PANTALEONI, Maffeo. – Italian economist, b. Frascati, 2 July 1857, d. Milan, 29 Oct. 1924; professor of political economy at the Universities of Camerino, Macerata, Venice, Bari, Naples, Geneva, Pavia, and Rome; deputy and senator. He was a scientist of notable renown and, for over forty years, a leading figure in the development of economic studies in Italy.
His intellectual profile stands between those of Walras and Pareto. When he entered the scientific arena, the Walrasian construction was already complete, in which economic equilibrium is represented by a system of algebraic equations linking prices and quantities. The Paretian framework had not yet emerged, which would later lend the structure its elegant form, presenting economic equilibrium as the outcome of the interplay between tastes and obstacles (v. PARETO, VILFREDO).
The “Slavophiles” (v.) developed, with a distinctly Russian accent, Romantic tendencies of solidarism in the first half of the 19th century.
Pantaleoni’s conception anticipated that of Pareto in seeking to eliminate monetary superstructures. By treating productivity as an indirect utility, he extended to the sphere of production the conception that J. Jevons had already formulated for the sphere of consumption, thereby determining the configuration of equilibrium under competition as that in which the ratios of final utilities, considered pairwise, remain the same for all agents in the market. It follows that, as long as a disparity exists between the final utilities of even just two agents, the system is not in equilibrium. This means that the community’s resources are not being employed in the manner most advantageous to the community itself. If the disparity pertains to consumer goods, then an exchange operation becomes advantageous; if it pertains to producer goods, then a different combination of production factors within the same industry or a new distribution of factors across industries becomes advantageous. Under competition, the entire economic movement—whether in fields or factories, domestic or international markets—is nothing but the result of the effort through which millions of individuals, guided solely by their personal advantage, strive to bring about the most efficient use of collective resources. And this is realized precisely in an equilibrium configuration in which all utility ratios are equalized for all agents in the market. Equilibrium thus represents an ideal goal that is continually shifting in response to the ongoing changes in the conditions that determine II. The art of economic policy consists in creating environmental conditions that allow the adjustment process to unfold naturally, with minimal friction.
On this foundation rests the system of identifying the economic market, which constitutes the dominant theme of his entire scientific output. It is the exaltation of economic freedom, the foundation of civil progress and the bulwark of moral and political liberty. The State is incapable of substituting itself for individuals in evaluating the ratios of final utilities, still less in the direct action required to equalize them. Its function, therefore, is not to replace individuals in whole or in part, but to create an environment within which individuals can freely engage in exchange, production, and investment. When the State adheres to this policy, the economy thrives, and the industrial world resembles a boiling sea, in which mountains of lava rise and fall in flows and ebbs under the action of competition—a force as powerful as the law of gravity. The opposite scenario is that of paternalism, dirigisme, socialism, and collectivism in all their forms: a putrid swamp, the triumph of incompetence, incapacity, unbridled ambition, and greed without measure. It ends in parasitism, ruin, and universal poverty.
No one better than Pantaleoni captured the essence of this process in his diagnosis. It was to this that he directed his scientific activity in the final period of his life, amid the turbulent aftermath of the First World War. His dry, taut, and agile prose produced essays that stand as works of art. The brief sketch provided here does not fully convey the man: the acute interpreter of facts, the creator of economic semiotics, the profound statesman, and the brilliant historian who, in immortal pages, reconstructed the living and vibrant history of economic institutions. Above all, it says nothing of the man himself, of the charm that emanated from his person, of his great heart. He had the honor of inspiring the pursuit of economic research in figures such as Vilfredo Pareto and Enrico Barone. Nearly all those who cultivated economic studies in Italy between 1890 and his death in 1924 claimed—and still claim—the honor of having been his disciples.
Principal works: *Teoria della traslazione dei tributi* (Rome, 1882); *Dell’ammontare probabile della ricchezza in Italia* (ibid., 1884); *Principi di economia pura* (Florence, 1889; Milan, 1911; English trans., London, 1898; Spanish trans., Madrid, 1918); *Lo scandalo bancario di Torino* (in collaboration with G. Poli, Turin, 1902); *Nuove riflessioni e nuovi documenti* (ibid., 1903); *Scritti vari di economia*, 3 vols. (Palermo, 1909–10); *Tra le incognite* (Bari, 1917); *Note in margine della guerra* (ibid., 1917); *Politica: criteri ed eventi* (ibid., 1918); *La fine provvisoria di un’epopea* (ibid., 1919); *Bolscevismo italiano* (ibid., 1922); *Temi, tesi, problemi e quesiti di economia politica tecnica ed applicata* (in collaboration with Broglio d’Azano, ibid., 1923); *Eroti di Economia* (ibid., 1925); *La crisi del 1905–1907*, ed. Annali di Economia, I, no. 2 (Milan, 1925); *Il sinodalismo e la realtà storica* (Collana degli Economisti, V, Turin, 1932); *Studi storici di economia*, ed. A. de’ Stefani and A. Del Buttero (Bologna, 1938); *Studi di finanza e di statistica*, ed. A. de’ Stefani and A. Del Buttero (Bologna, 1938).