Francesco Ferrara Biography

Francesco Ferrara

(Palermo, 1810-Venice, 1900) Italian economist.He studied the concept of "cost of reproduction", fundamental for the explanation of the value of a product.

He followed the classical studies together with the Jesuits and later became interested in economics.In 1835 he joined the Sicilian section of the Central Statistical Office and contributed to the appearance of the Giornale di Statistica , which gave him notoriety.At the same time he took part in political life and collaborated in the preparation of the Sicilian uprising of 1848.All his activity as a politician, economist and patriot was inspired by his principle according to which political economy represented the new phase of the desire for freedom.

After his arrest (January 1848) and the triumph of the revolutionaries, Francesco Ferrara entered the Parliament of Sicily.When the Bourbons returned, he remained in Turin, where he had gone to offer the Sicilian crown to the Duke of Genoa.There he made friends with many politicians, including Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour, who requested Ferrara's collaboration in Risorgimento and La Croce di Savoia .

Appointed professor of political economy at the Turin university, he saw his classroom frequented by a select audience.In 1859, the opinions that he expressed about the freedom of education forced him to move to Pisa, whose chair he left the following year when he returned to Palermo, where, already free of Sicily, the provisional government entrusted him with the direction of indirect taxes.

In 1862 he returned to Turin, officially requested his help in the preparation of various economic measures.In 1867 he was appointed Minister of Finance and later became part of Parliament.In 1868 he obtained the position of director of the new Superior School of Commerce in Venice.

After a long hiatus, Italy had in Francesco Ferrara a renewing economist.Among his works, it is worth highlighting the posthumous Political Economy Lessons , which were published between 1934 and 1935, using lithographic sources and unpublished manuscripts.This volume completes the author's thought, already contained in the prologues to the volumes of the first and second series of the "Biblioteca dell'Economista", founded by him.

Like the economists who preceded him, Ferrara dealt with the problem of value.His research led him to complete the theory of cost of reproduction, already partly outlined by Carey.For Francesco Ferrara, this theory is affirmed as a universal principle with which all particular economic theories link: from his point of view, every economic act is reduced, basically, to an act of change.In other words: in a regime of perfect freedom, the elements that contribute to change tend to balance each other, that is, to replace each other and to put themselves in a position, albeit with different intensity, to satisfy the same need.

Nothing escapes, according to Ferrara, this law of reproduction and distribution, whether of goods or services; Some products are replaced by others, because everything is reduced, basically, to a common denominator which is precisely the cost of reproduction.A revolutionary spirit, Ferrara deserves to be remembered not only as one of the great figures of the Italian Risorgimento , but also as the sharpest and most intelligent Italian economist of the 19th century.

Comments

Francisco Asenjo Barbieri Biography

Francisco Asenjo Barbieri (Madrid, 1823-1894) Spanish composer and musicologist.The significance of Francisco Asenjo Barbieri in Spanish music is threefold: he was an excellent composer, a capable conductor, who is responsible for the introduction in Spain of many symphonic works from the European continent, and a tireless musicologist, responsible for the recovery and edition of the ancient heritage of his homeland. Francisco Asenjo Barbieri Drawn to opera since his earliest childhood (when he attended the Italian opera performances that were offered at the Teatro de la Cruz, in the that his grandfather worked), Barbieri studied clarinet, singing and composition at the Madrid Conservatory, where he had Ramón Carnicer as his teacher.At the end of his studies he carried out various tasks, from copyist to choirmaster, while trying to publicize his first compositions, including the Italian opera Il buontempone (1847). The difficulties to release it made him focus his interest o...

Josep Tarradellas Biography

Josep Tarradellas (Josep Tarradellas i Joan; Cervelló, Barcelona, 1899-Barcelona, 1988) Catalan nationalist politician.His Catalanist and leftist convictions led him to participate in the republican opposition against the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera (1923-1930), as a member of various groups that, in 1931, were integrated into the Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya coalition. Josep Tarradellas Tarradellas was elected secretary general of that group, which was to dominate Catalan political life during the Second Republic (1931-1936).He was a member of the Spanish Parliament and, after the approval of the first Statute of Autonomy of Catalonia (1932), also a member of the Catalan Parliament, Minister of the Interior and Health and a close collaborator of the first president of the Generalitat of Catalonia, Francesc Macià.

Prehistory: How did the Paleolithic hunters and gatherers live?

In a previous article we already talked about Prehistory and specifically, about hunters and gatherers in the Paleolithic.We suggest you learn more about how these societies lived hundreds of thousands of years ago. Article index Prehistory: Paleolithic hunters and gatherers, how did they live? The prehistoric era encompassed the longest period of humanity, and in fact includes from the appearance of man until the first writings are given.We can say that the prehistory is divided between Neolotic, Paleolithic and stone age. Focusing on the paleolotico , the remains of paintings of the man who lived in the caves, has allowed us to know that these were mainly dedicated to hunting animals and also n collected. Adaptation to the Environment In order to carry out the collection, it was necessary to adapt to the environment that is the ability of man to obtain resources from the environment for the subsistence and growth of the society . The humans of the Paleo...

Jorge L. Tamayo Biography

Jorge L.Tamayo (Oaxaca, 1912-Playa Vicente, Veracruz, 1978) Mexican engineer and geographer.He was a professor of economic geography, a technical consultant on transportation for the UN attached to ECLAC, and president of the Mexican Society of Natural History (1974-1978).His works include The use of water and soil in Mexico (1958), Atlas of the water of the Mexican Republic (1976) and The fundamental problem of the Mexican agriculture (1964), for which he won the national economics prize in 1962 and 1964.Despite not being one of his fields of study, Jorge L.Tamayo also carried out an enormous task as a historian by collecting more than nine thousand writings and documents related to the Mexican president Benito Juárez, a task in which he invested ten years and whose results would be published in fifteen volumes.

