A Civil Economy of the Free Market

New perspectives on the economic philosophy of Antonio Rosmini

Abstract

This article develops a method for interpretating Rosmini’s economic thought. It is evident from a brief review of older and current literature that there is a need to understand Rosmini less from the perspective of ‘paradigms” (Smith, civil economics) of which he was undoubtedly familiar and more from his vision of post-revolutionary Italian and europen society. For this reason his economic thought is more similar to that of Hegel who pursues a similar end, and with whom he shares the need to distinguish between moral reasoning and the social-ethical consideration of economics. Contrary to prior claims, Rosmini has a fairly standard articulated economic thought, as the second part of the article seeks to illustrate, without overlooking the moral dimensions of rosminian economics, thus contributing to the question of Rosmini’s liberalism sui generis.