Antonio Pesenti e la sua «Critica economica» (Antonio Pesenti and his «Critica economica» )

Antonio Pesenti was a prominent Italian economist and politician of the twentieth century, strong opponent of Fascism and Minister and deputy of the Communist Party. In the present paper we deal with «Critica economica», the journal founded in 1946 and directed by him until 1956, when it merged with «Notizie economiche» and «Riforma agraria», giving birth to «Politica ed economia». The paper considers a group of several columns (Nostro paese), useful to understand his opinion on the economic and social situation of Italy in the European and Occidental context. Then we examine a few essays, relevant to explain his theoretical position on monetary policies and international monopolistic competition. Pesenti and other authors debated in the journal the Italian financial and anti-trust policy thoroughly. Two important projects of economic planning, never implemented, were proposed in Italy at the end of the forties and in the fifties: the Piano del lavoro (1949-1950), promoted by cgil (the Italian Trade Union near the Socialist and Communist Parties), and the «Piano Vanoni» (1954), elaborated by minister Ezio Vanoni; «Critica economica» paid great attention to them. «Critica economica » was very interested in the Socialist world, and Pesenti looked at Socialism as the final stage of the dialectical evolution of Capitalism, not so far in the time. We have chosen to focus on one specific point: the lively controversy about the book Esperienze di economia pianificata by Cesare Dami, which witnesses the different theoretical insight of Pesenti, Dami and others scholars, and gives a few clues as to the atmosphere of that cultural and political community