Democrazia ed economia

[Autom. eng. transl.] The book collects some of the most significant writings of Wilhelm Röpke, a German economist and sociologist whose work today returns to attract the attention of the debate around the social and political foundations of market economies. Much of his theoretical production, which develops between the years of the great depression and the post-war reconstruction of Europe, is marked by a liberal vision in which the concern for the safeguarding of the spiritual values of European civilization prevails. Through the essays presented in this volume, some crucial themes are outlined for grasping the dynamics and socio-economic transformations of our age: statism understood as a dramatically caricatured transfiguration of solidarity, the opportunity to understand the economy beyond the laws of supply and demand, the need for positive economic policies that complement the competitive market mechanisms. The pieces presented here are ideally organized into two sections that contain the main stages through which the author's thought develops: the first is dedicated to the historical-political reflections that Röpke has developed in wide-ranging works such as "Civitas humana" ; the second includes the interventions more openly aimed at making explicit the doctrine of "social liberalism".