met John Condliffe and was assigned by him to prepare a statistical study on bilateralism for the League of Nations, along with an essay on exchange controls in Italy (Hirschman 1939a, 1939b). This was the road that eventually led to California and to his discussion of “the underlying problem,” which is the subject of National Power and the Structure of Foreign Trade (written in 1941-42 and published in 1945).

post-war periods.44 And yet along with that question, in my view, its opposite should also be discussed. I refer to a consideration of the continuity and development of the lines of thinking Albert pursued during this period, which include those that originated with his “three good courses” at the EHC (mentioned above), his “specialization” in fascist economics and Italian exchange controls45 and his studies of bilateralism for the League of Nations, and led right up to his work for the Marshall plan, his writings on international trade in 1951-52, and his “Colombian” papers. The question is how all this is connected to Albert’s passion for democracy. In particular, what is the source of the concern for small and poor countries that he talks about to clarify the underlying motivations of National Power, his first monograph? There is the high and low life he lived wandering around different European countries, of course. And also his incredible anti-fascist activities. And in addition, we know that the trade balance between Germany and the countries of Eastern and Southeastern Europe to the extraordinary advantage of the former was something that struck Albert even before he moved to the United States. Here once again, if I am not mistaken, we can find “the Eastern question” (and therefore, in a certain sense, the psychological problem connected to the father who came from those lands intending to elevate himself in Berlin). In other words, in relating such statistics to his own life Hirschman discovered a special, personal concern for the small, poor countries of Eastern

44 Hirschman 1987. 45 A type of study that he would later take up in the context of the Marshall Plan, leading to his inter-European payment schemes and some prescient essays on the European Community. (Hirschman 1946, 1947, 1947a, 1947b, 1948, 1949, 1949a, 1949b, 1950, 1950a, 1951).

DOSSIER N 6 - SPRING 2022

Europe. This he would later extend to Italy46 (under the Marshall Plan), and then to Colombia and in general to Latin America and the entire developing world. That is to say, he encountered the structural “verticality” of economies, cultures and human societies, as a concrete alternative to the monistic “horizontality” on which economics was established and reformed, and is still based.47 Albert noted this from the side of commerce, and therefore posed the problem of transforming economic theory with respect to that aspect, so as to make it compatible with the multiple realities observable to the naked eye.48

Some solid points 8 – Undoubtedly, an in-depth study of the war and Marshall Plan49 writings and the Colombia papers will be able to better clarify how things stand. In any case, it seems clear to me already (Colornially) that: • change and continuity (protest and bridging) coexisted throughout Albert’s journey, albeit in different ways and in a variety of forms that need to be understood and explored; • Italy and Colombia were for a long time privileged and connected subjects (as I have tried to show in the past50), both on the development side and the democracy side; 46 Hirschman 1984a, now in 1986, p. 7. 47 Meldolesi 1987a, 1987b, 1990. 48 Referring, that is, to a number of aspects (political, cultural, psychological, professional) that differed from one another. But (in all likelihood) it was also a matter of “co-causes” that, in the writing of National Power, backed each other up in the same direction…

• Hirschman’s professional phase (first “on tap” and then “on top”51) laid the groundwork for his academic career—his new profession, as he was fond of recalling; • in these writings we find the roots of The Strategy of Economic Development and Journeys Toward Progress52 — his first book, that is, on development economics and his book on democratic policy-making, the foundations of possibilism. These two key texts are cornerstones of Albert’s intellectual achievement, which would later attain the heights of contemporary social culture. Nevertheless, even if we managed to reach such heights the work would not stop there, because our research has to be interactive—so that in order to correctly frame the relationship between democracy and development (as well as its inverse), we have to look at Hirschman’s work on democracy in the eighties and nineties (and then, perhaps, look back). 9 – As a matter of fact—as we shall see later on—if we retrace in our memory some of the steps in Albert Hirschman’s work on democracy that Nicoletta Stame and I encountered first hand, we can say in brief that: • democracy rests on a fragile and delicate rationale, initially unintended, that has been centuries in the making. It arose from the clash between two factions (“one armed group against the other”) without generating either winners or losers—up to the point of establishing constitutional rules within

49 Such as “Follow Events in France and Italy” (Hirschman 194648: cf. Long is the Journey… n. 4 in www.colornihirschman.org).

51 Hirschman, Geertz and Cardoso 1976, p. 32.

50 Meldolesi 2013, Chap. 3.

52 Hirschman 1958 and 1963.

Democracy and Development. Some Hirschmanian investigations and observations

DOSSIER N 6 - SPRING 2022

which it could reproduce and evolve.53 This is another reason it has difficulty becoming as lubricated and flexible as it should be for better results. • This is the source of the mutual preconceptions that impede an honest discussion among the parties involved of the problems to be addressed, as well as of the reactionary rhetoric that gets in the way of democracy.54 This is happening today. Sometimes we refuse even to listen to what this or that politician is saying on TV because we already know. We know that we won’t learn a thing from their (more or less) catchy propaganda. In fact, politicians regularly strive to find the eyecatching formula that will create an immediate consensus—regardless of whether there is any truth in what they are saying. The wise listener will guard against the bias and rhetoric, perhaps developing a case of “wax in the ears.” • And yet, luckily, this is not the end of the story. Beaten and kicked this way and that, shared opinions emerge in society and in Parliaments which, in spite of the tortuous paths they must often travel, manage to turn into facts. Sudden shifts in opinion can also occur, as was the case on March 3, 2020— Super Tuesday of the Democratic primaries in the United States. It was a beautiful display of democratic deliberation.… • More to the point, the primary process itself can seem exhausting and even irrational (as reflected in some of the letters to the New York Times at the time I was writing these words).

And in some ways it is, without doubt. But it is more than balanced by the people’s (and not only the politicians’)55 need to gradually build an opinion that isn’t “pre-cooked,” to overcome prejudice and assorted rhetoric in weighing up the different candidates, and letting different groups of voters (in the different states) express themselves. In fact, the complexity of the decision-making process requires that it not be predetermined. It has to be shaped along the way—a work always in progress.56 • At the same time a similar line of reasoning can be applied to the decision-making process in the case of daily issues. Little by little it becomes clear over time what the citizens expect in the face of any sort of crisis or conflict. And the very fact that people can express themselves in the face of the most diverse events and that the problems they care most about are addressed and get some kind of response, even if partial, is a decisive aspect of the functioning of democracy (as opposed to dictatorship) because it leaves behind a precious trail of consensus, integration and institutional legitimacy.57 • This in the end creates a problem within a problem. The positive consequences just cited are indirect and hard for the citizen to 55 Manin 1987.

53 Crick 1964, Rustow 1970.

56 In the sense that (to put it appropriately in Neapolitan) a processione s’acconcia inta via [a procession creates itself along the way]. Actually, even in the American primaries someone who wants to vote has to register, expressing a desire to vote before being able to actually do it. This is very different from the Italian electoral process, and it seems completely unreasonable. Few understand, in fact, that it also has an important positive aspect, because it puts a value on the deliberative process of the voters.

54 Hirschman 1991; 1995, Chaps. 2 and 4.

57 Hirschman 1994a; now in 1995, Ch. 20.

Democracy and Development. Some Hirschmanian investigations and observations

see, and at the same time the deliberative process can appear inconclusive and annoying—done on purpose to comply with the requirements of those who manage it, rather than being intelligently administered in the public interest. • This is an observation that helps provide a better understanding of the overall performance of institutional systems. On one hand, a strongman can come to power by democratic means and then exploit popular dissatisfaction to become an autocrat or even a dictator. On the other, the suppression of freedom and the repressive rigidity of dictatorships is such a figure’s weakness. It is a sort of pressure cooker (or time bomb) that sooner or later may explode. • But the superiority of democracies can be concretely shown in the results achieved. Improving the way they work was undoubtedly a goal for Albert Hirschman. This not least because he certainly had not forgotten the lessons of Europe’s past. And because in Latin America and elsewhere (Eastern Europe included) there are countries that alternate the two solutions. Consolidating our democracies by applying any strategy (political, institutional, economic, cultural) that will make them work better took on great importance at the time (and still has it today) for the world-wide political and economic battle. If we graft all this onto Hirschman’s original Colombian project it becomes clear that the art of the possible is expressed in the ability to deal effectively with the problems presented in crises and daily conflicts by getting the political-admini-

strative apparatus to work and by allowing citizens to gradually elevate their leadership role in this process (empowerment). This gives rise to a democracy-development relationship that completes its own inverse, opening the way to interactive study between involving both aspects, which (obviously) cannot be separated by a Chinese wall. ***

How governments behave 10 – This is all very well, the reader will be thinking, but how can this interactive way of looking at things—from democracy to development, that is, and not just from development to democracy— be consolidated? For want of anything better, my answer is—with practice. Because “repetition helps.” Because, alongside the line of thinking outlined so far, other strands, other pieces of the puzzle can also be found in the body of Albert’s work. One of them that seemed particularly promising to me (because it penetrates deeply into the medias res), I intend to gradually “disentangle” below. The social sciences often separate the inseparable—economics from politics, for example, or private interest from public. In general, Hirschman avoids this tendency because, in order to delimit the field of his work, he in each case “cuts” analysis and policy to fit his own specific intentions, independent (to a large extent) from the dictates of the relative disciplines.58 But the reader, however trained (in economics, political science, sociology, etc.), will in any case tend to follow spontaneously the familiar and more interesting aspects of the argument. These will 58 Even Albert, however, occasionally “slipped back” into such subdivisions as he did in Shifting Involvements (1982), which then required the self-subversion offered in a beautiful “Simmelian” farewell essay (1998, Chap. 1).

DOSSIER N 6 - SPRING 2022

then be a basis for accessing the others. In this way, as an economist, I have often found myself following Hirschman’s Colombian trail, which privileges economics (relatively speaking) before proceeding into politics. Therefore, to correct this tendency, I would now like to explore the opposite path. It is a known fact that at the origin of the books conceived (initially) in Bogotà—The Strategy and Journeys—there are two articles, “Economics and Investment Planning: Reflections Based on the Experience in Colombia” and “Economic Policy in Underdeveloped Countries.” The first was written in 1954 for a conference at MIT, and the second in 1956, immediately after Hirschman’s permanent return to the United States. To invert the economics-politics sequence I spoke about it is necessary to deal first with the second of these. “Little attention,” declares Hirschman at the start of this article,59 “appears to have been given by economists and other social scientists to any analysis, systematic or casual, of the behavior of governments of underdeveloped countries as revealed by their economic decisions over a period of time,” as if the study of such behavior did not hold any real analytical interest. It is instead clear, he goes on to say, that considering the significant role of such countries’ governments in the development process, that government behavior should be analyzed with the same attention as that usually reserved for the motivations and conduct of entrepreneurs.

ted him to address this issue. “In fact,” he continued, “in the absence of more knowledge about probable actions and reactions of governments, our best-intentioned technical assistance efforts are liable to fail. This conclusion is inescapable.” At first, as he explained, the experts “are likely to think that the principal problem they are going to be confronted with will be that of determining what ought to be done […]. But soon they realize that […] by far the largest portion of their time is devoted to energy-consuming and often frustrating efforts to put their ideas and proposals across.” His point referred in particular to the important group of relatively underdeveloped countries whose economies had shown significant improvement. Yet it could also be read, in my view, in a more general sense, a bit like a stage whisper that everyone can hear. I mean to say that it seems possible to apply it to areas of the world that today we call “middle income,” but which continue to have serious problems with development—including, of course, the Italian Mezzogiorno.60 “In such countries,” added Albert, “a few obviously useful investment projects are always at hand; some monetary and fiscal reforms usually cry out to be taken; certain changes in the institutional and administrative structure would no doubt further stimulate development.” Deja vu— heard it all before, haven’t we? The problem is that these measures are then not adopted, or in the process of considering them, they are mangled.…

11 – Clearly, Albert was alluding here to his Colombian experience as economic advisor to the government in 1952-54 (which was followed by a period as business consultant, 1954-56). It was the work of foreign mission experts that promp-

12 – This is a difficult knot to untangle because its causes don’t appear in the official reports— they concern passions, weaknesses and frustrations that the experts, when they return home,

59 Hirschman 1957; now in 1971, p. 255 and ff.

60 And this is in fact my intention—so that I can compare (however indirectly) Albert’s reasoning to my own experience as a government advisor (local and national).

