Industrialization or “preindustrialization” of Southern Italy?

Abstract

The several measures taken by the Italian Government in the post-war years in favour of the South have culminated in setting up the so-called “Southern Fund” (Cassa del Mezzogiorno). In view of its specific tasks, the program of the Southern Fund has been described as one of pre-industrialisation; and, as such, has given rise to reservations and doubts in all those who consider that the southern problem can be successfully solved only by an all-embracing - and extremely costly - modernisation plan, centred on industrialisation. This is the position taken by the author in the present article. This approach, if it is based on the one hand on a “radical vision” of what is needed to assure the rehabilitation of South Italy, seems, on the other hand, to be tinged by a pessimistic outlook which leeds the author to suggests recourse to the extreme remedy advocated by some students of the southern question, i.e. regional protective tariffs. The author thus reopens an old controversy, criticising in severe terms the hopes now entertained in Italian official circles.

JEL: O14, O25