DE VITI DE MARCO, THE “EUROPEAN WAR,” AND PRESIDENT WILSON

Italy entered the war in May 1915; the USA, in April 1917. One hundred years on, this paper examines the viewpoint of Antonio de Viti de Marco, the renowned Italian economist who was one of the founders of the pure theory of public finance. It first focuses on De Viti’s interpretation of the economic and political aspects of the Great War, and reconstructs his vision of the world conflict as a struggle between liberal democracies and authoritarian states. Second, the paper highlights the convergence of De Viti’s ideals with those of President Wilson, seen as the powerful international leader of the Italian democratic interventionists. It also clarifies that the “Wilsonianism” of this movement originated in the Italian Risorgimento, and suggests that this convergence was not coincidental. Finally, it shows how, after the war, the unconditional admiration De Viti felt for the American positions gave way to bitter disappointment.

Journal of the History of Economic Thought Preprints - De Viti De Marco, the "European War", and President Wilson

Italy entered the war in May 1915, the USA in April 1917. One hundred years on, this paper examines the viewpoint of Antonio de Viti de Marco, the renowned Italian economist who was one of the founders of the pure theory of Public Finance. It first focuses on De Viti’s interpretation of the economic and political aspects of the Great War, and reconstructs his vision of the world conflict as a struggle between liberal democracies and authoritarian states. Secondly, the paper highlights the convergence of De Viti’s ideals with those of President Wilson, seen as the powerful international leader of the Italian democratic interventionists. It also clarifies that the “Wilsonianism” of this movement originated in the Italian Risorgimento, and suggests that this convergence was not coincidental. Finally, it shows how, after the war, the unconditional admiration De Viti felt for the American positions gave way to bitter disappointment.

10

Perhaps rancor—in the sense of bitter disappointment and rage at unjust deception—is a more appropriate term than hatred for describing what infected the West from its beginnings, insofar as the latter promised itself completion and fulfillment. Such a completion then could only take the form of destruction, which Heidegger both dreaded and wished for. Such thinking gives rise to a form of despair that couples misery (Not, distress) with the need for an Other that harbors an absolute alterity through which a new and essential event may become possible. While this configuration may be highly questionable, it does not invalidate the thinking of alterity and multiplicity that was, perhaps ironically, inspired by Heidegger, in thinkers such as Sartre, Levinas, Foucault, Derrida, Lacan, Lyotard, and even Deleuze. Through such thinkers there may be seen a thought derived in part from Heidegger which in no way transmits the anti-Semitic configurations underpinning Heidegger’s fixation on the fulfillment of being. Indeed, they attest to a motif of Jewish alterity, which ironically can in turn be seen to have been made possible by Heidegger, albeit also despite him. But Heidegger also had a sense of another way, which can be seen in his evocation, in the Black Notebooks, of “grace”—which translates charis in Greek, and chen in Hebrew.

Margherita Datini

The 252 extant letters of Margherita Datini (b. 1360–d. 1423) to her husband, the merchant Francesco di Marco Datini (b. c. 1335–d. 1410), represent the largest collection of early Italian vernacular correspondence by a lay woman to have come to light. They are all the more unusual because Francesco’s letters to Margherita also survive, enabling us to follow a marital conversation that continued for almost three decades. The couple’s exchanges reveal a very different portrait of marriage than was envisaged by prescriptive texts of the period. Or rather, the letters provide evidence that Margherita and Francesco had a conventional enough view of how their relationship should be conducted, but the challenges of everyday life in an urban environment riven by factionalism and competitiveness forced them often to ignore the gender stereotypes of their day. Fourteenth-century advice manuals, such as Paola da Certaldo’s Libro di buoni costumi, described female virtue in narrow terms and demarcated the roles of husband and wife strictly, recommending that women be confined to the household and restrained from participating in men’s affairs. Margherita, however, collaborated in the supervision of Francesco’s building projects, even occasionally pursued the merchant’s debtors, and offered her husband shrewd advice, revealing the extent to which she was fully conversant with contemporary politics. She was cognizant of the need to participate in the social networking that was a fundamental feature of Florentine society and cultivated the magnate connections of her own aristocratic family to secure useful allies for the more humbly-born Francesco. Margherita’s inability to bear children was a source of bitter disappointment to the couple, but it indubitably facilitated her ability to take on a greater role in her husband’s affairs than was usual. The Datini couple’s letters also reveal many details about their households in Florence and Prato. The routines and experiences of the servants, neighbors, friends, and relatives with whom Margherita associated are documented in colloquial and evocative prose, providing a rare view of women’s social interactions and emotions in a period blighted by recurring outbreaks of plague, an unstable political climate, and difficult economic conditions.

The Failure of the Katsura-Harriman Agreement

Often the availability of new sources raises the need for reinvestigation of established historical events. This is true of the events that lead to the failure of the Far Eastern phase of railroad magnate Edward H. Harriman's proposed world-girdling transportation system, the most ambitious over-seas project ever envisioned by an American entrepreneur. In mid-October 1905, Harriman obtained tentative permission from the Japanese government for partial control of what he considered a vital link in the anticipated route—Japan's railroad in southern Manchuria. Two weeks later, to his bitter disappointment, the Tokyo authorities suspended the agreement, cancelling it in three months. Harriman's scheme in the Far East has been carefully studied by several writers, none of whom used the Japanese sources on the subject. To reinvestigate events in the light of these sources is logical; my attempt is to do so, and to suggest a possible reason for the failure of his plan in Japan that has not been considered in English-language literature.