Democracy and Development. Some Hirschmanian investigations and observations

DOSSIER N 6 - SPRING 2022

have in any case no desire to dig back up. “It seems to them that they were facing fortuitous circumstances which do not lend themselves to any kind of generalized analysis. “Here,” Hirschman continues, “they could be mistaken. After all, underdeveloped countries and their governments may find themselves typically in situations which make likely the adoption of seemingly irrational economic policies. It is also conceivable that the emergence of oscillations and even of inconsistencies in such policies could be predicted with a fair degree of accuracy from a knowledge of their economic structure and problems.” To penetrate this largely unexplored public “inner sanctum,” Albert makes use of four examples: “Attitude toward National Development Programming,” “Understanding Recurring Inflation,” “Cycles in Foreign Exchange and Fiscal Policy,” and “Cycles in the Administration of Economic Development.” What interests us (primarily) are the conclusions he draws from them. 13 – In the first place, Hirschman argues, there is instability in the economic policies of these countries that has a variety of specific causes but nevertheless reflects certain general characteristics. “After all, their political structures themselves are unstable and ill-defined, the legitimacy of their government is often in doubt, and in general the powers of the state fail to be clearly bounded by custom or observed constitutional law.” To reduce the instability of the policies being followed, as I understand it, the democratic system must be consolidated at a social and institutional level— an objective that will not be fulfilled in the space of a morning. “Secondly, there is the desire to experiment and to manipulate.” Governments “are powerfully attracted by new gadgets in economic policy

making.” Indeed, based on my own experience I would go even further. Many politicians actually go looking for new ideas that can be directly sold to the public (independently of any validity they may have), just as they are ready to dismantle previous policies (if they glimpse a political advantage or a short-term cover up for some prank or unforeseen emergency) without worrying too much about what results they may have achieved. Of course, politicians also exist who want to understand what is going on and what the consequences might be of the choices they make—from the impact of the announcement up through the implementation of the policy in question. But even in that case, the person who has devised the proposal would do well to expect undesirable (explicit and implicit) constraints, either ad hoc or imposed ex-jure by the actual functioning of the political-administrative system, and as far as possible to prepare adequate counter-measures. Policy reversals that are too frequent, Albert explains, can lead to demoralization not only among the external experts61 (who, I would add, feel exploited),62 “but – and this is far more serious – among the country’s policy-makers and the general public. An impression of unpredictability and of lack of purpose is created which may even be damaging to economic progress itself. A rift develops between the business community which acquires the feeling that it is the only real creator 61 Perhaps for reasons of prudence, Hirschman avoids going into his own experience here—in Colombia—just as in the case of his earlier experience with the Marshall Plan, which he would instead go on to discuss later (1984a). 62 I was reminded of my disappointment as an advisor to the Italian Minister of Defense when I realized that the best proposals I had put forward together with the Minister’s military advisor at the time, Gen. Luigi Caligaris (and which would have led to important progress in terms of effectiveness and efficiency of public spending in this sector) had ended up in a drawer... I thought, of course, that the job wasn’t for me. In reality, I had run up against the big problem of public policy implementation, which up to that point, I had not managed to “bring into focus” sufficiently in my mind.

Democracy and Development. Some Hirschmanian investigations and observations

of wealth in the country and the government with its bungling and erratic policies.”63 “Much is therefore to be said,” Hirschman concludes, “for trying to make government policies more stable.” But the analysis shows that this cannot be achieved with a once-and-for-all reform or program, because these countries will not accept wearing any sort of “Nessus shirt.” “The money doctor who prescribes a uniform financial diet or the economic advisor who lays down a rigid investment pattern may be obeyed for a while, but soon he becomes a father image that must be destroyed.” On the other hand, however, “account must be taken of the propensity to change and to experiment so that, when it is indulged in, it does not come as a revolt against intolerable restraints, but as an action that is foreseen as well as regulated.” 14 – “Admittedly,” he had written four pages earlier, “there is nothing more exasperating and demoralizing than the spectacle often on display […] of half-finished structures in reinforced concrete that were intended to become government buildings, hospitals, stadiums etc. While the lack of planning and the arbitrary reversal of previously taken investment decisions that are responsible for these unsightly ‘modern ruins’ are deplorable, improvisation and experimentation must be recognized not only as irrepressible urges of governments, but also as a force which properly 63 Is it possible even on a small scale to minimize such dangerous “breaks in continuity” as a simple signal? This was one of the motivating factors behind my policy for the emergence of underground labor and businesses. I wanted to show the “café-au-lait” SMEs (black and white) an unprecedented public outreach on their behalf. Mindful of past experience (see previous note), I demanded a National Committee, a free hand, full time, and next to no money. It was an uphill battle setting such machinery in motion and fortunately it benefited from the enthusiasm of many young southern tutors, but after an initial surge, it could not escape the instability and the continuous need on the part of the political system for “marketable novelties”—until it was plundered and in the end, after eight years of hard and unsparing work... it was brutally suppressed.

directed, can be made to play a beneficial role in the development process.” In this way, Hirschman argues, by on one hand holding reasonable economic policies steady, and on the other indulging (up to a point) the inclination to experiment and improvise,64 it is possible to reduce such countries’ typical economic fluctuations even as learning increases along with confidence in what is being attempted. “Two conditions must therefore be fulfilled: first the institutional framework must be elastic and must regulate change rather than prescribe it; and second, home-grown experience must be accumulated, and made to yield a body of home-tested principles.” Of course, reading such affirmations one is reminded of the page from “A Dissenter’s Confession,” written more than a quarter-century later, where Hirschman recalls feeling attracted by what the Colombian technicians designed and how their proposals worked in practice.65 More generally, if we return to the specificity of the four examples (listed above at the end of sec. 12), we can already in this essay sense possibilism in its nascent state.66 In other words, what becomes clear at this point is the inspiration that in the end led Albert to Journeys. Because if the analysis of the behavior of governments has this level of complexity, this itself suggests that there is a need to identify over time proposals and ways out that are appropriate to that condition. 64 In the search, for example, for better ways to use a country’s natural resources, in the pursuit of higher rates of development in leading-edge sectors, in the detailed organization of the welfare state, in tapping into international investment flows, etc. 65 Which mirror those of “Follow Events in France and Italy” (see, above, n. 49 and www.colornihirschman.org) in which Albert made it clear that he had already used that method by hanging around the research office of the Bank of Italy. 66 For example, we know from The Strateg y that a prudent containment of inflation can promote growth, but here we also learn that at the same time it helps the government discourage a great many petitioners...

DOSSIER N 6 - SPRING 2022

Doing better than we did 15 – The art of politics and policy-making thus gains the upper hand. What counts is resourcefulness backed by skill and knowledge. This brings with it the major problem of how to bridge the gap between experts and politicians—that is, how to educate women and men to be able to move with agility on a double track that is both economic-administrative and administrative-political.67 Unfortunately this is still an open question which neither Albert nor myself, as experts, have been able to resolve—mainly because as external technical experts, we were predisposed toward proposals rather than exit routes. For this reason we had trouble reasoning in reverse—looking first of all, that is, for the “escape loophole” so that we could adapt to it what we were able to contribute. Thus it is not enough, as many believe, to make proposals aimed at a “breakthrough” in the political-administrative system. It is also essential to truly understand how things are and be able (Colornially) to master them—that is, to be able to break them down and put them back together in the public interest. This is a key issue that, willingly or unwillingly (and with or without knowing it), we old-timers have already passed into the hands of the next generation. Just to be clear—it isn’t enough to use your wits (and bend every effort) to achieve certain results, as I tried to do on many occasions (appealing to the law, professional dignity, the public interest, etc.), giving all the credit for any positive results to whatever politician I could get at the time to li-

67 I am referring of course to the internal staff who, unlike external experts, have the great advantage, when they are truly skillful (and lucky), to be able to build an adequate reputation over time, solid support for their work, and the smooth running of the administrative machine by their superiors (managers and politicians).

sten to the “cry of pain” from below.68 Because it is essential also to be able to work in reverse. It is essential, in other words, to create economic-political-cultural conditions that will favor the effective pursuit of the desired results. Here my own experience was much less unambiguous. It was spotty, and ultimately (I must admit)... disappointing. I think Albert also tried several times, cautiously, to follow that path (in the Marshall Plan, in Colombia, in US policy for Latin America).69 And he declared to me, finally, in his old age, that he had lost interest in consulting work…. 16 – What should we ask of the younger generations? To do better than we did. To help us gather and teach cases of consolidation, flexibility and institutional learning. To use their own words and deeds to invent a variety of new and worthwhile experiences. To create moments of reflection (and teaching) on politics and economics, to be combined with those of political economy. To put (for 68 And thus it is not enough—I tried it myself (cf. above, n. 62 and 63)—to be entrenched within the state so you can sell your skin at a high price. Instead, within the limits of decency, honesty and the law, you have to actually address the needs of the administration and of politics. You have to try and understand what they need and anticipate their conclusions, trying to be useful to them and perhaps offering artful stratagems—that is, help politicians be better so that they can be more successful, and not just the opposite (be successful, then make things better... eventually!). It is important to realize that politicians, even the best, even those who have been in the game forever, often struggle to navigate through a thousand pressures, gimmicks and temptations that sometimes, just a few steps ahead, can prove to be counterproductive. Many end up following well-beaten paths as in Hirschman’s examples, relying on prestige events, the “demo effect,” (today we would add visibility)—and at the same time banking on cheap popularity, taking control at any cost of their own financing, diluting (or canceling) “procurements” from others, establishing commissions and consultative institutes (instead of solving problems), shifting their own responsibilities onto elected bodies, etc. 69 It was only in the first case, when he was a young advisor, that he was successful in the development of intra-European payment arrangements and then in advocating an American policy that was pro-European—mainly because he had been able to support the State Department initiative in favor of this. But the (unwanted) consequence was then having to look for a new job... in Colombia.

