Forecasting in the Long-Term: Aurelio Peccei, a Quite Neglected Manager and Utopian

Journal title HISTORY OF ECONOMIC THOUGHT AND POLICY
Author/s Alessandro Le Donne
Publishing Year 2022 Issue 2022/1
Language English Pages 17 P. 7-23 File size 98 KB
DOI 10.3280/SPE2022-001002
DOI is like a bar code for intellectual property: to have more infomation click here

Below, you can see the article first page

If you want to buy this article in PDF format, you can do it, following the instructions to buy download credits

Article preview

FrancoAngeli is member of Publishers International Linking Association, Inc (PILA), a not-for-profit association which run the CrossRef service enabling links to and from online scholarly content.

Aurelio Peccei (1908-1984) was an Italian top manager who worked in FIAT and Olivetti and founded in 1968 the Club of Rome (CoR), an informal group of politicians and intellectuals. They had the objective to clearly scrutiny into the af-termath of the economic growth which apparently paid no consideration for its negative side effects, especially the exhaustion of energy sources, and, in general, its sustainability: all that sums up in the phrase world problematique. The present paper deals with Aurelio Peccei and the main points of his futurology, in the light of the thought of Bertrand de Jouvenel, whom Peccei considered as his mentor. We will discuss how, according to Peccei’s vision, only through a cultural revolu-tion a process of social changings eventually leading to sustainable equilibria could be set up in motion. Moreover, the issues under investigation were deemed com-mon to both capitalist and socialist countries so that the solutions would have to apply to both fronts of the Cold War. Indeed, in Peccei’s approach, the reshaping of the international order would be a non-political process; maybe unknowingly, Peccei and the CoR doctrine seem to have a utopian, Saint-Simonian flavour.

Keywords: Future thinking; Aurelio Peccei; Club of Rome; World Problematique; Holistic approach.

