Introduction: The "Southern Question" in Italian Sociology

Author(s): Paul Piccone

Source: International Journal of Sociology, Vol. 4, No. 2/3, The "Southern Question" in
Italian Sociology (Summer - Fall, 1974), pp. 3-6
Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd.
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20629677
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 Introduction:
The "Southern Question" in Italian Sociology

Although Italian social thought has been surprisingly inter

nationalist in perspective and scope, it is natural that its main
focus be of immediate local relevance. Of all the many social
problems confronting Italian society from the days of national
unification in the latter part of the nineteenth century to the
present, what has been called "the Southern Question" ? i.e.,
the coexistence of an industrialized North side by side with an
underdeveloped South ? has been by far the most crucial, diffi
cult, and all-encompassing. All other social problems, such
as emigration, urbanization, industrialization, etc., have, in
some way or other, been directly related to and affected by
what has happened to the "Southern Question." The following
five essays present a series of empirical, theoretical, and po
litical analyses which collectively provide a fairly adequate ac
count of the major determining features of the Italian "Southern
Question."
To the extent that underdevelopment and backwardness" are
global and not local or national problems, all of these analyses
unavoidably move within an international context. Thus Marti
nelli's critique of the notion of "dualism" is developed primar
ily in relation to interpretations of the phenomenon of under
development advanced by Eckaus, Furtado, Boeke, etc. TfDual
ism," in fact, has been elaborated as a theoretical tool meant
both to explain as well as to indicate ways to overcome back
wardness" in a situation which contraposes backward" soci
eties to "advanced" ones. All these interpretations, however,
are ideologically vitiated at least to the extent that they deal
with these phenomena as examples of imperfection of free com
petition, inadequacy of resources, and similar factors, thus

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4 Paul Piccone

altogether occluding the problem of external domination. Of

course, these types of analysis of dualism can be easily ex
trapolated from an international to a national context without
losing any of their apologetic, occluding, and ideological func
tions. From a means of external or foreign domination, dual
ism readily becomes one of internal domination.
Precisely for these reasons, Carlo and Capecelatro vigor
ously argue against the entire history of the "Southern Ques
tion." According to them, the whole problem has historically
been misunderstood, thus serving the objective interests of
Northern Italian industrialists. What is interesting in their ar
gument is that they show that the posing of the problem in terms
of an "advanced" North contraposed to a backward" South has
not been typical solely of bourgeois apologists for Northern in
dustrial interests but has also been the general rule among
Marxist thinkers from Engels to Gramsci, to the present lead
ers of the Italian Communist Party. Through a rigorous analy
sis of socioeconomic conditions of Southern Italy during the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries up to the time of unification,
they show how, far from being a stagnant feudal society, what
obtained was a thriving and dynamic society well on the way to
capitalist development. Because of a number of specific politi
cal reasons, this development was abruptly interrupted, and
Southern resources were subsequently shifted to launch North
ern industrial development. In this account, both 'Hinder
development" and backwardness" are from the very beginning
seen as connected with a certain consciously chosen path of
capitalist development and not as resulting from lingering feu
dal socioeconomic relations.
Moving to the more recent post-World War II period, the two
authors show how the older policy of underdevelopment has not
been and cannot be qualitatively reversed, and what results is,
at best, what they call "dynamic underdevelopment," i.e., a sit
uation in which some industrial development does take place in
the South, but only within a context in which the North is devel
oping at an ever faster pace. Consequently, the gap between the
two areas keeps on widening, and only a revolutionary political

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The "Southern Question" in Italian Sociology 5

initiative can reverse this process. Since the authorsT immense

documentation would have taken too much space and most of the
references were in foreign publications not readily available,
the notes have been severely edited to cover only the most im
portant points.
To a great extent, the paper by Turnaturi and Lodi largely
corroborates the Carlo-Capecelatro thesis. By carefully re
constructing the detailed sociopolitical analyses carried out by
three of the major theoreticians of the "Southern Question,"
Turnaturi and Lodi show how even the leading Marxist thinkers
of the pre-World War I period fully shared a whole series of
bourgeois" assumptions in their approach. Such an analysis
is not solely of historical interest, since the works of Salvemini,
Dor so, and Gramsci have been the foundations for almost all
subsequent elaborations of the "Southern Question" until very
recently.
Luciano Ferrari-Bravofs essay on the relation between na
tional economic planning and the "Southern Question" begins
with the realization, during the 1950s, that the question of
under development had become the question of planning in gen
eral. In fact, with the development of "social capital" and its
management by a modern state, Ferrari-Bravo sees develop
ment as "a process of continuous conquest and redefinition of
relations of political strength among classes." Thus planning
itself turns out to be rtthe necessary form of this process dur
ing certain levels of maturity of capitalist production," while
underdevelopment and backwardness function as disintegrating
elements of the "material possibilities for a proletarian politi
cal attack against the fundamental class relation." From this
viewpoint he reconstructs the history of the unique state inter
vention in the South, explaining in the process its many detours
and setbacks. Again, as in the case of the Carlo-Capecelatro
essay, the staggering amount of documentation has been cut to
a bare minimum. It should be remembered, however, that what
in the English translation appear as unsubstantiated claims
were originally nailed down by an army of footnotes useful only
to super specialists.

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6 Paul Piccone

To the extent that all four above-mentioned essays point to a

revolutionary political solution to the "Southern Question" as
the only definitive solution (and such a solution would have to
come from existing class relations), it is appropriate for this
set of essays to close with an empirical analysis of existing so
cial classes. The Donolo-Scartezzini essay offers precisely
such an analysis. Again, for lack of space, the statistical ap
pendix consisting of thirteen extensive charts has not been re
printed. All the relevant points are, however, adequately dealt
with in the text.

Paul Piccone

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