ABC of Economics

by Ezra Pound

Sono qui raccolti i principali scritti di Pound "economista" che presentano il corpus articolato di una riflessione condotta nel corso degli anni Trenta da posizioni sì moralistiche, ma non prive di riscontro presso i monetary cranks, quegli economisti eretici rispetto ai quali fu costretto a prendere posizione lo stesso Keynes. Come mostra Giorgio Lunghini, nel suo saggio introduttivo, la premessa etica di Pound, la sua "filosofia sociale", non è molto lontana da quella di Keynes, certo tenuto a un più professionale realismo, in particolare quando si tratta di affrontare il problema della disoccupazione. In appendice due articoli apparsi nella rivista di T. S. Eliot "Criterion" e una selezione dei discorsi di Pound alla radio fascista pronunciati durante la guerra. Con la prefazione di Mary de Rachewiltz e l'introduzione di Giorgio Lunghini.

Genres: Economics, American History

76 pages, Hardcover

First published April 1, 1933

About the author

Ezra Weston Loomis Pound was an American expatriate poet, critic and intellectual who was a major figure of the Modernist movement in early-to-mid 20th century poetry.

Pound's The Cantos contains music and bears a title that could be translated as The Songs—although it never is. Pound's ear was tuned to the motz et sons of troubadour poetry where, as musicologist John Stevens has noted, "melody and poem existed in a state of the closest symbiosis, obeying the same laws and striving in their different media for the same sound-ideal - armonia."

In his essays, Pound wrote of rhythm as "the hardest quality of a man's style to counterfeit." He challenged young poets to train their ear with translation work to learn how the choice of words and the movement of the words combined. But having translated texts from 10 different languages into English, Pound found that translation did not always serve the poetry: "The grand bogies for young men who want really to learn strophe writing are Catullus and François Villon. I personally have been reduced to setting them to music as I cannot translate them." While he habitually wrote out verse rhythms as musical lines, Pound did not set his own poetry to music.

Reviews

[Minotaurochs · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a short work, can be read in a couple hours. The main points are summarised on the back page, I would recommend reading that and then starting from the beginning. Pound has a tendency to use obscure words like 'perdurability' which can break the flow of reading a little bit unless you are a galaxybrain vocabulary enjoyer. Also he will casually refer to other people, or general time periods (1830s America, Thomas Jefferson, John Maynard Keynes, as some examples) without specifically elaborating on what about them he's referring to, assuming the reader has knowledge of them so there's a few things here or there that the reader might not understand immediately.

Overall I would recommend reading it, it has certainly piqued my interest in learning more about things he mentioned that I have no context of.

[Fnaught · Rating 5 out of 5]

'Marx has aroused interest far less than the importance of his thought might seem to have warranted. He knew, but forgot or at any rate failed to make clear, the limits of his economics. That is to say, Marxian economics deal with goods for sale, goods in the shop. The minute I cook my own dinner or nail four boards together into a chair, I escape from the whole cycle of Marxian economics.'
Recommended for badass Homeric pirate motherfuckers.

[Minotaurochs · Rating 5 out of 5]

Will definitely inspire an interest in the reader to read Pound's ABC of Economics, as well as C.H. Douglas' Social Credit. It touches on the concepts of Increment of Association (something similar to Social Capital) and Cultural Heritage, as well as general monetary principles.