Three Continents

Foreword^*

The present volume was not originally planned by Albert Hirschman.

It was not part of the large group of texts in English that he also published in a number of continental European languages to enable a wider circulation of his work.¹ Nor was it part of the two anthologies that came out of the opportunities offered by “Il Mulino” of Bologna,² which I had the honor of editing. This time, the triggering factor, so to speak, was the Laurea honoris causa in political science ←vii | viii→that Hirschman was awarded on November 12, 1987 by the University of Turin, presented by the then Vice-Chancellor Franco Ferraresi, a common friend who died prematurely.

It was then that I had the idea of proposing to Hirschman the publication of a collection of texts written at different times under the title Three Continents. Political Economy and the Development of Democracy in Europe, the United States, and Latin America³—‘in the West,’ in other words. In doing so I took into account Hirschman’s prevailing interest at the time in democracy,⁴ which rounded out (and in a certain sense counterbalanced) his initial focus on development economics. But I perhaps did not fully realize at the time the extent to which the title actually reflected, quite profoundly, the Colornian aspirations that Albert had cultivated unceasingly since his youth.

Yet it is clear to me today that in Hirschman’s work for the U.S. Federal Reserve Board on the Marshall Plan there was undoubtedly a supra-European dimension, along with a “Europeanist” attitude that, as we shall see, is sometimes surprisingly explicit. And in his “courageous decision” (as he himself referred to it) to take on the assignment of economic planning in Colombia, after having entertained for some time the idea of working with his friend Manlio Rossi-Doria in Portici (Naples) for the development of the Italian Mezzogiorno,⁵ there is undoubtedly a need to move outside the borders of what was then called the first world, the developed world, and to open broader horizons. And going still further, in my opinion it is in this spirit that we should also interpret Hirschman’s late decision to spend six months of the year in Berlin after the fall of the Wall, his intention to organize in the German capital an inter-European colloquium on his work for a select group of experienced scholars—which he was unfortunately unable to fulfill, and his criticism of the founding process of the EU (contained in an interview with a French newspaper⁶) for having focused too much on economics at the expense of the formation of a true European culture, etc.

All this became increasingly clear to me as I immersed myself in the work of Eugenio Colorni as editor of his complete works in seven volumes for the publishers Editore Rubbettino of Soveria Mannelli and the Bordighera Press in New York. In fact, Colorni’s Europeanist federalism was only a first step in the ever-expanding project of overcoming nationalism and imperialism (a Herculean ←viii | ix→undertaking, of course, which will probably require the work of several generations). In my opinion, Hirschman’s entire practical and intellectual experience lies within this perspective, which originated in Trieste in 1937–1938 out of the intense, almost daily dialogue involving Albert Hirschman, Eugenio Colorni and his friends,⁷ while preparations were under way for the terrible nationalist and imperialist tragedy of the Second World War.

The present volume thus stands at the origin of my awareness of these things. Once he had accepted the idea, it was Hirschman, of course, who selected the essays in Three Continents—essays which, in the introduction, I suggested should be read with a passion for the possible⁸ because, as I wrote at the time, this attitude of the mind is also useful as a visual angle for observing and introducing the texts here collected...

Luca Meldolesi
A Colorni-Hirschman International Institute
26 November 2021, Rome.

Hirschman, A.O.

Introduction: “A Passion for the Possible”

In 1971 Albert Hirschman published “Introduction: Political Economics and Possibilism,” “an attempt to delineate common themes and to discover an underlying methodology and perhaps philosophy” in his own work (1971a, p. ix). This essay, which opens the collection A Bias for Hope, has as its point of reference a period of 18 years (1952–1970) dedicated almost entirely to the economics of development and to Latin America. Actually, however, it remained the author’s main methodological text thereafter. This led me to the idea that a possible “Ariadne’s thread” for approaching the present collection might be this same introductory essay—the second part especially—along with the linked article that closes A Bias for Hope, eloquently entitled “The Search for Paradigms as a Hindrance to Understanding.”¹←1 | 2→

The problem is one of cognitive style, exemplified in the text by the comparison of two books: Patterns of Conflict in Colombia by James L. Payne, and Zapata and the Mexican Revolution by John Womack. The first of these starts off presenting its own general key for a complete (and grotesque) understanding of the Colombian political system. The second instead reaches certain circumspect conclusions after having carefully reconstructed a specific historical event that contains a broader lesson (in content and method).

The point, of course, is not to forego a search for regularities and paradigms—which play an important role in Hirschman’s work as well (consider exit-voice—1970—or the idea of ‘slack’ or the ‘tunnel effect’—1986a, chap. 1 and 1981a, chap. 3)—but to adopt a cognitive style that respects the complexity of life and leaves room for the unexpected. This means that “the kind of paradigms we search out, the way we put them together, and the ambitions we nurture for their powers—all this can make a great deal of difference” (1971a, p. 354).

Typically, large-scale social change is produced by a unique constellation of disparate events. It is unrepeatable and (ex ante) improbable, and to see it requires staying alert—being gripped, as Kierkegaard put it, by a “passion for what is possible” rather than relying on what passes for traditional analysis.←2 | 3→