Democracy and Development. Some Hirschmanian investigations and observations

once) the functioning of democracy (with all its difficulties) ahead of that of the economic system. And then, of course, it is essential to train “rebellious and competent”70 young politicians, supporting them over time to help them guide their own affairs, and re-evaluate the good name of democratic politics as currently practiced, thoroughly clarifying its enormous problems. At the end of Journeys, recalling the Risorgimento, Albert maintained that complex processes can call for different capabilities. But it seems to me, quite frankly, that our problem is mostly the opposite. With the exception of great personalities (and the demiurges of history do exist, for better or worse), advancement actually comes from the rank-and-file of politics and administration. It is they, first of all, who must learn to operate simultaneously, productively on several different levels… ***

A lesson in method 17 – On the other hand, there are in Albert’s body of work other important avenues for bringing into focus the question that interests us here. One of them suggests briefly reconstructing Hirschman’s intellectual and life history in connection with the essay just discussed. As we know, thanks to the interest of a group of teachers he had met during the Marshall Plan,71 Albert was 70 A formula invented by Hirschman himself to designate the scholars to be invited to a “Colloque” that he wanted to organize in Berlin with Wolf Lepenies but which regrettably, due to his health, he was unable to convene... 71 Like Henry Wallich, Robert Triffin and Tom Schelling. Schelling had been at the MIT conference where Albert had presented “Economics and Investments Planning” and had encouraged him in his work, in the end taking steps to facilitate his return (Adelman 2013, p. 331-32).

able to return to the U.S. as Visiting Professor at Yale.72 This was when he became interested in the essays on policy making that were being written at the time by Charles Lindblom, an Assistant Professor of political science, which were critical and unconventional with respect to current thinking at the time.73 The two authors, who had become friends, decided to write an unusual methodological article “for four hands,”74 intending to compare their points of view, “Economic Development, Research and Development, and Policy-Making.”75 Albert wrote the first section, the third was written by Ed (as Charles Ed Lindblom was familiarly known), and together they wrote the second, which concerned Klein and Meckling’s work in research and development. Finally, they added two sections on the points where their ideas corresponded and differed. What led them, we might ask, to follow such a peculiar procedure? Their original contributions differed (concerning professional background, research subject, main thesis and respective purposes76), but (like those of Klein and Meckling) they represented an alternative to current thinking. It 72 Thanks to a grant from the Ford Foundation (suggested by Tom Schelling) in support of the writing of The Strateg y, which was renewed by the Rockefeller Foundation for the following year – ibid., p. 332. 73 Lindblom 1958, 1958a, 1958b, 1959, 1961. 74 The essay was begun in New Haven and finished in Santa Monica at the RAND Corporation, where the two authors had moved to continue their research. 75 Hirschman and Lindblom 1962; now in Hirschman A Bias, cit., 1971. 76 Albert was an economist who was beginning to get into political science, intending to continue his work on Latin America. Ed, on the other hand, didn’t speak a word of Spanish (or Portuguese)—he was a political scientist who studied American policy-making. The Strateg y focused on the mobilization of capacities and resources that existed in loco—in a particular situation. Lindblom’s articles instead addressed the complexities of policy-making in general. (Finally, I would be inclined to speculate that his reading of these articles gave Albert a foretaste of the change in his research interests that we will refer to below, which would be manifested in Exit – 1970).

DOSSIER N 6 - SPRING 2022

Democracy and Development. Some Hirschmanian investigations and observations

was thus possible to connect them regarding this second aspect. And in fact, the essay maintains that these “independent lines of work appear to challenge in remarkably similar ways some widely accepted generalizations about what is variously described in the literature as the process of problem solving and decision making.”77 This is a proposition that here also interests us in reverse. That is to say, the very similar way the three essays proceed, as opposed to the standard one, comes from their independent lines of production, which show, ipso facto, the possibility of making a gradual generalization of the peculiar way of approaching research that distinguishes them. For the reasons (Colornian) outlined at the beginning, it is advisable to be aware first of all of what we are dealing with. 18 – And so we move to the text. The first section, “Hirschman on Economic Development” sets out the author’s well known argument in favor of “unbalanced growth.”78 This was obviously the main “casus belli” provoked by the publication of The Strategy79—so that it was taken up again and discussed here as well, in order to compare it with the “production lines” headed up respectively by Lindblom and by Klein and Meckling. “When in the pursuit of quite different subject matters,” the essay’s introduction begins,80 “a group of social scientists independently of each other appear to converge in a somewhat unorthodox view of certain social phenomena, investigation is in order.” 77 Hirschman and Lindblom 1962; now in Hirschman A Bias cit. 1971, p. 63. 78 In a more complete form than the summary treatment it received in the preface to the paperback edition of The Strateg y: Hirschman 1961, in 1964, p. viii. 79 I myself, in my younger days, had to deal with this topic in a supervision (oral and written) with Joan Robinson at Cambridge UK. 80 Hirschman and Lindblom 1962; now in Hirschman A Bias cit., 1971, p. 63.

In order to ascertain, that is, the validity of this somewhat heretical point of view. A second section follows, “Klein and Meckling on Research and Development,” concerning the study they had led for a number of years on “military experience with alternative research and development policies for weapons systems,”81 an investigation that Hirschman and Lindblom had probably come across in Santa Monica at the RAND Corporaton (known to specialize in consulting for the U.S. Air Force). Klein an Meckling, we read,82 “argue against too strenuous attempts at integrating various sub-systems into a well-articulated, harmonious, general system; they rather advocate the full exploitation of fruitful ideas regardless of their ‘fit’ to some preconceived pattern of specifications.”83 This is an approach (we cannot present it in full here) that the two authors ultimately propose should be applied to productive systems whose “individual components can be independently worked at and perfected. Here also Klein and Meckling advocate full articulation of the components, even though this may mean uneven advances in their development and disregard for their overall integration into the system at an early stage.”84 There follows a brief, compact presentation of “Lindblom on Policy Making.” This author’s writings “aspire to fairly large-scale generalizations 81 Ibid, p. 66. 82 Ibid, p. 66-7. 83 One reason concerns the possibility that the development of one aspect “naturally” leads to the acquisition of another. “To be sure,” adds a pen that is probably Hirschman’s (ibid, p. 68), “to assume that this will inevitably happen would require that one places his faith in some basic harmonies, similar to the Greek belief that the truly beautiful will possess moral excellence as well.” And in a note he points out that such an assumption “may be foolish, but it certainly helps us in making crucial decisions such as choosing a wife or a profession.” But not a husband? Would such a male (not to say sexist) point of view pass muster today with #me-too? 84 Ibid, p. 69.

DOSSIER N 6 - SPRING 2022

[…]; while the point of departure of Hirschman and Klein and Meckling are two widely different, but still very specific, problem solving contexts.” It would seem at first glance that such a mismatch would create problems. Yet the conclusion is the opposite. “The differences among the studies in this respect make the convergences all the more noteworthy.”85 Music, of course, to the ears of anyone interested in the increasingly generalizable application of this point of view… “Conventional descriptions of rational decision making,” the text continues,86 “identify the following aspects: (1) clarification of objectives and values, (2) survey of alternative means of reaching objectives, (3) identification of consequences, including side-effects or byproducts, of each alternative means, (4) evaluation of each set of consequences in light of the objectives. However, Lindblom notes, for a number of reasons such a synoptic or comprehensive attempt at problem solving is not possible to the degree that clarification of objective founders on social conflict, that required information is either not available or available only at prohibitive cost, or that the problem is simply too complex for men’s finite intellectual capacity. Its complexity may stem from an impossibly large number of alternative policies and their possible repercussions from imponderables in the delineation of objectives even in the absence of social disagreement on them, from a supply of information too large to process in the mind87, or from still other causes.” Very useful and often familiar problem-solving strategies thus exist which Lindblom calls 85 Ibid, p. 70. 86 Ibid, p. 70-1. 87 In the digital age of “big data,” this aspect might be surmountable. However, the problem of “weighting” the information remains. By strokes of the algorithm?

“disjointed incrementalism,” which do not follow the synoptic scheme mentioned above (or follow it only in part). “The most striking characteristic” of this perspective, the essay explains,88 is that “no attempt at comprehensiveness is made; on the contrary, unquestionably important consequences of alternative policies are simply ignored at any given analytical or policy-making point. But Lindblom goes on to argue that through various specific types of partisan mutual adjustment among the large number of individuals and groups among which analysis and policy making is fragmented […], what is ignored at one point […] becomes central at another point. Hence, it will often be possible to find a tolerable level of rationality in decision making when the process is viewed as a whole […]. Similarly, errors that would attend overambitious attempts at comprehensive understanding are often avoided by the remedial and incremental character of problem solving. And those not avoided can be mopped up or be attended to as they appear, because analysis and policy making are serial or successive.” 19 – Between the lines then, we glimpse the (Colornian-Hirschmanian) polemic against systems. Against ways of thinking, that is, that discount any aspect of reality that doesn’t slot into their required compact consistency. The process these authors follow is exactly the opposite. It delimits the features that it intends to include, studies them in depth and develops them, in the full knowledge that other features also exist to which attention can be directed in the future. In this way the analysis is never enclosed in an actual total system that has to be accepted or rejected as such. Indeed, the work can always be reconsidered and 88 Hirschman and Lindblom 1962; now in Hirschman A Bias cit., 1971, p. 72.

Democracy and Development. Some Hirschmanian investigations and observations

perhaps emended, modified and/or developed in some way that the passage of time ends up bringing to light. The key point, in any case is the effective increase in knowledge... So let us turn to the first convergence in the three works, between “Hirschman on Economic Development,” (on one side) and “Klein and Meckling on Research and Development” (on the other). “A [weapons] ‘system’ or economy,” we read, “is never quite finished89. Today’s system or economy-in-balance is likely to turn into tomorrow’s subsystem or economy-out-of-balance, because of unforeseeable repercussions, newly emerging difficulties, unanticipated counterstrategies, changing tastes or techniques, or whatever other forces with which the system or economy has to deal”. None of these could have been seen in advance.90 “Once it is understood,” the argument continues, “that a system is never complete or will never stay complete, the case against spending considerable efforts on early integration and simultaneous development of subsystems is further strengthened. For if we do achieve early integration and simultaneity, we are much more likely to succumb to the illusion that our system is actually complete in itself and needs no further completeness and watchfulness than we had built it up as a result of seesaw advances and adjustments which do not provide for a natural resting place.”91 89 It is an important point illustrated by a tragic example: “The existence of the Maginot line along the French-German border failed to call forth a corresponding effort along the Belgian frontier to guard against the possibility of a German strategy aimed at circumventing the line”. (Ibid, p. 73). 90 An example follows that today (in the time of Covid) seems to us far-sighted: “The new system of defense against infections through antibiotics is suddenly ‘out-of-balance’ because of the development of new varieties of drug-resistant microorganisms.” (Ibid, p. 74). 91 Plainly, the anti-system teachings of Eugenio Colorni permeate this passage. “There may be cases,” the essay adds (ibid, p. 74-5, n. 8) “where we cannot afford to do our learning about the imperfections and imbalances of a system through the failures, irritations, and discomforts that are the natural concomitants and signals of the imba-

“As another specific illustration of convergence,” the essay continues, “consider the sequence of moves in problem solving as described, on the one hand, in development terms by Hirschman, Klein and Meckling, on the other hand, in political terms by Lindblom.” Lindblom in fact argues that “individuals often agree on policies when they cannot agree on ends. […] Furthermore, it is possible, and even likely that the value system of the two parties will move more closely together once an advance that is tolerable to both has been achieved. […] Lindblom emphasizes the limited supply of knowledge and the limited area of agreement that exist among the various power-holders, and visualizes a series of sequential adjustments as a way to maximize positive action in a society where ignorance, uncertainty and conflict preclude not only the identification, but even the existence of any ‘best move.’”92 20 – It is here that the twelve methodological points of convergence emerge: “I. The most obvious similarity is that all insist on the rationality and the usefulness of certain processes and modes of behavior which are ordinarily considered to be irrational, wasteful, and generally abominable. II. The three approaches thus have in common an attack on such well-established values as orderliness […], balance, and detailed programming […]. lance. […] Here the temptation is particularly strong to prepare in advance a perfect theoretical solution.[…] One way of dealing with situations in which we feel we cannot afford to learn ‘the hard way’ is to develop institutions whose special mission it is to be alert to and to detect existing and developing system imbalances: in a democracy, some institutions of this kind are a free press and an opposition party.” 92 Ibid, p. 74-6.

