History of Contemporary Political Thought

The course aims to illustrate some currents of contemporary political thought, with particular reference to the past two centuries. The changes in the historical understanding of the market economy will be the guiding thread of our theoretical analysis. In fact, the industrial revolution constitutes the crucial moment in the emergence of modernity: the attitude towards the economic dynamism it ensures is a decisive factor of differentiation between the various political doctrines.
To this end, the main hypotheses on the emergence of the modern capitalist economy will be taken into consideration, from the classical interpretations of Karl Marx and Max Weber, and the thesis of the historian Jean Baechler. The discoveries of the so-called Austrian School will then be analyzed, from the solution to the problem of value, provided by Carl Menger, to the theory of capital by Eugen von Bohm-Bawerk, to the debate on socialist calculation, started by Ludwig von Mises in 1920, which will become a crucial moment of reflection on innovation and economic and social structures in a modern economy.