Luigi Einaudi and the Science of Government

Testo disponibile solo in lingua inglese.
Bruno Leoni (1913-1967) was one of the most important figures in twentieth century Italian liberalism. A social scientist of wide interests, it was as a legal philosopher that he made fundamental contributions to the theory of liberalism. His most important work, Freedom and the Law – first published directly in English by Van Nostrand of Princeton in 1961, and translated into Italian as La libertà e la legge in 1995 – has been a constant point of reference for the liberal intellectual tradition. When a group of Turin liberals decided to found the Centro Einaudi, Leoni supported the initiative and contributed regularly to our review in the first years of its life. The piece which we reprint here is a speech Leoni made to the Critics’ Circle in the Aula Magna of Turin University’s Faculty of Economics and Commerce in commemoration of Luigi Einaudi two years after his death. In it he masterfully reconstructs the guidelines of Einaudi’s teaching which, for true liberals, are as valid today as they were then.