DOSSIER N 6 - SPRING 2022

III. They all agree that one step ought often to be left to lead to another and that it is unwise to specify objectives in some detail when the means of attaining them are virtually unknown. IV. All agree further that in rational problem solving, goals will change not only in detail but in a more fundamental sense through experience with a succession of means-ends and ends-means adjustments. V. All agree that in an important sense a rational problem solver wants what he can get and does not try to get what he wants except after identifying what he wants by examining what he can get. VI. There is also agreement that the exploration of alternative uses of resources can be overdone, and that the attempts at introducing explicitly certain maximizing techniques […] will be ineffective and quite possibly harmful in certain situations. […]. VII. One reason for this is the following: for successful problem solving, all agree it is most important that arrangements exist through which decision makers are sensitized and react promptly to newly emerging problems, imbalances, and difficulties; this essential ability to react and to improvise readily and imaginatively can be stultified by an undue preoccupation with […] ‘integrated planning’.

IX.Thus we have here theories of successive decision-making; denying the possibility of determining the sequence ex ante, relying on the clues that appear in the course of the sequence, and concentrating on the identification of the clues. X. All count on the usefulness for problem solving of subtle social processes not necessarily consciously directed at an identified social problem. Processes of mutual adjustment of participants are capable of achieving a kind of coordination not necessarily centrally envisaged prior to its achievement, or centrally managed. XI. At least Hirschman and Lindblom see in political adjustment and strife analogues to self-interested and yet socially useful adjustment in the market. XII. “All question such values as ‘foresight,’ ‘central direction,’ ‘integrated overview,’ but not in order to advocate laissez faire or to inveigh against expanded activities of the state. […] They are in fact typically concerned with decision-making and problem-solving activities carried out by the state. In their positive aspects they describe how these activities are ‘really’ taking place as compared to commonly held images; and in so far as they are normative they advocate a modification of those images, in the belief that a clearer appreciation and perception of institutions and attitudes helpful to problem-solving activities will result.”93

VIII. Similarly, attempts at foresight can be misplaced; they will often result in complicating the problem through mistaken diagnoses and ideologies. […] 93 Ibid., p. 76-8. These are followed, finally, by the differences: p. 78-84.

Democracy and Development. Some Hirschmanian investigations and observations

Further generalizations 21 – Comparing Albert and Ed’s twelve points with the “Colornian decalogue” set out at the beginning will give an idea of what I intend to convey. In fact, working creatively in this vein with respect to economics and the social sciences in general, Hirschman had by then launched, with The Strategy, a methodology suited to overcoming “the difficulty of mobilizing potentially available resources and decision-making activity itself; the inadequacy of incentives to problem solving or, conversely, the need for inducements to decision making” in a context of relative underdevelopment.94 He had also shown that there were analogous ways of proceeding in other areas, such as “Research and Development” and “Policy Making” in the United States. Albert was certainly not ideologically averse to planning per se95 (as shown in “Economics and Investment Planning: Reflections Based on the Experience in Colombia”96). In fact, in the preface 94 Ibid., p. 79. 95 See, for instance, his “France and Italy: Patterns of Reconstruction” (1947a), where he writes that “in spite of difficulties and possible departures from original schedules, the Monnet Plan will leave its mark on the economic structure of France and of Europe.” That is to say, no misunderstanding is possible. (“The Plan,” Hirschman explained in the same article, “is the result of a cooperative effort on the part of French Government, industry, and labor. It does not detail a rigid program for every branch of economic activity for the next four years, but rather sets goals for such aggregate magnitudes as national income, investment, labor force, and required foreign aid. It provides specifically, however, for considerable expansion and modernization of the French internal transportation system and of five fundamental branches of French industry. In these industries it is planned to attain by 1950 the following percentage increases in production over 1938: coal, 37; electricity, 79; steel, 77; cement, 255; and agricultural machinery, 371 per cent.” It is clear, moreover, that he was also grateful to Jean Monnet for his help in planning the American economy during the Second World War military effort. Actually, he suggested to me, personally, that I should read Jean Monnet’s Mémoires, 1976). 96 Hirschman 1954, now in Hirschman A Bias cit., 1971, Ch. 1. On this subject it is sufficient to browse the titles of the sections of this well known article (which can be usefully read as an introduction to The Strateg y): “The Value of Aggregate Analysis,” “The Myth of Integra-

to the 1961 paper bound edition of The Strategy,97 he had written, “My book has not turned into grist for the mill of those who are hostile to development planning. It was, of course, never meant to be that; rather my hope was and is that it will contribute to making planning and programming activities more effective.” And it is precisely concerning this last point that he found himself at loggerheads first with his doctrinaire colleagues from the Marshall Plan, then with the World Bank and with so-called “visiting economists.”98 Observing all this from a Colornian point of view, one cannot fail to note that it led to a rejection of the imposition of anthropomorphic ideas on the concrete reality of things, and to an unlocking of scientific thinking on the matter that resulted in the acquisition of new knowledge that could be used to achieve important advances in public policy. 22 – At the same time, the publication of The Strategy had by now assured Albert a considerable celebrity, both in academic99 and political ted Development Planning,” “The Meaning of ‘Poor’ and of ‘Good’ Performance,” “Overall vs. Sector Planning,” “Biases in the Determination of High-Priority Areas,” “The Contribution of the Economist to Specific Investment Planning”; “The Criterion of Capital Extensiveness”; “Investment Criteria Derived from Some Characteristics of Underdeveloped Economies,” “Defective Maintenance,” and “The impact of Secondary on Primary Production.” 97 Hirschman 1961c, p. vii. 98 Hirschman explained that to help improve the effectiveness of planning, he had to revolt “against a Colombian assignment,” and that that recollection took him back to his Marshall Plan struggle against old and new economic orthodoxies. More specifically, he felt “a natural concern and aversion when Marshall Plan administrators were aggressively pressing their views about appropriate domestic programs and policies upon countries such as Italy that were large scale beneficiaries of aid” in 1984a (now 1986a, p. 7). Moreover, in the 1987 preface to Potenza nazionale he declared that: “above all I worked hard to undermine the certainties of my colleagues (whether pro-market or pro-planning), many of whom saw no harm in using the fullest extent of their power in the service of their opinions and beliefs.” 99 “It is my continuing regret,” Albert wrote (1961c, p. viii), “that I

DOSSIER N 6 - SPRING 2022

circles (while the Cuban revolution had just turned U.S. attention toward Latin America). The Twentieth Century Fund asked Hirschman to coordinate a think tank on the subject, for which he wrote “Ideologies of Economic Development in Latin America” and “Abrazo vs. Coexistence.”100 In addition, with the help of Lindblom and Hirschman’s wife Sarah, he set to work on another important project, which would lead to Journeys toward Progress: Studies on Economic Policy-Making in Latin America. “In planning the present study,” he began in his “Acknowledgments,” “it became clear to me that I would be setting out on a hazardous expedition into the vast no man’s land stretching between economics and other social sciences such as political science, sociology and history. I therefore asked Charles E. Lindblom of Yale University […] to assist me with his counsel and criticism.”101 The author’s intentions are thus clear at the outset. In Journeys, the process of generalizing his own point of view would not take the route just discussed—that of comparison with what was not able to discuss the completed book with the late Ragnar Nurkse whose writings on balanced growth had played the crucial role of adversary-helper in giving shape to my thinking.” Hirschman, as we know, was invited by Columbia University to fill in for Nurkse, who was “on leave” at Princeton’s Institute for Advanced Study, and later succeeded him after Nurkse’s sudden demise. 100 Hirschman 1961a and 1961b. 101 “This he has done,” Albert continued (1963, p. ix), “as a consultant to the project, with selfless zest and uncanny perceptiveness and I have drawn freely on the wealth of ideas and suggestions with which he supplied me. […] Yet Professor Lindblom is not to be held responsible for any of my statements. He has disagreed with many of them, but in these cases his willingness to do so patiently and articulately has also been invaluable to me.” In this work, obviously, his differences with Lindblom had in the end come out. “What Ed wanted,” according to Adelman (2013, p. 359), “was less storytelling […] and rather a strong opening set of conceptual chapters, with subsequent portrait chapters, followed again by systematic comparison and analysis.” Hirschman was an economist traveling towards less “theoretical” (and theoretized) social sciences; Lindblom was in some ways following a reverse journey. Am I wrong in seeing in this a certain reflection of the respective approaches of the two authors?

had emerged from other research experiences. It would be developed from within, through “a hazardous expedition” which, starting with economics, would move toward political science, sociology, and history. It was a new path, anticipated in a certain sense by the 1955 article discussed above (sec. 10-14), which prefigured a characteristic that would become typical of Hirschman—that of “trespassing,” of “crossing boundaries” (in due time and with good reason) among different themes and disciplines. 23 – As Albert wrote in the introduction to Journeys,102 “the feeling that ebbs and tides of decision-making play a considerable role at all stages of development had led me earlier to investigate a variety of mechanisms (imbalances, linkages and the like) which make for the tides, i.e. which squeeze out extra doses of entrepreneurial and managerial decision-making in the course of the development process. This leading theme of my previous book was by no means limited to private decision-making. The assertion was made that nonmarket forces […] are not necessarily or intrinsically less automatic than the responses of private entrepreneurs.”103 “The desire to document this assertion,” Hirschman added, “leads directly to the principal concern of this book, namely, to the investigation of the behavior of public decision-makers in problem-solving situations.” “Our enquiry,” he 102 Hirschman 1963, p. 3-4. 103 Hirschman 1958, p. 63-5, and 143. And it is precisely in this spirit of The Strategy that Journeys should be read and, looking back, it is in the same spirit that the (theoretical-phenomenological) observations on democracy and development that we had anticipated (cf. above, sec. 9) ought to be reconsidered. This is a key aspect of the entire question, in the sense that by this means Hirschman steered clear of siding either with the “pro-market” economists or with those who were “pro-state” (regardless)—for the simple reason that he always fought to improve the performance of economics and politics (of both the market and the state). And thus “for a better world.”

