Gallery of Testimonials

Capitalism and the Industrial Revolution

Testimonials Adam Smith Alexis de Tocqueville Charles Dickens Karl Marx Samul Smiles Winston Churchill John Keynes Thomas Sowell Joseph Schumpeter Eric Hoffer Deng Xiaoping Thomas Friedman Naomi Klein Riccardo Bellofiore Jeanette Winterson Luigi Zingales

Adam Smith(1723-1790)

Scottish social philosopher, pioneer of political economy

father of modern economics and capitalism

Reference text: The Wealth of Nations

Focus: Capitalism

Cross cultural references: investigation of the causes of wealth aiming at the substitution of industrial freedom for a system of restriction

Critical thinking: Capitalism, Political Economy, causes of wealth

Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859)

French Political thinker and historian

Liberal position about democracy

Reference text: Journey to England and Ireland(1835)

Focus: Manchester

Cross cultural references: J.Bentham, A. Tocqueville , A. Toynbee, K. Marx, F. Engels

Critical thinking: Alienation, exploitation, industrialization, inequal distribution of wealth, bad working condition, double nature of capitalism, utilitarism

Charles Dickens (1812-1870)

English Victorian novelist

remarkable characters

superb telling technique

symbolic portrait social class contrast

Reference text: Hard Times (1854)

Utilitarianism

Focus: Coketown

Cross cultural references: J.Bentham, A. Tocqueville , A. Toynbee

Critical thinking: social rift, industrialization, wealth versus well-being, working class - capitalists

German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist

Critical of his contemporary economy, politic, society and culture

Reference text: Das Kapital(1867)

Focus: Capitalism

Cross cultural references: A. Toynbee, F. Engels, Luigi Zingales

Critical thinking: industrialization, unequal distribution of wealth, money creates wealth

Karl Heinrich Marx (1818 -1883)

Scottish author and reformer.

Reference text: Thrift (1875)

Focus: Capitalism

Cross cultural references: K. Marx, E. Hoffer, T. Sowell, J. Schumpeter

Critical thinking: Industrialization,metaphor of the multi – faceted natureof capitalism

Samuel Smiles (1812 –1904)

British Conservative Politician

statesman and orator, Nobel Prize for Literature

twice Prime Minister (1940–45 and 1951–55)

officer in the British Army

historian, writer, artist

he received the Nobel Prize in Literature

Reference: Sir W. Churchill Quotes

Focus: Capitalism

Cross cultural references: powerful command of the English language, literature

Critical thinking: capitalism, socialism, blessing, industrialization, wealth versus well-being, working class, army

Winston Churchill(1874-1965)

British economist

He is considered to be one of the founders of modern macroeconomics, and the most influential economist of the 20th century.

His ideas are the basis for the school of thought known as Keynesian economics

Reference text: The General Theory of Employment Interest and Money (1936)

Focus: Capitalism and direct interventions

Cross cultural references: R. Bellofiore

Critical thinking: industrialization, Keynesianism, direct intervention on financial problems

John Maynard Keynes(1883 – 1946)

Joseph Alois Schumpeter(1883 -1950)

An Austrian American economist and political scientist.

Popularized "creative destruction" in economics

Reference text: Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy

Focus: Capitalism

Cross cultural references: K. Marx, L. Zingales, R. Bellofiore

Critical thinking: industrialization, the European financial situation, creative destruction

American social writer

He was the author of ten books He was awarded the Presidential Medal of

Freedom in February 1983

Reference text: (1971)

Focus: Capitalism

Cross cultural references: J.Bentham,

A.Tocqueville , A. Toynbee, K. Marx, F. Engels,

Critical thinking: corruption of business andcapitalism

Eric Hoffer (1902-1983)

Politician and reformist leader of theCommunist Party of China

led China towards a market economy.

Reference: Deng Xiaoping quotes

Focus: Capitalism

Cross cultural references: K. Marx, E. Hoffer, T. Sowell, J. Schumpeter

Critical thinking: market economy, to be rich is gloriouos because it gave power and wealth

Deng Xiaoping(1904 – 1997)

 American economist, social theorist, political philosopher, and author

conservative thinker of the late 20th century America's leading philosopher seminal study on the role of Race in history explain the principles underlying modern economics he advocates laissez-faire economics and writes from a

conservative and libertarian perspective. opposes Marxism,

Reference text: Marxism: Philosophy and Economics

Cross cultural references: J.Bentham, A.Tocqueville , A. Toynbee, K. Marx, F. Engels, Milton Friedman, George Stigler, F. A. Hayek, Joseph Schumpeter

Critical thinking: pushiness, justice and equality, civil rights, race and ethnicity

Thomas Sowell (1930)

American journalist and author.

He writes a twice-weekly column for TheNew York Times. He has won the Pulitzer Prize threetimes.

Reference text: The Lexus and the Olive Tree: Understanding Globalization(1999)

Focus: Free-Market capitalism

Cross cultural references: J.Bentham,

A.Tocqueville , A. Toynbee, K. Marx, F. Engels,

Critical thinking: global trade, theMiddle East, Globalization, environmentalissues

Thomas Friedman (1953)

Canadian author and social activist

known for her political analyses andcriticism of corporate globalization.

Reference text: The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism (2007)

Focus: Capitalism

Cross cultural references: K. Marx, E. Hoffer, T. Sowell, J. Schumpeter

Critical thinking: frontier capitalism shifting from crisis to crisis

Naomi Klein (1970)

Full professor in political Economy at the University of Bergamo

Reference text: An article from “the Guardian”(2011)

Focus: A crisis of Capitalism

Cross cultural references: Karl Marx, Hyman Philip Minsky, Yanis Varoufakis, Stuart Holland, John Maynard Keynes

Critical thinking: actualization, financial problems in Europe

Riccardo Bellofiore

Contemporary English Writer

adopted by Pentecostal parents

boundaries of physicality and the imagination, gender polarities, sexual identities

Reference text:

Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?

Focus: Manchester

Cross cultural references: A. Toynbee, K. Marx, F. Engels, C. Dickens

Critical thinking: industrialization, wealth versus well-being, working class – capitalists, process of change, contradictions inside society.

Jeanette Winterson (1959)

Italian economist and educator

He’s the winner of the 2003 Germán Bernácer Prize to the best European economist under 40 working in macro-finance.

Competition isn’t guaranted by the control organisms

Reference text: A Capitalism for the People: Recapturing the Lost Genius of American Prosperity(3 June 2012)

Focus: Capitalism

Cross cultural references: Adam Smith, Kenneth Joseph Arrow

Critical thinking: actualization, financial problems in Europe

Luigi Zingales(1963)

WORKSHOP 7CREDITS

BALDO Sara

MONGERA Enrico

MONTANARI Veronica

TALIAN Lorenzo

ZANUTTA Riccardo