Ferdinando Galiani

Ferdinando Galiani - also known as Abbé Galiani - ( born December 2, 1728 in Chieti, Kingdom of Naples, † October 30, 1787 in Naples, Kingdom of Naples ) was an Italian diplomat, economist and writer in the Age of Enlightenment.

Life and work

Galiani was born one of seven children of the Marquis Galiani Matteo, district administrator of Chieti, and his wife Maria Ciaburra. The Galiani family came from the old nobility of officials of the Kingdom of Naples. From 1735, he and his older brother by her uncle, Archbishop Celestino Galiani ( 1681-1753 ), one of the most influential men in the kingdom, taught in Naples. Naples was then the third largest city in Europe and the house of his uncle, the Casa Galiani, the intellectual center. From 1740 to 1742 the brothers attended the convent school of Celestine in Rome, because her uncle was staying there on a diplomatic mission. Among his teachers were Giambattista Vico, Appiano Buonafede and Antonio Genovesi and his sponsors Intieri Bartolomeo ( 1678-1757 ). In 1744 he was inducted into the Accademia degli Emuli ( Academy of zealous ). In these academies, the youth of Naples presented in treatises their academic knowledge. A parodic satire on academic adulation titled " Componimenti ... " Galiani made ​​first known outside of Naples.

At 22 he published his major work Della Moneta - Cinque Libri ( About the money - five books); it was published anonymously. This work also shows his masterful ability to adapt his style at will to the intended audience. As a reward for his performance as an economic theorist, he received the benefices of the diocese Centola and the Abbey of San Lorenzo. In order to dispose of the money from these benefices, had the young economist who had never studied theology, accept the lower ordinations. A papal dispensation allowing him now, to use the title Monsignor and to regard themselves as infuliert. Thus, the free spirit went down in history as the Abbé Galiani.

A journey through Northern Italy became for him a literary triumph. In Rome he was received by Pope Benedict XIV. 1755 appointed him King Charles IV of Naples member of the Academy of Herculaneum, which had the task of leading the excavations in ancient Herculaneum and to describe the findings.

From 1759 to 1769 Galiani was secretary of the Neapolitan Embassy in Paris; in court society of small stature and perhaps too witty man came not at first. Through diplomatic circles he came, however, with personalities of the French Enlightenment ( including Jean -Baptiste le Rond d' Alembert, Diderot, d' Holbach, Paul Henri Thiry, Claude Adrien Helvetius and Friedrich Melchior Grimm) in contact and soon became the darling of the salons. Diderot put it, " The Abbé is inexhaustible in ingenious twists and trains; a gem for rainy days ... " became famous his long years of ongoing correspondence with Mrs. Louise d' Epinay from. His writings have been praised by Denis Diderot, Voltaire and the other Encyclopaedists.

1769 had him his patron, the Minister Tanucci, dismissed on the Neapolitan king of Paris statement. With what feelings he left France and the friends there, shows the following passage from a letter to Mrs. d'Epinay, "They ripped me out of Paris, and one has ripped my heart out of my chest! " Galiani left his book Dialogues sur le commerce the blés ( dialogues on the grain trade ), which became a bestseller in Paris. His beloved wife he had by of Epinay pay a fixed annuity. As a consolation that he had become the victim of global political intrigue, he was appointed the same year to the Secretary of the Supreme Commercial Court in Naples - with doubled salary. Among other literary works he wrote a book on the Neapolitan dialect. In 1777 he became chairman of the management domain; His advice was very much appreciated at court. In 1782 he was the first assessor of the Supreme Fiscal Council in the Kingdom of Naples. Galiani was now famous.

After the death of his friends, d' Alembert, Diderot and d'Epinay woman he slowly took leave of the old dream of returning to Paris. He limited himself to his constant correspondence with sympathizers of the Enlightenment, with Frederick the Great, Catherine II and many other European princes. While he planned extensive canal projects in the Kingdom of Naples, in 1785, he suffered a severe stroke. He recovered though, but his health was struck. Nearly two years later, he visited Venice, Modena and Padua, where he was received everywhere with great honor.

In early October of the same year presented his doctor incurable dropsy firm; a few weeks later Galiani died at the age of 58 years. He was in the Ascension Church of Celestine, in Naples Chiaia, on the side of his uncle, the Archbishop Celestino Galiani, entombed. He was considered one of the most ingenious men of his century.

In Germany Galiani was observed especially by Goethe, Jean Paul, Leopold Mozart and Friedrich Nietzsche. Goethe met him as an old man and wondered about its Kasper land, he paid tribute to his work as a translator by an extended quotation:

Nietzsche, too, had heard of Galiani as buffoons and interpreted the philosophical:

When Nietzsche an unwanted visit from the homeland was finally going on in Rome, he wrote in a letter:

Nietzsche refers to him as his friend; elsewhere he talks about his Galiani Reading:

Works

• De la Monnaie (1751 ), Paris, Librairie M. Rivière, 1955 ( German translation: ' Ferdinando Galiani 's money, Dusseldorf: Verl Economy and Finance, 1999).
• Dialogues sur le commerce of blés, Paris, Fayard, 1984 ISBN 978-2-213-01479-1 ( German translation: Galiani 's Dialogues on the grain trade in 1770 / ed with a biography of Franz Galiani 's lead, Bern. Wyss, 1895).
• L'Art de conserver les grains, Paris, 1770.
• De la Monnaie, Paris, Economica, 2005 ISBN 978-2-7178-4998-1.

Della moneta is considered a classic work of the Italian political economy. Karl Marx summed Galiani economic analysis primarily in terms of the labor theory of value on: The wealth is seen as a relationship between two people. The trouble ( fatica ) is the only thing that gives the value. " The money is of two kinds, ideal and real, and it is used in two different ways in order to appreciate the things and to buy them To estimate the ideal money is suitable, as the real and perhaps even better, the. . other use of money is to buy those things that appreciates it ... the prices and contracts will be valued in money and ideal realized in real money. " "It is the rapidity of the circulation of money and not the amount of the metal, making it that much or little money seems to be present. " " The metals have the peculiarity and particularity that in them alone all ratios are attributed to one that is their quantity, that they have not received a different quality of nature, either in the internal structure, even in the outward form and editing. "

Vladimir Karpovich Dmitriev saw Galiani, however, as the discoverer of the theory of marginal utility. For him, the exchange ratio of goods is dependent on the subjective assessment of the individual. He had the primary usefulness ( utilità primaria ), ie the importance of the needs that meets the thing, distinguished from the specific utility, which depends on the degree to which the need has been met.

• In Dialogues sur le commerce of blés Galiani analyzed the famine in Naples (1763-1766) and came to the conclusion that the provision of basic care should be considered not only from an economic point of view, but that the State is required for the " public goods " to guarantee the production. Throughout his economic work, he pointed out that the well-being of a country depended on the democratic, market-based backup of the monetary value of well-functioning state institutions and a social conscience awake.
• The letters of the Abbé Galiani ( with introduction and notes by William Weigand, Munich and Leipzig ² in 1914, a selection can be found in Galiani, Bright Letters, The Other library hg v. HM Enzensberger. ) After his return from Paris Galiani corresponded with his Parisian friends from among the Ezyklopädisten and salons (including Madame Necker, Madame d' Epinay ). These letters are among the most interesting and the most brilliant reflections of European intellectual life on the eve of the French Revolution.