DOSSIER N 6 - SPRING 2022

explained, “takes the existing political framework with its defects for granted and explores whether and how the weight and urgency of certain economic policy problems can nevertheless lead to constructive action. Our basic working hypothesis must be that, within rather broad limits, the existence of defects in political structure does not constitute an absolute impediment to progress in dealing with economic policy problems; by the same token, it is likely that problem-solving will under these conditions follow quite unfamiliar paths whose possible efficiency and hidden rationalities we must try to appreciate”104. In Hirschman’s able hands this common thread thus leads to the exploration of “Three Problems in Three Countries” [“Brazil’s Northeast,” “Land Use and Land Reform in Colombia,” and “Inflation in Chile”] and then “Problem Solving and Reformmongering” [“Problem-Solving and Policy-Making: a Latin American Style?” and “The Contriving of Reform”105]—basic texts in his conception of “possibilism,”106 which Hirschman theorized later on in his noted introduction to A Bias.107 Having embarked on this path, Albert Hirschman would never, throughout his long working life, cease building his small theoretical “castles,” and getting to the bottom of his concrete observations, on one hand by means of cautious genera104 Hirschman 1963, p. 4 and 5. 105 These chapters are accompanied by two digressions,“The Semantics of Problem-Solving” (a delightful and illuminating text) and “Models of Reformmongering.” This last digression (so to speak!) represents, in reality, a sort of true and proper theoretical appendix, conducted following formal logic, and very interesting from the methodological point of view. Indeed, once he has carried out his direct and indirect research (to the point of inductively drawing out its lessons), Hirschman does not shy away from turning the hourglass upside down—analytically deducing every possible consequence, in the manner of Einstein, from his own research. 106 Hirschman 1971. 107 Also taken up and developed creatively along Colornian lines: Colorni 2017 and Meldolesi 2017.

lizations, and on the other through “transfers” of research subjects, goals, and/or disciplines. In fact, it is possible to follow these developments phase by phase, possibly equipped with the two anthologies that I edited under his supervision, Come complicare l’economia and Come far passare le riforme108 [How to complicate economics and How reforms should be passed]—and trying case by case to acquire a different angle from which to view his work (such as that of democracy-development rather than vice versa, as I have tried to show in this essay). In this way we can pursue (and perhaps progressively unravel) Hirschman’s applied methodology. Consider the miniature jewel on development issues that is Development Projects Observed—not to mention Exit, Voice, and Loyalty, Hirschman’s best known monograph, which ushers in a new phase of gradually freer generalization in his thinking that leads to The Passions and the Interests,109 Shifting Involvements, and The Rhetoric of Reaction.110 All this allows us, therefore, to glimpse the possible application of Colornian-Hirschmanian methodologies in the elaboration of the social sciences in general (to be set alongside their use in the humanities and natural sciences as initiated by Eugenio Colorni). It is an important hypothetical landfall worth investigating thoroughly. For this reason, by way of illustration, let me finally focus attention on Hirschman’s last monograph— the one I had the opportunity to see gradually take shape from close up. 108 Hirschman 1988 and 1990a. I have recently edited these books for publication in English for students and young researchers throughout the world—so as to promote the teaching of Hirschman’s vast body of work (possibly alongside Meldolesi 1995 and Adelman 2013). 109 An extraordinary book that even in its title “reverses the [traditional] order of the terms,” placing passions ahead of interests rather than vice versa. 110 Hirschman 1967, 1970, 1977, 1982, 1991.

Democracy and Development. Some Hirschmanian investigations and observations

“Finally, a manifesto!”111 24 – “A tract – properly learned and scholarly, but still a tract – against the then aggressive and would-be triumphant neo-conservative positions on social and economic policy making”—as Hirschman later referred to The Rhetoric of Reaction.112 And yet the fact that he used the term “manifesto” in the inscription of the copy of the book that he presented to Nicoletta Stame and me in July 1991113 says a lot, in my opinion, about the book’s significance. This for at least three reasons. First, there is the inevitable analogy with Altiero Spinelli and Ernesto Rossi’s pathbreaking Ventotene Manifesto, which Eugenio Colorni had published with his illuminating introduction on 22 January 1944114. Then too, because of the obvious political importance that Albert, in his dedication to Nicoletta and myself (two lifelong teachers and activists), 111 Initially written for the Fourth Conference on Albert Hirschman’s Legacy (to be held in Bogotà, Colombia) which— for obvious reasons—had to be postponed, the following text was published in June 2020 by Revista Cultura Ecònomica as a sort of preview. 112 Hirschman 1995, p. 46. As was often the case with Hirschman’s most innovative books, the intellectual “trail” that The Rhetoric followed was (sometimes) as important as the text. To explain himself (and thus offer a number of additional clarifications—a sort of “authentic interpretation” of some key points), Hirschman therefore published in 1993 “The Rhetoric of Reaction – Two Years Later” (1993b) (subsequently included, as chapter 2, in the collection A Propensity to Self-Subversion – 1995, which I will refer to below). To justify this fine-tuning, Albert then resorted to an amusing stratagem, allowing that one of the reasons for returning to his book might be that the author “suffers from an acute case of what the French call esprit de l’escalier—thinking of the brilliant remarks one might have made during the conversation only as one walks down the stairs after leaving the party.” 113 “Finally, a manifesto!” was in fact Albert’s dedication “To Luca and Nicoletta” (in Italian). The idea of considering the book a manifesto probably came from an editorial in the “Nouvel Observateur” of 25 April 1991 written by Jean Daniel which, referred to The Rhetoric, as an “anti-neo-conservative manifesto.” (Hirschman 1995, p. 57). 114 Spinelli and Rossi 1944: now 1981; Colorni 1944: now in 2017.

attributed to The Rhetoric. And finally, because Nicoletta and I – he might have thought – could subsequently try and put the book to some use. Understandably, having (unwittingly) passed through McCarthyism115, Hirschman had always been somewhat evasive (not to say reticent) about his past116—to the extent that in general, the political effects of his writings often appeared implicit. They were very much there—only “under the radar.” But in the eighties his attitude slowly changed. Primarily written between 1985 and 1989, The Rhetoric reflected the concern of Hirschman and his friends117 for the growing neo-conservative criticism of social security and the welfare state. “What is more,” he added later, “I was intensely unhappy about the direction my country [the U.S.] seemed to be taking. The sense of danger and feeling of anger over the neoconservative offensive probably accounts for the tone of the first five chapters of the book. They were written in a 115 Even though he had arrived in the United States late in 1940, enlisted in the American armed forces in 1942 and become an American citizen, it is likely that Hirschman “guessed” that the FBI had opened a file on him (Adelman J. 2013, Ch. 9: see par. 1 and n. 6 above). He also knew that Eugenio Curiel (once a friend of Eugenio Colorni’s), in his effusive deposition to the Fascist police, had accused him of being a Trotskyite—a baseless claim which, however, would have interested the American intelligence authorities (as well as being rather dangerous to say the least… among the communists). 116 As is known, he spoke of his involvement with the Marshall Plan as a prelude to his extended interest in development economics only in his well-known 1984a essay “A Dissenter’s Confession.” Subsequently, he lifted the veil on his life before and during the Second World War in a series of brief texts, often written on the occasion of his receiving honorary degrees, and then (partially) collected in A Propensity to Self-Subversion – 1995 (Moreover, the cover of this book shows the false identity card in the name Herman Albert that he managed to obtain from a family friend after the 1940 defeat of the French army [in which he had enlisted]—a peculiar and inspired event that has now been reconstructed in detail by a great-granddaughter of Mme. Cabouat, who signed the card: Meldolesi & Stame, eds., 2020). 117 I remember, for example, having involuntarily witnessed a long and friendly (and for me surprising) telephone conversation on politics between Albert Hirschman and Robert Solow who, from a scientific point of view could not exactly have been considered Hirschman’s next door neighbor…

DOSSIER N 6 - SPRING 2022

combative mood of a kind I had not experienced for some time.”118 I can definitely confirm this impression. Under Hirschman’s close supervision I was at the time writing Alla scoperta del possibile [Discovering the possible]. Because of this, Nicoletta Stame and I were invited several times to the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, where we had occasion to assess the situation and discuss it, politics included, with Albert.119 This was when I realized how important the democratic Rooseveltian federal construction of the United States was for him— it had won the war and then the peace; and how all this had again been called into question by the Reaganite offensive.120 Without doubt, the “social question” dominated his scene. 25 – The book’s point of departure is well known. In 1985, Hirschman wrote,121 “not long after the reelection of Ronald Reagan, the Ford Foundation launched an ambitious enterprise [… It] decided to bring together a group of citizens who, after due deliberation and inspection of the best available research, would adopt an authoritative statement on the issues that were currently discussed under the label ‘The Crisis of the Welfare State.’122 In a magisterial opening statement, Ralf Dahrendorf (a member, like myself, of the group that had been assembled) placed the 118 Hirschman 1995, p. 57. 119 Albert spoke to me of the many ways in which, at that time, the public sector had supported underprivileged sections of the population, starting with the streets and the careful, area by area, subsidized renovation of houses. Furthermore, Sarah Hirschman was particularly concerned with public health and the difficulty of accessing essential services, even those of an ordinary dentist… 120 Parts of this dialogue may be found in the article I wrote at the time, Meldolesi 1985. 121 Hirschman 1991, p. 1. 122 Later published: Executive Panel 1989.

topic that was to be the subject of our discussions in its historical context by recalling a famous 1949 lecture by the English sociologist T. H. Marshall on the ‘development of citizenship’ in the West.”123 Thus it was that the object of contention in this discussion group was suddenly extended—in both space (from the United States to the West) and time. “Marshall,” Hirschman continued, “had distinguished between the civil, political and social dimensions of citizenship and then had proceeded to explain, very much in the spirit of the Whig interpretation of history, how the more enlightened human societies had successfully tackled one of these dimensions after the other.”124 Hence “the magnificent and confident canvas of staged progress” painted by Marshall covering three centuries of history in the West. Hence the criticism of Dahrendorf who, in the context of the situation of the time, held that the English sociologist had been too optimistic when it came to the social and economic phases.125 And hence Hirschman’s observation that Dahrendorf’s criticism of Marshall had not gone far enough because it referred to the third phase of the battle

123 Marshall T.H. 1949. 124 Hirschman 1991, p. 1. “According to Marshall’s scheme,” he continued (p. 1-2), “[…] the eighteenth century witnessed the major battles for the institution of civil citizenship – from freedom of speech, thought, and religion to the right to even-handed justice and other aspects of individual freedom […]. In the course of the nineteenth century, it was the political aspect of citizenship, that is, the right of citizens to participate in the exercise of political power, that made major strides as the right to vote was extended to ever-larger groups. Finally the rise of the Welfare State in the twentieth century extended the concept of citizenship to the social and economic sphere, by recognizing that minimal conditions of education, health, economic well-being, and security are basic to the life of a civilized being as well as the meaningful exercise of the civil and political attributes of citizenship.” 125 So that “the notion of the socio-economic dimension of citizenship as a natural and desirable complement of the civil and political dimensions had run into considerable difficulty and opposition and now stood in need of substantial rethinking” (Hirschman 1991, p. 2).

