POLITICAL ECONOMY AS A SCIENCE
VALERIANI MOLINARI, Luigi.
Discorsi concernenti la pubblica economia il gius pubblico e l’antico gius romano.
Bologna, Masi, 1809.
8vo, pp. [2], xli, [3 (errata)], 252; with one folding printed table at the end; title-page skilfully repaired at gutter, a few pinholes in the inner margins, some occasional light marginal waterstaining, but a very good copy, uncut in contemporary printed patterned wrappers.
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Discorsi concernenti la pubblica economia il gius pubblico e l’antico gius romano.
First edition of Valeriani’s (1758–1828) rare work of political economy presented as a science which stands as an organic complement to a nation’s set of legislation.
The main elements of the Western tradition of political and thought, from Plato and Aristotle through to Justinian, Hobbes and Locke to the theorists of jusnaturalism, are gathered and examined with respect to their incorporation of economic elements within a legislative body.
‘In his day Valeriani was widely known; he wrote many works, some of which were never published ... Trained both as a lawyer and an economist, his writings bear especially on the relation between economics and law. He devoted himself with assiduity to the theory of value and wrote a book on the subject. He maintains that the law of value depends on supply and demand, supporting this theory with a geometrical illustration from the relative quantities of both; he combats the theory of cost of production and engaged in a controversy on this question with Melchiorre Gioja. In illustrating the theory of value he employs mathematical formulæ. These are, however, not employed as a means of investigating the phenomena of prices, but are only symbols employed to express in mathematical language economic laws already known – as Montanari justly said’ (Palgrave III, 605f).
OCLC finds a single copy outside Italy (Universiteit van Amsterdam).
