Caffè and the «craft of economist»

Caffè’s thought was predicated on the two principles that economic policies should take values as their constitutive elements and that the central concern of economists should be something other than a general interest identifiable with that of individuals. If the general interest is considered indicative, a posteriori, of preferences deriving from a collectivity’s need not to undermine itself, then economists are those actors who, precisely because their job is to deal with the market as an institution, must be aware that the market may induce society to distance itself from the collectivity of reference. In this perspective, when Caffè described values as constitutive elements of economic policy, he assigned economists the role of ‘guarantors’ of the collectivity and guardians of its fundamental values.