Italian Association for the History of Economic Thought XV Conference

The history of economic thought has been studied so far either as a universal or as a national history: a universal history of economic theories – a sort of Olimpus that only major and mainly western economists who provided a relevant contribution to the advancement of economic knowledge could access – and a history of national styles and traditions written according to particular political and cultural factors.

In a world strictly divided into nations and dominated by the West, it could not have been otherwise. And even in the future, we will probably still need to guard the capital of economic theories accumulated with effort and to preserve the memory of so many diverse national histories.

Nevertheless, over the last decades, much, if not everything has changed. We have suddenly entered into a global and intercultural society where women and men belonging to different languages and cultures meet and clash every day. Culture, as a vision – even an economic vision – of society, has become the most powerful factor of aggregation and fragmentation among human beings, people and nations. In the recent past, it has united the two Germanies previously divided by a Wall of ideology that was not only symbolic, and has freed people of the former Soviet Union from an equally ideological pact. Today culture, even the economic one, is more and more a transnational phenomenon, going beyond borders and hindering or easing commercial exchange, monetary agreements, movements of labour and capital, economic integration processes among near and distant countries.

At the same time, globalization, and more generally, economic, cultural and social integration, are increasingly questioned and spur controversial reactions. Widespread signs pointing at a protectionist revival go hand in hand with political slogans that invoke the defence of national interest, intended as a priority with respect to, and even in opposition to, any process of international cooperation and cultural integration. All these processes ask for a rethinking and a reassessment, open to different approaches and outcomes, of the very idea of globalization and of the existence of a single global economic culture.