Democracy and Development. Some Hirschmanian investigations and observations

for citizens’ rights and not to the previous two.126 And hence, finally, the visual angle that sparked the origin of the book. This was Hirschman’s focus on the reactions that followed the three great progressive thrusts, the identification of the three main reactive-reactionary theses—those of perversity, futility and being put in jeopardy—which make up as many chapters and which are then compared and combined with each other in chapter 5. 26 – A brief note like this one cannot possibly do justice to the extraordinary “excavation” into the history of ideas that permitted Albert to write such chapters. The regular Hirschman reader will naturally think first and foremost of The Passions and the Interests. In its inspiration, however, and in a significant proportion of its allusions, The Rhetoric of Reaction is anything but a follow-up to the earlier book. Rather, in addition to the (almost boundless) culture it displays, what is impressive is what I would call his surgical ability to progressively unearth appropriate quotes for its exposition—as some of Albert’s friends who had been “stunned” when they read the book emphasized privately in personal letters that I had the good fortune to consult at Princeton’s Mudd Library. On the other hand, the anxiety and unhappiness of the time (Reagan-Bush Sr.), mentioned above—although undoubtedly providing the trigger—were not the book’s only wellspring. Albert Hirschman’s entire working life (and long-term wandering on three continents) is emphatically echoed in its pages. These reflect the fact that he had liberal and progressive democracy constantly at heart throughout his many activities—starting 126 “Is it not true,” Hirschman wrote (ibid., p. 3) “that not just the last but each and every one of Marshall’s three progressive thrusts had been followed by ideological counterthrusts of extraordinary force? And have not these counterthrusts been at the origin of convulsive social and political struggles often leading to setbacks for the intended progressive programs as well as to much human suffering and misery?”

in his intellectual and political youth, continuing in his work as a professional civil servant at the time of the Marshall Plan and in his long interest in development economics and Latin America, right through to the stage that followed, which was mainly devoted to democratic market-economy societies.127 In this regard, I think it is useful to remember that The Rhetoric also represents the endpoint of a Latin-American debate initially brought on in the 1970s by a turn toward authoritarianism in various countries,128 followed by the rapid unraveling of this process in Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay in the early 80s—which naturally included an interest in consolidating this re-democratization.129 It is in a brief text of Hirschman’s,130 in fact, that the sort of references regarding the sound functioning of liberal democracies begin to appear which would subsequently take center stage in the conclusions of The Rhetoric. It is also true that “books have their fates.” Which is to say that when Albert wrote “Finally, a manifesto!” certain important political events had taken place (and/or were taking place) that would inevitably influence the way the book was read—such as the fall of the Berlin Wall, the rise 127 It is important to keep in mind, in my opinion, that this latter phase had the previous ones behind it in such a way that its results can be linked to the themes that preceded it—as several authoritative Latin American interlocutors, Guillermo O’Donnell, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, and Pedro Malan, for example, have spontaneously done on a number of occasions. 128 Hirschman 1979; now in Essays cit. 1981, Ch. 5. 129 “I submit,” Hirschman wrote (1986; now in Rival Views cit. 1986a, p. 177), “that it is far more constructive to think about ways in which democracy may survive and become stronger in the face of, and in spite of, a series of continuing adverse situations […]: instead of looking for necessary and sufficient conditions of change we must train ourselves to be on the lookout for unusual historical developments, rare constellations of favorable events, narrow paths, partial advances that may conceivably be followed by others and the like. We must think of the possible rather than of the probable.” 130 On uncertainty (of outcomes and of policy deliberations), on necessary patience, on the danger of having strong opinions. (Ibid. p. 179-82).

DOSSIER N 6 - SPRING 2022

of Fernando Henrique Cardoso’s progressive politics in Brazil, and of course the Clinton presidency in the United States. In other words it is not only useful to understand The Rhetoric in the context of its time of writing, but also of the time of its reception—the surprising years of Western “readjustment,” in which democratic prospects seemed suddenly to gain new impetus (but also generated illusory expectations). At the same time, I cannot forget that I started writing these notes during the presidency of Donald Trump. For example, at the end of a long and closely argued review of Why Liberalism Failed by Patrick Deneen131 the political journalist Robert Kuttner noted, “It is troubling enough that autocracy is gaining ground in practice, but even more alarming that anti-liberalism is once again becoming reputable as theory. There is no good substitute for liberal democracy. All of the alternatives are more corrosive of human dignity and personal virtue. Liberal democracy may indeed be under siege; but if we are to constrain the tyranny of dictators on one flank and the rule of overweening global corporations on the other, democracy is all we have.”132 All the more reason, in my mind, to truly take on board Albert Hirschman’s political message— we must learn and follow his democratic-progressive lessons even over the long term.133 131 Deneen (2018). His book seems—not surprisingly—to want to turn back the hands of history by three centuries. Of course, I do not intend to jump, rhetorically, “from the frying pan into the fire” (that is, from conservative to progressive, which I will mention later), by suggesting the prospect of a possible general inversion of the great “verdicts.” I just want to point out that the ultra-conservative reaction orchestrated by the Trump administration tended to assail— and actually eroded—all three areas of rights that, by and large, we too optimistically consider already acquired. 132 Knutter, The New York Review of Books, Nov. 21st, 2019. 133 Which is also made easier by the very structure of the book which, referring to the reactions to three centuries of progressive striving, implicitly suggests that it is necessary to prepare (wherever and however possible, anywhere in the world) for long-lasting battles.

27 – With three quarters of the book written, Hirschman realized that the reactionary argument of jeopardizing could easily be inverted so as to shed light on its rhetorical-progressive counterpart. This is a case of the “propensity to self-subversion” manifesting itself during the actual drafting of a monograph (rather than later, as had happened to Hirschman on other occasions). Thus, after reviewing several types of progressive rhetoric—such as The Synergy Illusion, the Imminent-Danger Thesis, “Having History on One’s Side,” and Counterparts of the Perversity Thesis134—Albert arrived at a general reference framework in which each conservative rhetorical thesis is set in opposition to an inverse rhetorical-progressive thesis.135 Two years later, in the essay mentioned above, Hirschman commented in detail on the reasons for his “change of heart” while the work was in progress: “fun,” “duty,” and “benefit” (mainly to the book’s conclusions).136 He also maintained that the peculiar temporal sequence of his research helped him prevent triggering the self-censorship inherent in cognitive consistency—which often clipped the wings of his ideas’ unintended consequences.137 134 These are in fact the section titles of the famous chapter 6. 135 Hirschman 1991, p. 167. “The contemplated action will bring disastrous consequence” vs. “not to take the contemplated action will bring disastrous consequence”; “the new reform will jeopardize the older one” vs. “the new and the old reforms will mutually reinforce each other”; “the contemplated action attempts to change permanent structural characteristics (‘laws’) of the social order; it is therefore bound to be wholly ineffective, futile” vs. “the contemplated action is backed by powerful historical forces that are already ‘on the march’: opposing them would be utterly futile.” “Once the existence of these pairs of arguments is demonstrated,” he commented, “the reactionary theses are downgraded, [and] along with their progressive counterparts, become simply extreme statements in a series of imaginary, highly polarized debates. In this manner they stand effectively exposed as limiting cases, badly in need, under most circumstances of being qualified, mitigated, or otherwise amended.” 136 This led to the inspiration to put together his A Propensity to Self-Subversion – 1995. 137 Hirschman 1995, p. 58-61.

Democracy and Development. Some Hirschmanian investigations and observations

DOSSIER N 6 - SPRING 2022

But I think that more than anything else, this analytical evolution seemed natural to Hirschman because of the cognitive style he had developed over time (and whose roots were in the teachings of Eugenio Colorni), and because of his recognition that since reality is generally much more complex than we can grasp, we need an attitude of intellectual modesty that opens our mind to any doubts, facts and arguments (our own and others’) that close inspection shows to be well-founded, and which we therefore need to be ready to incorporate into our own work. Having thus fine-tuned the rhetorical-progressive side of the issue, “it became clear to me,” he later wrote, “that the nature of my message had changed. […] My treatment had become more even-handed and consequently I suggested to my publisher a new title that would reflect this change: The Rhetoric (or Rhetorics) of Intransigence, a phrase that had actually come under my pen in the course of writing the concluding chapter […]. But my publisher [Harvard Univ. Press] objected to having ‘Intransigence’ in the title” on the grounds that it was on the whole unknown to the average American. So the title Rhetorics of Intransigence “emigrated” to the Italian, Brazilian, and Mexican editions. 28 – All this points in the end to the book’s conclusions. A preview (abbreviated) of the chapter on perversity that had appeared in the Atlantic led Hirschman to what he later called “the somewhat gratuitous advice to the practitioners of reactionary rhetoric to ‘plead their cause with greater originality, sophistication and restraint.’ In contrast, “the new chapter on progressive rhetoric would permit a more ambitious conclusion: […] I would be able to show how discussions between reactionaries and progressives—each with their own brand of intransigent arguments—are ‘dialo-

gues of the deaf’ and contraptions to avoid that genuine deliberation and communication between contending groups that is supposed to be characteristic of democracy.”138 This is what he did in “Beyond Intransigence,” the concluding chapter of the book. But this wasn’t the end of the story. The progressive camp was drawn to an exploration of some of the possible uses of The Rhetoric’s reasoning. This interest developed during the course of a conference on “Social justice and inequalities” organized by the French government’s Commissariat du Plan in November of 1992.139 “In the light of the critique addressed in my book to both reactionary and progressive rhetoric,” Hirschman asked, “how should a reform agenda be formulated?” His answer came in two parts. A – “Awareness of the Reactionary Arguments. Obviously, reformers would do well to be prepared for the attacks likely to be leveled against their proposals. They also should look out for the real dangers of these proposals, for which their adversaries will of course have a particularly sharp eye.”140 B – “Self-Restraint in the Use of Progressive Rhe138 Ibid., p. 59 and 59-60. 139 And not, as Hirschman initially would have preferred, by the Clinton administration. “Clearly,” he pointed out (1995, p. 62), “the organizers of the [Paris] conference were interested in hearing from me, in greater detail than I had done in the book, about the kind of ‘intransigent rhetoric’ they should avoid if and when they should be ready to present policy proposals arising out of their current work on the theme of the conference.” 140 Ibid. “For both reasons,” he continues, “reformers should know about the principal reactionary arguments and take them seriously. I believe that my chapters on the perversity, futility, and jeopardy theses will be useful to reformers on both these counts, as they provide them with a conceptual guide to the principal counter arguments as well as to the several actual pitfalls any proposed reform may face.” Finally, reformers must in any case avoid undue caution, Hirschman advises (1995, p. 64) quoting two lines from Racine: “… tant de prudence entraine trop de soin / Je ne sais point prevoir les malheurs de si loin” [So much prudence requires too much care / I am unable to foresee misfortunes from so far away].

Democracy and Development. Some Hirschmanian investigations and observations

toric […]. The message of Chapter 6 to reformers is essentially to ask them for self-restraint: I implicitly plead that they should refrain from using – or that they should use with moderation – […the intransigent rhetorical arguments reformers often use] in the advocacy of their programs and policies, no matter how effective and persuasive they may be or may seem to be.”141 29 – Therefore, Hirschman is suggesting that progressive legislators improve their performance on both fronts—on the one hand they should focus on the actual consequences of their proposals and prevent weaknesses from emerging; on the other hand, they need to clarify the real reasons favoring their approval. It is a lesson in concreteness that aims to put aside preconceived rhetorical reasoning and thus improve the decision-making process. Yet, even this conclusion turned out to be in a sense transient. In fact, at the end of “Social Conflicts as Pillars of Democratic Market Societies,” Albert wrote,142 “The literature on the positive effects of conflict and crisis turns out to be quite rich. But I must criticize it, including my own contributions, in one respect. It tends to be so conscious of staging a perilous attack on orthodoxy that it often limits itself to accomplishing that daring feat and does not proceed to a careful examination of the conditions that permit the paradox of conflict and crisis to generate progress.” The reproach seems to be also aimed at the conclusions of The Rhetoric, which ought therefore to be “amended.”