Francisco Morales Bermúdez Biography

Francisco Morales Bermúdez (Lima, 1921) Peruvian military and politician and military, president of the republic between 1975 and 1980.He studied with the Jesuits at the La Inmaculada school and later at the Escuela Military of Chorrillos, from which he graduated in 1943 with the rank of second lieutenant in engineering, also awarded the Sword of honor for his excellence in studies.It was also the first of his promotion in the engineering student officer courses and in those that qualified the degrees of lieutenant and captain, respectively, in the engineering weapon. Francisco Morales Bermúdez Later he graduated as an officer of the General Staff at the Higher School of War of Peru, where he obtained the Badge of honor, again for being the first in the ratings.During 1957 and 1958 he studied at the Higher School of War of the Argentine Army.Back in Peru, he was a professor at the Chorrillos Military School, at the Engineering Application School and at the Superior War School.La...

Edward Kennedy Biography

Edward Kennedy (Edward Moore Kennedy, also known as Ted Kennedy; Boston, 1932-Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, 2009) American politician member of the Kennedy clan, one of the most influential families in the history of the Democratic Party.Brother of Robert Francis Kennedy and President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, he began his political career as a Democratic senator from Massachusetts in 1964, a position to which he would be reelected in 1970, 1982, 1992 and 1996. Edward Kennedy From 1969 to 1971 he was deputy leader of the Senate Democratic majority.His presidential aspirations were frustrated when he was convicted of reckless manslaughter in a 1969 car accident.While he was driving while intoxicated, his vehicle fell into a lake and his companion, Mary Jo Kopechne, was killed.Despite this, he would later present his candidacy for the nomination for the presidential elections of 1980 and 1988, but was defeated. Edward Kennedy had married in 1958 with Virginia Joan Bennet, with who...

Georges devereux Biography

Georges Devereux (Lugos, 1908-Paris, 1985) Hungarian-American anthropologist and psychiatrist.He studied physics with Curie and Perrin, but in 1926 he went to the institute of ethnology, where he was a disciple of Maus and Lévy-Bruhl, and settled in the United States, where he was a professor at various universities.He founded ethnopsychiatry ( Ethnopsychiatry , 1970) and synthesized Greek culture ( Dreams in Greek tragedy , 1976), psychoanalysis ( Complementary ethnopsychoanalysis , 1972) and anthropology (he has two studies on the Prairie Indians and the Mohave).

Duke of Rivas Biography

Duque de Rivas (Ángel de Saavedra, Duke of Rivas; Córdoba, 1791-Madrid, 1865) Spanish poet and playwright whose work is considered emblematic of Hispanic romanticism.With liberal ideas, he fought against the French in the war of independence and later against the absolutism of Fernando VII, for which he had to go into exile in Malta.These experiences inspired some of his poems, such as With eleven mortal wounds, in the manner of ancient pastoral romances.Under the influence of his friend Manuel José Quintana and of the then dominant aesthetics, his first verses (collected in Poesías , 1813) and plays, such as Ataúlfo (1814) and Lanuza (1822), were framed within the neoclassical order.However, during his Maltese exile he met the work of William Shakespeare, Walter Scott and Lord Byron and joined the romantic trend with the poems The Exile and The Outlaw's Dream (1824), and The Malta Lighthouse (1828). Ángel de Saavedra, Duke of Rivas He lived in France from 1830 ...

José Rebolledo de Palafox and Melzi Biography

José Rebolledo de Palafox y Melzi Spanish military (Zaragoza, 1776-Madrid, 1847).Coming from a noble family, he belonged to the body of the Royal Guards of Corps since 1792.When the French invasion broke out the War of Independence (1808-14), José de Palafox had already been promoted to brigadier; and the popular rebellion of his city proclaimed him captain general of Zaragoza. José de Palafox (detail of a portrait of Goya) He immediately summoned the Cortes of Aragon (which had not met for a century), which confirmed in office.He organized the general mobilization for the defense of the city, which withstood two long sieges against Napoleon's troops (1808-09).The city ended up capitulating, against the advice of Palafox, who was taken prisoner and remained confined in Valençay until the end of the war. Restored to the throne of Fernando VII, Palafox was appointed Duke of Zaragoza, captain general of Aragon, head of the Halberdiers corps, general director of the War Invali...

Ferdinand lassalle Biography

Ferdinand Lassalle (Breslau, present-day Poland, 1825-Geneva, Switzerland, 1864) German politician and thinker.Born into a family of Jewish merchants, he studied in Breslau and Berlin.After a brief stay in Paris, which allowed him to learn about the French socialist movement, in 1845 he joined the League of the Just.During his participation in the German revolution of 1848, for which he was imprisoned, he befriended Karl Marx. Ferdinand Lassalle That same year, he became one of the Maximum exponents of German socialism, he founded the General Association of German Workers, the first socialist movement of any significance in the country.He enjoyed high regard among the workers, but his ideology, although influenced by Marx, developed positions opposed to Marxism on revolutionary strategy and did not make great theoretical contributions to socialist thought. Lassalle, who did not understand the principles of historical materialism, defended German unification and Otto von Bismar...

History Today Online

Search This Blog