Towards and Beyond the Italian Republic : Adriano Olivetti’s Vision of Politics

This study is about the historical process that led to the establishing of the Italian Republic (1946) and its Constitution (1948), through the experience and the political reflections of Adriano Olivetti (1901–1960), general manager and then president of the famous typewriter factory Olivetti. After the publication of the first articles by Olivetti during the two-year period of 1919–1920 in the weekly L’Azione Riformista, his engineering studies at the Politecnico di Torino did not leave him much time to dedicate to journalism and, with the advent of fascism, his writing activities were finally shelved. From his personal experience as ‘production organizer’ and head of industry, his own reflections evolved: first on the scientific organization of a modern company, then on that having to do with the surrounding territory and on the direct and indirect interests that its activities seemed to touch. An unbroken line of reasoning linked his maturing political reflections during the two post-war periods. Spanning a period of about 20 years, from his joining the Lega democratica per il rinnovamento della politica nazionale (“Democratic League for the Renewal of National Politics”) in 1919, formed around “L’Unità” by Gaetano Salvemini, many historical experiences and theoretical influences followed, enriched his awareness, and yielded complex answers in face of the same problem: the crisis of representative democracy. The historical context of the 1950s did not prove to be very propitious but the guidelines dispersed throughout the Italian cultural and political world from the movement that Olivetti founded were certainly seminal—generating a legacy of ideas that has only in part been recognized.