La questione economica e morale della rendita nel pensiero di Calderoni

In the essay entitled "Disarmonie economiche e disarmonie morali" ("Economic and moral disharmonies"), Mario Calderoni proposes to extend the Ricardian theory of rent to the sphere of morality. His reflection allows, however, conversely, to shed new light on the methods of economics itself, and specifically on the economic concept of rent. Economic harmony requires, according to Calderoni, the proportionality between effort and remuneration. Rent is an economic disharmony because it dissociates remuneration from labor. The extension of the principle of competition allows to minimize this form of disharmony. There is, however, a second and more subtle form of economic disharmony, which results from the presumption of being able to measure, compare and exchange everything through money, in spite of the irreducible difference between people and radical uncertainty of the future. This article traces the thoughts of Calderoni, noting deep consonance with the thinking of John Maynard Keynes, who investigated, in those same years, but within economics, the behavior of human beings in the face of radical uncertainty.