Adriano Olivetti Research Articles

Nouvelles frontières de la représentation politique (1936–1945): du Personnalisme communautaire au projet de Adriano Olivetti

SUMMARY From 1936 onwards, after the failure of many existing parliaments in European countries, authors in France and Italy developed ideas for parliamentary systems in which the community, not the individual voter, would be directly represented. Giorgio Campanini compares the key writings on this topic of Emmanuel Mounier, Jacques Maritain and Adriano Olivetti. Whereas Mounier conceived of national and local groups being represented along economic, juridical, educational and other divides, supported by referenda, Maritain laid more emphasis on the forces of production and consumption receiving separate representation. Influenced by his French precursors, the typewriter entrepreneur Olivetti inspired the Italian ‘Communitarian Movement’ with his detailed federal scheme of 1945. It built upon local communities of 75–150,000 inhabitants each, as well as other units representing capital and labour. Although facing situations different from those sixty years later, these three authors tackled the perennial problem of the alienation of the individual voter from the parliamentary system.

La recherche en dehors de l’Université dans l’Italie des années soixante et soixante-dix : le cas des sciences sociales

Research outside the University in italy in the 1960s and 1970s : the case of the social sciences The Consiglio Nazionale delle Richerche (CNR) was created just after the First World War so that Italy could be represented in plans for new international organizations. Presided over by the mathematician Vito Volterra, the CNR was dedicated to the development of technological research. Confirmed in these priorities since the end of the war, considerable development occurred at the beginning of the 1960s under the presidency of Giovanni Polvani. The question of the place of the social sciences in the research university arose with urgency at this time. In particular, there was the question of the development of economic and administrative sciences. This interest appeared to bring together intellectuals and industrialists who, like Adriano Olivetti, had worked in the immediate post-war years to open the Italian debate to ideas being developed in other countries. At the initiative of the Olivetti Foundation, with the aid of American foundations, in particular the Ford Foundation, education and research institutes were created to train young people in social science research methodology, in order to « fertilize » the University training, which remained prisoner to theoretical and/or ideological debates. The CNR was considered an organization that could, by close liaison with the world of the university, to promote change from within universities. The opposition of academics was strong and caused serious obstacles to the development of cooperation between CNR's committees and the committees on social and political sciences created by the Olivetti and the Ford Foundations.

Theory and reality in the vision of Adriano Olivetti

This article describes and analyses the ideas and activities of the Italian industrialist, Adriano Olivetti (1901–1960). Although by most interpretations of the term philanthropy, Olivetti would be considered a philanthropist, Italians have not viewed him in that way, and outside of Italy his ‘philanthropic’ work has not received the attention it deserves. In this article the theory and praxis of Adriano Olivetti are analysed in order to shed light on two significant issues in the study of philanthropy generally: first, the basic problem of the applicability of the concept in different cultural contexts; and second, a related question about the borderlines between philanthropic, third sector activities and political activities, and how these borders may shift or even disappear under certain conditions of time and place.

Patterns of European Industrialization: The Nineteenth Century. Edited by Richard Sylla and Gianni Toniolo. London and New York: Routledge and Fondazione Adriano Olivetti, 1991. Pp. xii, 276. $65.00.

Patterns of European Industrialization: The Nineteenth Century. Edited by Richard Sylla and Gianni Toniolo. London and New York: Routledge and Fondazione Adriano Olivetti, 1991. Pp. xii, 276. $65.00. - Volume 52 Issue 4

On Studying Public Budgets

Editors' Note: The articles included in this section of the journal are revised versions of the papers presented at the conference on “Major Budgetary Problems in the Eighties” held in Siena, Italy, November 4–5, 1981, under the auspices of the Centro Studi Fondazione Adriano Olivetti, the German Marshall Fund of the United States, and the Gruppo Monte dei Paschi di Siena.

The Peasant World View: Italy and India

Non c'e niente da fare (There is nothing that can be done) is an expression of futility that resounds through the villages of southern Italy as an expression of peasant disbelief in the efficacy of any concerted, action to improve his world of misery. There is nothing that can be done is also applied to the Italian peasant himself by those who, having tried to help him, conclude that peasants are irrational, stupido, uncooperative, and ungrateful. Hundreds of young Italians active in the humanistic movements of men like Adriano Olivetti and Danilo Dolci have turned away from rural social reform in dillusionment and despair to enter teaching or business in the more rational north. The same theme permeates discussions with Indians who (inspired by Gandhi, Nehru, and Vinoba Bhave) have found only hostility, inertia, frustration, and dispair after working for years in Indian villages.