Italy

Horace made the point that Greek culture conquered Agresti Latio (‘rustic Latium’): Graecia capta ferum victorem cepit (“Once conquered, Greece conquered its conqueror”). The Greek truths that perfectly captured human nature found resonance in the Roman Empire and continue to resonate in Europe today. Money still reigns supreme and opens all doors, opportunity continues to be decisive, fortune to turn, reputation to be eternal, wealth to bring honour, the poor to be crushed everywhere, intelligent risk-taking and perseverance to be indispensable for success in business. As for human resources, the Romans pointed out that as master, so servant, and insisted on the need to motivate the troops. They taught how to ask so as not to be refused. They drew attention to the fact that the higher one’s position, the more likely and the harder the fall. Both Cicero and Seneca encourage us to restrain our needs by limiting our desires and following the example of nature, which is content with little. For the Romans, it was clear that the economic difficulties of society eventually caught up even with the most prosperous. The belief that too much tax kills tax already appeared under Vespasian, who also considered that money does not smell. Nobel prize winner Franco Modigliani explained that: “The immediate effect of the deficit is to make you feel good […] until you pay later”. He demonstrated the relation between the life cycle, personal savings, and the wealth of nations. Considered the father of financial economy, he developed theorems on company valuations and wrote about the moral unacceptability of unrewarding work. Corrado Gini measured the distribution of income relative to perfect equality, developing the index that would bear his name. Umberto Eco draws up a list of the characteristics of what he called primitive, eternal fascism, while Ignazio Silone describes economic governance under the far right.