For a Critique of Economic Policy: Augusto Graziani Interpreter of the 1970s Crisis

Augusto Graziani (1933–2014), as is well known, was a severe critic of the so-called economic miracle, identifying in it the contradictions that would quickly lead the Italian economy from expansion to stagnation. In the early 1970s, Graziani, in collaboration with other economists at the Centro di Specializzazione e Ricerche Economico Agrarie per il Mezzogiorno (Center for Economic and Agricultural Specialization and Research for the Mezzogiorno), developed several models aimed at critically describing the Bank of Italy’s monetary policy and the Italian government’s fiscal policy The models were a tool to reveal the theoretical framework, and thus the ideological assumptions, behind the economic policy decisions made by Italian institutions to counter the crisis of the post-war development mechanism. In these essays, Graziani, effectively applying the Marxian critical method, questioned the supposed neutrality of the instruments by revealing the social interests behind them. Based on this critique, an alternative model of economic policy emerged in opposition, which took the defence of real wages and employment as its priority.