Jel codes: B00, B19, B31

  1. Andersson J. (2012). The Great Future Debate and the Struggle for the World, The American Historical Review, 117(5): 1411-1430.
  2. Bell W. (2009). Foundations of future studies, History, Purposes, and Knowledge, Volume 1, New Brunswick, Transaction Publishers.
  3. Berta N., Debref R. and Vivien F.D. (2021). Economics and The Environment Since The 1950s: An Overview, Cahiers d’économie politique, 1(79): 7-30.
  4. Botkin J.W., Elmandjra M. and Malitza M. (1998) [1979]. No Limits to Learning Bridging the Human Gap, New York, Pergamon Press.
  5. Caldari K. (2018). Alfred Marshall and François Perroux: the neglected liaison, The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, 25(1): 134-174. DOI: 10.1080/09672567.2017.1421678
  6. Colombo U. (2001). The Club of Rome and sustainable development, Futures, 33: 7-11.
  7. Colquhoun R. (1996). The art of social conjecture: remembering Bertrand de Jouvenel, History of the Human Sciences, 9(1): 27-42. DOI: 10.1177/095269519600900102
  8. Costanzo L.A. and MacKay R.B. (2009). Handbook of research on strategy and foresight, Cheltenham, Edward Elgar Publishing.
  9. Dard O. (2008). Bertrand de Jouvenel, Paris, Librairie Académique Perrin.
  10. De Jouvenel B. (1957). From Political Economy to Political Ecology, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 13(8): 287-291. DOI: 10.1080/00963402.1957.11457581.
  11. De Jouvenel B. (1961). Rousseau the Pessimistic Evolutionist, Yale French Studies, 28: 83-96.
  12. De Jouvenel B. (1962). L’homme et son travail, Revue des Deux Mondes (1829-1971): 510-520.
  13. De Jouvenel B. (1965). Utopia for Practical Purposes, Daedalus, 94(2): 437-453.
  14. De Jouvenel, B. (1967). The art of conjecture, Ney York, Basic Books.
  15. De Jouvenel B. (1968). Arcadie: essais sur le mieux-vivre, Paris, Bulletin Sedeis Fu-turibles.
  16. Freeman C. (1984). Prometheus unbound, Futures, 6(5): 494-507. DOI: 10.1016/0016-3287(84)90080-6
  17. Gabor D., Colombo U., King A. and Galli R. (1981) [1978]. Beyond the Age of Waste, New York, Pergamon Press.
  18. Gage R.L. (2008). Before it is Too Late: A Dialogue, London, Tauris Academic Studies.
  19. Goldstein W. (1970). The Chasm Ahead by Aurelio Peccei Review by: Walter Goldstein, Technology and Culture, 11(3): 471-473.
  20. Gori U. (2017). Aurelio Peccei e il club di Roma: un pioniere degli studi previsionali, Futuribili. Rivista di studi sul futuro e di previsione sociale, 22(1): 197-215.
  21. Helmer O. and Nicholas R. (1959). On the epistemology of the inexact sciences, Management science, 6(1): 25-52.
  22. Ikonicoff M., (1971). Les étapes de la prospective, Tiers-Monde, 12(47): 489-496.
  23. Marx K. and Engels F. (1975-2005). Collected Works (eds. 50), Edited and trans-lated by various authors, London, Lawrence & Wishart.
  24. Masini E.B. (1981). Philosophical and ethical foundations of future studies: A dis-cussion, Futures: The Journal of New Paradigm Research, 17(1-2): 1-14.
  25. Masini E.B. (2004). The Legacy of Aurelio Peccei Twenty Years after his Passing and the Continuing Relevance of his Anticipatory Vision, Rome, November 23. -- https://web.archive.org/web/20080517044645/http://www.clubofrome.org/archive/publications/AURELIO_PECCEI_-_MASINI_LECTURE.pdf.
  26. Masini E.B. and Vasquez J.V. (2000). Scenarios as seen from a human and social perspective, Technological forecasting and social change, 65(1): 49-66.
  27. Meadows D.H., Meadows D.L., Randers J. and Behrens W.W. (1972). The Limits to Growth, New York, Potomac Associates Universe Books.
  28. Meadows D., Richardson J. and Bruckmann G. (1982). Groping in the dark: the first decade of global modelling, New York, John Wiley & Sons.
  29. Mitroff I.A. (2002). Philosophical and Methodological Foundations of Delphi, in, Linstone H.A and M. Turoff (eds.) The Delphi Method: Techniques and Appli-cations: 17-36. DOI: 10.2307/1268751
  30. Laszio E. and Peccei A. (1978). The inner limits of mankind: heret. reflections on today’s values, culture, and politics, Oxford, Pergamon Press.
  31. Nordhaus W.D. (1973). World Dynamics: measurement without data, Economic Journal, 83(332): 1156-1183. DOI: 10.2307/2230846
  32. Ogilvy J. (2002). Futures studies and the human sciences: the case for normative scenarios, in Ogilvy, J. (eds.), New thinking for a new millennium, London, Routledge: 40-97.
  33. Peccei A. (1968). World problems in the coming decades, American Behavioral Scientist, 11(6): 20-23.
  34. Peccei A. (1969). The Chasm Ahead, Toronto, The Macmillan Company, Collier-Macmillan Canada Ltd.
  35. Peccei A. (1970). Problems of World Future, Technological Forecasting, 1: 229-233. DOI: 10.1016/0099-3964(70)90025-6
  36. Peccei A. (1977). The Human Quality, Oxford, Pergamon Press.
  37. Peccei A. (1978). Reports: The Club of Roma Ten Years On, Futures, 10(2): 171-174.
  38. Peccei A. (1979). Human Beings at the Crossroads, Self & Society, 7(8): 33-40. DOI: 10.1080/03060497.1979.11083713
  39. Peccei A. (1981). One Hundred Pages for the Future: Reflections of the President of The Club of Rome, Exeter, Pergamon Press.
  40. Peccei A. (1982). Global modelling for humanity, Futures, 14(2): 91-94. DOI: 10.1016/0016-3287(82)90082-9
  41. Peccei A. (1984). The alternatives of the human future, World Futures: The Jour-nal of New Paradigm Research, 19(3-4): 199-208. DOI: 10.1080/02604027
  42. 1984.9971980.
  43. Rostow W.W. (1960). The stages of economic growth: A non-communist manifes-to, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  44. Salomone M. and Messina M. (2011). Complex, Ecological, Creative: The Modern City and Social Change, World Futures, 67(2): 79-92. DOI: 10.1080/02604027.2010.516204
  45. Van Beek L. et al. (2020). Anticipating futures through models: the rise of Inte-grated Assessment Modelling in the climate science-policy interface since 1970, Global Environmental Change, 65: 102191.

Alessandro Le Donne, Forecasting in the Long-Term: Aurelio Peccei, a Quite Neglected Manager and Utopian in "HISTORY OF ECONOMIC THOUGHT AND POLICY" 1/2022, pp 7-23, DOI: 10.3280/SPE2022-001002