Indeed, if you go back and read them in the light of the ambitious and brilliant essay just mentioned, it is not difficult to identify an ulterior thread in the great democratic skein that he was gradually “untangling.” Albert in fact states143 that his purpose is “to move public discourse beyond extreme, intransigent postures of either kind, with the hope that in the process our debates will become more ‘democracy friendly.’ This is a large topic,” he adds, “and I cannot deal with it adequately here. A concluding thought must suffice. Recent reflections on democracy have yielded two valuable insights, a historical one on the origins of pluralistic democracies and a theoretical one on the long-run conditions for stability and legitimacy of such regimes.” The respective references are (on the one hand) to the work of Bernard Crick and Dankwart Rustow, and (on the other) to that of Bernard Manin.144 According to the latter, political deliberation is considered to be a process in which “the participants should not have fully or definitively formed opinions at the outset; they are expected to engage in meaningful discussions, which means that they should be ready to modify initially held opinions in the light of arguments of other participants and also as a result of new information […] If this is what it takes for the democratic process to become self-sustaining and to acquire long-run stability and legitimacy,” Hirschman comments, “then the gulf that separates such a state from democratic-pluralistic regimes as they emerge historically from strife and civil war is uncomfortably and perilously wide.” 30 – Yes, no doubt—a reader of “Social Conflicts” might interject at this point—but we also

141 Ibid. p. 64-5. “Impending disaster” or “impending revolution” blackmail: “as Gunnar Myrdal argued long ago, progressives can and should make a convincing case for the policies they advocate on the ground that they are right and just, rather than by alleging that they are needed to stage off some imaginary disaster.”

143 Hirschman 1991, p. 168.

142 Hirschman 1994a; now in 1995, p. 239.

144 Crick 1964, Rustow 1970, Manin 1987.

DOSSIER N 6 - SPRING 2022

need to take into account (as we have anticipated: secs. 9 and 29) concrete conditions that allow for the paradoxical situation in which conflict and crisis generate progress, conditions which therefore (we should add) sometimes push the warring parties in the day-to-day fluctuations of politics to react by reducing (or accentuating)—perhaps temporarily—the abyss that separates them. Which is to say that beyond what should be, it is essential to relive the problem from within its own concrete process of evolution, as we actually perceive it here and now. Starting with the often hobbled situation of our pluralist market-economy democracies,145 that is, we need to try and improve the way they function through the resolution of crises and conflicts (starting perhaps with those of the “more or less” variety), and in this way trying to get interactive virtuous circles to “mesh.” Indeed, when Albert maintains in this key text that in their very functioning, market-economy democracies produce “a steady diet of conflicts 145 “I am trying to show,” Hirschman wrote (1963, p. 6) in a famous passage that opens Journeys, a key text of ‘possibilism,’ “how a society can begin to move forward as it is, in spite of what it is, and because what it is”.

that need to be addressed and that the society learns to manage,”146 he also indicates (more or less explicitly147), in my opinion, a way of mastering our collective evolution that could lead to more ‘democracy friendly’ conditions—even (I might suggest) in a world in perpetual turmoil like the one that increasingly surrounds us. Should this not be a key objective of our shortand long-term “possibilism”?148 146 Hirschman 1995, p. 243; and that we therefore need to teach it to manage. Hirschman’s reasoning, as we see, tends here to spread from government to the whole of society. 147 Or perhaps aptly masked by contradictory sentences like: “To view social cohesion as a by-product of its conflicts is remarkably parsimonious, somewhat paradoxical and generally attractive. As I also point out in the last chapter, however, this insight sheds light primarily on the past” (ibid. p. 6—that is, at the end of the Introduction). And: “what is actually required to make progress with the novel problems a society encounters on its road is political entrepreneurship, imagination, patience here, impatience there and other varieties of virtù and fortuna” – a Machiavellian close of the essay (ibid. p. 248) that actually looks… to the future. 148 Obviously this does not in any way contradict The Rhetoric’s conclusion (1991, p. 170) that “there remains then a long and difficult road to be traveled from the traditional internecine, intransigent discourse to a more ‘democracy friendly’ kind of dialogue.” It simply suggests not losing sight of this little by little in everyday activities. In fact, “for those wishing to undertake that expedition there should be value in knowing about a few danger signals, such arguments that are in fact contraptions specifically designed to make dialogue and deliberation impossible.”

Democracy and Development. Some Hirschmanian investigations and observations

Bibliography A Colorni-Hirschman International Institute (2018) For a Better World. First Conference on Albert Hirschman Legacy, Luca Meldolesi and Nicoletta Stame eds., Boston, Pardee School of Global Studies, Boston Univ., Oct. 6th-7th, Roma, IDE. A Colorni-Hirschman International Institute (2019) A Bias for Hope. Second Conference on the Albert Hirschman Legacy, Luca Meldolesi and Nicoletta Stame eds., Washington D.C., IEG, World Bank Group, Oct. 25th-26th Roma, IDE. A Colorni-Hirschman International Institute (2020) A Passion for the Possible. Third Conference on the Albert Hirschman Legacy, Luca Meldolesi and Nicoletta Stame eds., Berlin, Berlin School of Economics and Law, Oct. 24th-25th , Roma, IDE. Adelman J. (2013) Worldly Philosopher. The Odyssey of Albert O. Hirschman, Princeton (N.J.), Princeton University Press. Braybrooke D. and Lindblom C.E. (1963) The Strategy of Decision, New York, Free Press. Colorni E. (1935) “Prefazione”, “Nota bio-bibliografica” and “Esposizione antologica del sistema leibniziano,” to Goffredo Guglielmo Leibnitz, La Monadologia, cit. Colorni E. (1936) “Inizio di autobiografia”; now in Eugenio Colorni “La malattia filosofica” cit. 2020. Colorni E. (1944) “Introduzione” to Altiero Spinelli and Ernesto Rossi, Problemi cit. Colorni E. (1998) Il coraggio dell’innocenza, Luca Meldolesi, ed., Napoli, La Città del Sole. Colorni E. (2009) La malattia della metafisica. Scritti filosofici e autobiografici, Geri Cerchiai, ed., Torino, Einaudi. Colorni E. (2016) Microfondamenta, Luca Meldolesi ed., Soveria Mannelli, Rubbettino.

Fleck C. (2020) “The Context of Otto Albert’s Politicization”, in A ColorniHirschman International Institute (2020) A Passion cit. Fry V. (1945) Surrender on Demand, New York, Random; new ed., Assignment Rescue, New York, Scholastic, 1993. Gerbi S. (1999) Tempi di malafede. Una storia italiana tra fascismo e dopoguerra. Guido Piovene ed Eugenio Colorni, Torino, Einaudi. Gershenkron A. (1952) “Economic Backwardness in Historical Perspective”, in Bert Hoselitz, ed., The Progress of Underdeveloped Areas, Chicago, Chicago University Press. Grabel I. (2017) When Things Don’t Fall Apart. Global Financial Governance and Developmental Finance in an Age of Productive Incoherence, Cambridge Ma., MIT Press. Hirschman A.O. (1937) “La fecondità della donna italiana secondo l’età e il numero dei figli avuti” – mimeo. Hirschman A.O. (1938) Il franco Poincaré e la sua svalutazione – degree thesis, mimeo; now Id.: Giorgio Gilibert, Marcello de Cecco and Roberto Finzi, eds., Trieste, Edizioni di storia e letteratura, 2004. Hirschman A.O. (1938a) “Note su due recenti tavole di nuzialità della popolazione italiana”, Giornale degli economisti, January 1938. Hirschman A.O. (1938b) “Les finances et l’économie italienne: Situation actuelle et perspectives,” Supplément au bullettin quotidian 123, n. 1, June. Hirschman A.O. (1939) “Italie”, L’activité economique n. 15, 16 and 17. Hirschman A.O. (1939a) “Etude statistique sur la tendence du commerce extérieur vers l’equilibre et le bilateralisme” - mimeo; English tr. Political Economy, 4, n. 1 – 1988. Hirschman A.O. (1939b) “Mémoire sur le controle des changes en Italie” – mimeo; Italian tr. in Albert O. Hirschman Potenza nazionale cit. – 1987.

Colorni E. (2017) La scoperta del possibile. Scritti politici, Luca Meldolesi, ed., Soveria Mannelli, Rubbettino.

Hirschman A.O. (1945) National Power and the Structure of Foreign Trade, Berkeley Cal., Univ. of California Press; third ed., with “Preface to the Expanded Edition” – 1980.

Colorni E. (2018) L’ultimo anno, 1943-44. Genesi di una prospettiva, Luca Meldolesi, ed., Soveria Mannelli, Rubbettino.

Hirschman A.O. (1946) “Bilateralism and ‘Proportionalism’ – Two Aspects of Trade Structure,” Review of Foreign Developments, Dec.

Colorni E. (2019) Critical Thinking in Action. Excerpts from political writings and correspondence I, Luca Meldolesi and Nicoletta Stame eds., New York, Bordighera Press.

Hirschman A.O. (1946-48) “Follow Events in France and Italy,” Long is the Journey… n. 4, www.colornihirschman.org

Colorni E. (2019a) The Discovery of the Possible. Excerpts from political writings and correspondence II, Luca Meldolesi and Nicoletta Stame eds., New York, Bordighera Press. Colorni E. (2020) “La malattia filosofica” ed altri scritti, Luca Meldolesi, ed., Soveria Mannelli, Rubbettino. Colorni E. and Spinelli A. (2018) I dialoghi di Ventotene, Luca Meldolesi, ed., Soveria Mannelli, Rubbettino. Crick B. (1964) In Defense of Politics, rev. ed., Baltimore, Penguin.

Hirschman A.O. (1947) “Exchange Control in Italy,” I and II, Review of Foreign Developments, Mar. 11 and May 6. Hirschman A.O. (1947a) “France and Italy: Patterns of Reconstruction,” Federal Reserve Bulletin, n. 4, Apr. Hirschman A.O. (1947b) “Italian Exchange Rate Policy,” Review of Foreign Developments, Dec. 16. Hirschman A.O. (1948) “ ‘Franco Valuta’ Imports in France,” Review of Foreign Developments, Mar. 23.

Deneen P.J. (2018) Why Liberalism Failed, New Haven, Yale Univ. Press.

Hirschman A.O. (1949) “Intra-European Payments: A Proposal for Discussion”, Review of Foreign Developments , Mar.

Executive Panel: Policy Recommendations (1989) The Common Good: Social Welfare and the American Future, New York, Ford Foundation.

Hirschman A.O. (1949a) “The New Intra-European Payment Scheme,” Review of Foreign Developments, July.

DOSSIER N 6 - SPRING 2022

Hirschman A. O. (1949b) “Proposal for a European Monetary Authority,” mimeo; It. tr. in Albert O. Hirschman, Tre continenti, cit., 1990.

Hirschman A. O. (1981) Essays in Trespassing: Economics to Politics and Beyond, Cambridge U.K., Cambridge Univ. Press.

