Abstract

This essay discusses the link between economic thought and the prospects for the reconstruction of a 'new Italy' in the final years of the Fascist régime and in the early post-war years. It is argued that, particularly through Milanese circles, the voice and influence came to be felt of the marginal-neoclassical school of thought flourished in Italy, a school which notoriously gave large prominence to the analysis of market competition. The analysis casts doubts on the current trend to play down the role and influence of the Italian school in economics. In particular it rests on shaky ground to charge the Italian school for excesses of purism, abstraction and aloofness both from the economic problems of the country and from the then current perception of the economic problem in itself.