Italian neoclassical economists framed inequality as a natural, healthy social fact

Evidence

Pantaleoni’s elitist view is inseparable from his Social Darwinist perspective, by which in his lectures on political economy he teaches his students that the economic qualities are innate and cannot be compensated for with education or external factors. Inequality is explicitly a natural fact, and a very healthy one for society. As he bluntly put it: “the most complex of social organizations does not require any other condition than freedom of action and choice in order to proceed with increasing virtue for the selective elimination of the incapable” (Pantaleoni 1922, 197). — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 1705

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the Social Darwinist core of Pantaleoni’s neoclassical economics — inequality as natural selection.
• XREF: Connects to the reader’s earlier reading on the ‘class weapon’ thesis — this is the ideological foundation that later austerity policy draws on. — connects to: Neoliberals treat inequality as a necessary motor of progress, not a flaw — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 173; Italian economists blamed poverty on working-class moral defects rather than economic causes — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order: How Economists…, 1141; Neoliberal rationality makes inequality normal and normative in democracy — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism’s…, 63 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Neoliberal rationality makes inequality normal and normative in democracy #corroborates (0.85) — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos, 63
• Economic theory reinforced the Italian austerity economists’ classist worldview #corroborates (0.80) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 1162
• Competition’s logic makes inequality normative wherever it spreads. #expands (0.80) — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos, 114
• Nineteenth-century social science framed civilization as growth toward inequality #corroborates (0.72)