Nino Andreatta? "Today Pope Francis would appoint him liquidator of the IOR". Thus Romano Prodi underlines the changing times, imagines an impossible relationship between two fearless hearts and recalls the rigor of his friend and teacher who died in 2007. The occasion is the presentation of the book by Alberto Quadrio Curzio and Claudia Rotondi "An eclectic economist" , with a preface by Prime Minister Enrico Letta, Il Mulino publisher in collaboration with Arel, the study center founded by the statesman. The appointment is in Bologna, the city of adoption, of Andreatta and Prodi, but also of other illustrious economists, students and friends, from Angelo Tantazzi to Carlo D'Adda, from Filippo Cavazzuti to Giorgio Basevi, gathered for the appointment in the classroom of the Stabat Mater of the Archiginnasio. All together to remember the Italian genius and the Germanic rigor of Andreatta, whose contribution of ideas would still be indispensable today.
“He combined solid scientific foundations – argues Prodi – with a constant observation of reality. Theory, in his way of reasoning, was never separated from the comparison with reality and with politics. For example, he said to me: you, who are a good housewife, take a look at this article. And it was a compliment." Irony and regret come together in the memory of the unscrupulous intelligence and moral strength with which Andreatta faced even the thorniest problems: "In 1982 he was Minister of the Treasury - says Cavazzuti - when the Banco Ambrosiano scandal broke out. I was with him and I can say that he received pressure from all sides to reduce the story. But after realizing how things were he decided that he had to liquidate. In Parliament he said 'We are not the Republic of bananas and we will realize that firmness is not the worst of roads'”. A choice that cost him exile from the government for ten years.
Rare courage and clarity, combined with the ability to always be amazed in the face of the unpredictable: "I think yesterday hearing Berlusconi in Parliament - says Giorgio Basevi - he would have put a lit pipe in his pocket".
“Since the 80s – adds Prodi – he had hammered the growth of public debt, 'a death trap' he said, and opposed easy spending. Today he would insist on ethical issues, because a country without values cannot win. He had a deep faith, but 'not the sacrilegious intention of involving God in his choices'. An attitude that favored the birth of the Ulivo and the dialogue between Catholics and lay people, but also, in our country, the subsequent complications”.
Economic theories to be tested in the field, an arduous operation, but indispensable for making good politics. An uncommon procedure, given that today the world has to deal with a crisis that it has not been able to prevent and predict. “The United States experienced a very long period of banking stability, without systemic crises – observes Tantazzi – about 70 years, from the mid-30s to 2007. A phase so protracted that the American economists, in their models, placed the stability of the credit market as a constant. A mistake, because one day the world woke up different and unprepared to deal with the situation".
Yet even Andreatta was unable to foresee the crisis of the Euro, a project which the statesman has always advocated.
“How would you deal with this phase then? – Basevi wonders – would you join the chorus of many economists who now consider the Euro a mistake? I do not think so. He was profoundly pro-European and convinced that the single currency was the right way to move towards a political union. Would you like Eurobonds or fiscal union? Probably yes, but he wouldn't blame Germany for opposing them. I rather believe that he would join those in Germany who hypothesize a different mechanism from the current one for offsetting debts between the European national banks and the ECB”.
The book by Quadrio Curzio and Claudia Rotondi tells what Andreatta has certainly said and written on topics such as income distribution, technology and development. Like the economist, he tackled these issues as a young man, from the 50s to 68, and then at a more mature age, from 75 to the 80s.
“The collected essays – argue the authors – outline the figure of an economist with an eclectic post-Keynesian approach, also with ancestry in classical and Schumpeterian thought. Nino Andreatta reveals himself, in his strong inclination to politics, as the designer of a flexible but not casual public intervention, which can facilitate and guide market operators, but also satisfy those social needs that the market alone is unable to satisfy. achieve".
