On the Concept of ‘Felicitas Publica’ in Eighteenth-Century Political Economy

Abstract

This article presents some observations on “public happiness” in order to clarify the idea’s meaning in the eighteenth-century Italian context. It examines Lugino Bruni’s interpretation of this concept, and criticizes his understanding of public happiness as the continuation of Artistotle’s eudaimonia. Bruni stresses the social and collective nature of happiness in the civil economy of the Italian eighteenth century. By examining the works of Ludovico Antonio Muratori and Antonio Genovesi, this article addresses instead the political meaning of public happiness for absolute monarchies, and underlines its origins in the German tradition of natural law.

Political economy of virtue: civil economy, happiness and public trust in the thought of Antonio Genovesi

“…In this connection, Genovesi maintains that without public trust (fede pubblica) society cannot nurture Òthe taste for civil life, and thus the spirit of industry, which bring about the opulence of the State (il gusto del vivere civile, e quindi lo spirito dÕindustria, che cagionano lÕopulenza dello Stato)Ó (Genovesi 2013, 342). Contrary to the interpretation put forward by DÕOnofrio (2015), this article shows that public trust consists in the bonds binding together persons and families to one another and to the polity and that the pursuit of Òcommon happiness (commune felicitˆ)Ó (Genovesi 2013, 30) is not limited to the power of the sovereign and his ministers. Rather, it is the responsibility of all citizens because the exercise of virtue is instilled through public education.…”

“…You will never read that a Republic was peaceful and happy where science, virtue, and the arts did not flourish, the only nurture of our happiness: and if we consider things more closely and more philosophically, we will discover that things could not be otherwise. 12 Since public trust consists in the bonds binding together persons and families to one another and to the polity, the pursuit of public happiness is not limited to the power of the sovereign and his ministers (as claimed by DÕOnofrio [2015]). Rather, it is the responsibility of all citizens because the exercise of virtue is instilled through public education (Genovesi 2013, 344Ð45).…”

“…In recent years there has been a revival of interest in the ideas of Antonio Genovesi (1713Genovesi ( -1769, including a growing body of scholarship in the English language (e.g. Robertson 1997Robertson , 2005Reinert, 2011;Bruni and Sugden 2000, 2008, 2013DÕOnofrio 2015). GenovesiÕs two main works were Della Diceosina (a compendium of ethics published in 1766) and the Lezioni di economia civile (Lectures on civil economy [1765-67; 2 nd edition, 1768-70]).…”

Virtue, Production, and the Politics of Commerce: Genovesi’s “Civil Economy” Revisited

“…On the other hand, Sophus Reinert has focused on Genovesi as an early development economist and has emphasized GenovesiÕs awareness of asymmetries in a world economy characterized by interdependence between countries at different stages of development and with unequal political influence (Reinert, 2007(Reinert, , 2011. A third strand of literature, pioneered by Luigino Bruni, Robert Sugden and Stefano Zamagni, has examined GenovesiÕs moral anthropology, considering it as the foundation of his approach to the analysis of economic actions in a relational and political setting (Bruni, 2012;Bruni and Sugden, 2000;Bruni andZamagni, 2004, 2013;DÕOnofrio, 2015). Our paper seeks to explore the coherence between the different strands of GenovesiÕs contribution to economic 2 Within twenty years, the Lezioni had been translated into a variety of foreign languages (Venturi, 1960).…”

Review of periodical literature published in 2015

“…Gehrke rescues the contribution of Richard Jones to Ricardo's theory of rent, demonstrating, through simple example, the veracity of Jones's insight that Ricardo's distinction between innovation in agriculture as land saving or capital saving was flawed because it did not take account of fixed‐capital improvements. D'Onofrio clarifies a concept relevant to our notion of living standards, that of responsibility for ‘felicitas publica’ within the political economy of absolutist monarchial structures. Milanovic, in evaluating Quesnay's view of the eighteenth‐century French economy, offers a most useful, clear, and practical description of the physiocratic schema of economics, one that surely will appear on reading lists henceforth.…”