Hirschman A. O. (1950) “Approaches to Multilateralism and European Integration,” mimeo; It. tr. in Albert O. Hirschman, Tre continenti, cit., 1990.

Hirschman A. O. (1982) Shifting Involvements. Private Interest and Public Action, Princeton N.J., Princeton Univ. Press; It. tr. Bologna, Il Mulino, 1995.

Hirschman A.O. (1950a) “European Payment Union: A Possible Basis for Agreement,” Review of Foreign Developments, Feb.

Hirschman A.O. (1984) “Erinnerungen an das Französische Gymnasium,” mimeo.

Hirschman A.O. (1951) “The European Payment Union: Negotiations and Issues,” Review of Economics and Statistics, n. 1, Feb.

Hirschman A.O. (1984a) “A Dissenter’s Confession: Revisiting The Strategy of Economic Development,” in Gerald M. Meier and Dudley Seers, eds., Pioneers in Development, Oxford, Oxford Univ. Press.

Hirschman A.O. (1951a) “Industrial Nations and Industrialization of Underdeveloped Countries,” Economia Internazionale, Aug. Hirschman A.O. (1952) “Effect of Industrialization on the Markets of Industrial Countries,” in B. F. Hoselitz, ed., The Progress of Underdeveloped Areas, Chicago, Chicago Univ. Press. Hirschman A.O. (1954) “Economics and Investment Planning: Reflections Based on the Experience in Colombia,” mimeo; now in Albert O. Hirschman, A Bias cit. 1971, Ch. 1.

Hirschman A.O. (1986) “On Democracy in Latin America,” New York Review of Books, April; now in Albert O. Hirschman, Rival Views cit. 1986a, Ch. 9. Hirschman A.O. (1986a) Rival Views of Market Societies and Other Recent Essays. New York, Viking. Hirschman A.O. (1987) Potenza nazionale e commercio estero. Gli anni Trenta, l’Italia e la ricostruzione, Pier Francesco Asso and Marcello de Cecco, eds., Bologna, Il Mulino.

Hirschman A.O. (1957) “Economic Policy in Underdeveloped Countries”, Economic Development and Cultural Change, July; now in Albert O. Hirschman A Bias, cit. 1971, Ch. 12.

Hirschman A.O. (1987a) L’economia politica come scienza morale e sociale, with an essay by Luca Meldolesi, Luca Meldolesi, ed., Napoli, Liguori.

Hirschman A.O. (1958) The Strategy of Economic Development, New Heaven Conn., Yale Univ. Press.

Hirschman A.O. (1988) Come complicare l’economia, Luca Meldolesi, ed., Bologna, Il Mulino.

Hirschman A.O. ed. (1961) Latin American Issues: Essays and Comments, New York, Twenties Century Fund.

Hirschman A.O. (1989) “Reactionary Rhetoric,” The Atlantic, May.

Hirschman A.O. (1961a) “Ideologies of Economic Development in Latina America,” in Albert O. Hirschman, ed. (1961) Latin American, cit.

Hirschman A.O. (1990) Tre continenti. Economia politica e sviluppo della democrazia in Europa, Stati Uniti e America Latina, Luca Meldolesi, ed., Torino, Einaudi.

Hirschman A.O. (1961b) “Abrazo vs. Coexistence: Comments on Ypsilon’s paper,” in Albert O. Hirschman, ed. (1961) Latin American cit.

Hirschman A.O. (1990a) Come far passare le riforme, Luca Meldolesi, ed., Bologna, Il Mulino.

Hirschman A.O. (1961c) “Preface to the Paperbound Edition,” in Albert O. Hirschman The Strategy cit. 1958; sixth printing 1964.

Hirschman A.O. (1990b) “Remerciements,” Speech delivered upon receipt of an honorary degree from the Institut d’études politiques de Paris. In Doctorat honoris causa, Institut d’études politiques, Paris.

Hirschman A. O. (1963) Journeys toward Progress. Studies of Economic Policy-Making in Latin America, New York, Twentieth Century Fund. Hirschman A. O. (1967) Development Projects Observed, Washington D.C., Brookings. Hirschman A. O. (1968) “Underdevelopment, Obstacles to the Perception of Change and Leadership,” Daedalus, n. 3, summer. Hirschman A. O. (1970) Exit, Voice, and Loyalty: Responses to Decline in Firms, Organizations and States, Cambridge (Mass.), Harvard University Press. Hirschman A. O. (1971) A Bias for Hope. Essays on Development and Latin America, New Haven (Conn.), Yale University Press. Hirschman A. O. (1977) The Passions and the Interests. Political Arguments for Capitalism before its Triumph, Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press. Hirschman A.O. (1979) “The Turn to Authoritarianism in Latin America and the Search for Its Economic Determinants,” in Collier D., ed., The New Authoritarianism in Latin America, Princeton NJ, Princeton Univ. Press; now in Albert O. Hirschman, Essays in Trespassing: Economics to Politics and Beyond, Cambridge UK, Cambridge Univ. Press, 1981, Ch. 5.

Hirschman A.O. (1990c) [“Io, detective dell’economia fascista”] in Albert O. Hirschman Tre continenti, cit., p. xix-xxxi. Hirschman A.O. (1991) Rhetoric of Reaction. Perversity, Futility, Jeopardy, Cambridge Mass., Harvard Univ. Press. Hirschman A.O. (1993) “Varian Fry in Marseilles,” Preface to the new ed. of Varian Fry Surrender, cit., 1945; now in Albert O. Hirschman, A Propensity cit. 1995, Ch. 10. Hirschman A.O. (1993a) “Coimbra Talk,” mimeo. Hirschman A.O. (1993b) “The Rhetoric of Reaction – Two Years Later,” Government and Opposition; now in Albert O. Hirschman, A Propensity, cit. 1995, Ch. 2. Hirschman A.O. (1994) Passaggi di frontiera, Roma, Donzelli editore; English tr. in Albert O. Hirschman 1998, Ch. 3. Hirschman A.O. (1994a) “Social Conflicts as Pillars of Democratic Market Societies,” Political Theory, May; now in Albert O. Hirschman, A Propensity cit., 1995, Ch. 20. Hirschman A.O. (1995) A Propensity to Self-Subversion, Cambridge Mass., Harvard University Press.

Democracy and Development. Some Hirschmanian investigations and observations

Hirschman A.O. (1998) Crossing Boundaries. Selected Writings, New York, Zone.

bùsqueda de lo posible: el mundo sorprendente de Albert O. Hirschman, México, Fondo de Cultura Econòmica, 1997.

Hirschman A.O. and Lindblom C.E (1962) “Economic Development, Research and Development, and Policy-Making,” Behavioral Science, Apr.; now in Albert O. Hirschman, A Bias cit., Ch. 2.

Meldolesi L. (2013) Imparare ad imparare. Saggi di incontro e di passione all’origine di una possibile metamorfosi. Soveria Mannelli, Rubbettino.

Hirschman A.O., Geertz C. and Cardoso F.H. (1976) “The Hungry, Crowded, Political World,” The Tocqueville Review, 2010, n. 2. Hirschmann U. (1963) [Declaration in German], Rievocazione incompiuta 1974, mimeo. Kuttner R. (2019) “Blaming Liberalism,” New York Review of Books, Nov. 21. Leibniz G. G. (1935) La Monadologia, Eugenio Colorni, ed., Firenze, Sansoni. Lindblom C.E. (1958) “Policy Analysis,” American Economic Review, n. 48. Lindblom C.E. (1958a) “Timbergen on Policy Making,” Journal of Political Economy, n. 66. Lindblom C.E. (1958b) “The Handling of Norms in Policy Analysis,” in M. Abramovitz, ed. Allocation of Economic Resources, Stanford, Stanford Univ. Press. Lindblom C.E. (1959) “The Science of ‘Muddling Through,’” Public Administration Review, n. 19. Lindblom C.E. (1961) “Decision Making in Expenditure,” in Universities National Bureau of Economic Research, Public Finances: Needs, Sources, and Utilization, Princeton, Princeton Univ. Press. Lindblom C.E. and Braybrooke D. (1963) The Strategy of Decision, New York, Free Press. Manin B. (1985) “Volonté generale ou délibération? Esquisse d’une theorie de la délibération politique”, Le Debat, January. Marshall T.H. (1949) “Citizenship and Social Class,” Alfred Marshall Lectures given at Cambridge University; now in Marshall T.H. Class Citizenship and Social Development, New York, Doubleday, 1965. Meldolesi L. (1985) “America, America. Note su Hirschman, Hartz e Braudel,” Inchiesta, July-September. Meldolesi L. (1987) “Alle origini del possibilismo: Albert Hirschman 193252,” in Albert O. Hirschman L’economia politica, cit.; French tr. : Revue française de science politique, 3, 1993. Meldolesi L. (1987a) “Historical Hierarchies and the ‘Complication’ of Economics: an Outline,” The Journal of European Economic History, n. 2. Meldolesi L. (1987b) “Per una nuova ipotesi interpretativa della storia del pensiero economico moderno,” Quaderni di storia dell’economia politica, n. 1-2. Meldolesi L. (1990) “Il futuro ha un cuore antico?” Economia politica, n. 2. Meldolesi L. (1992) “Braudel e un ‘post-scriptum,’” Il Ponte, October. Meldolesi L. (1994) “Sulla nozione di squilibrio ottimo,” in Giovanni Caravale, ed., Equilibrio e teoria economica, Bologna, Il Mulino. Meldolesi L. (1995) Discovering the Possible. The Surprising World of Albert O. Hirschman, Notre Dame (Ill.), Univ. of Notre Dame Press; original in Italian: Alla scoperta del possibile. Il mondo sorprendente di Albert O. Hirschman, Bologna, il Mulino, 1994. Spanish translation: En

Meldolesi L. (2017) “Introduzione. Attualità politica di Eugenio Colorni,” in Eugenio Colorni La scoperta del possibile, cit. Meldolesi L. (2020) “Introduzione” to Eugenio Colorni, “La malattia filosofica,” cit. Monnet J. (1976) Mémoires, Paris, Fayard. Przeworsky A. (1984) “Love Uncertainty and You Will Be Democratic,” Novos Estudios, CEBRAP, July. Rossi E. and Spinelli A. (1944) Problemi della Federazione europea, Eugenio Colorni, ed., Roma. Rossi E. and Spinelli A. (1981) The Manifesto of Ventotene, based on the Colorni edition, published in Rome, by the Associazione Italiana per il Consiglio dei Comuni d’Europa (AICCE), Centro Italiano di Formazione Europea (CIFE) and Movimento Federalista Europeo (MFE), Provincia di Latina. Rustow D.A.(1970) “Transition to Democracy. Toward a Dynamic Model,” Contemporary Politics, April.

DOSSIER N 6 - SPRING 2022

LONG IS THE JOURNEY Dossier N.6, Spring 2022

Long is the journey issue 6

Articles inside

Bibliography

“Finally, a manifesto!”

Further generalizations

Albert Hirschman’s debut

Some solid points

DEMOCRACY AND DEVELOPMENT. SOME HIRSCHMANIAN INVESTIGATIONS AND OBSERVATIONS by Luca Meldolesi

Hirschman as consultant

A Colornian Decalogue à retenir

How governments behave

A lesson in method

Doing better than we did