Il farsi di una classe dirigente per il Mezzogiorno

This work represents the culmination of a research path aimed at reconstructing the emergence process of the Southern (and Southern-oriented) ruling class between the dawn of the 1900s and the post-World War II period. Drawing on a historical-economic approach - based on both literature analysis and the examination of unpublished archival documentation - the research aimed to demonstrate how the ruling class behind the extraordinary intervention had very little of the "old-welfare" spirit in its DNA and was instead deeply imbued with a "private-entrepreneurial" spirit. This is to say how often, by judging in hindsight only the distortions of a complex experience such as the extraordinary intervention, we have ended up undermining even its deepest inspiring principles. The "project capacity," or public accountability in governing socio-economic growth processes, accompanied by the effort and technical capabilities to guide them toward predetermined objectives: this embodied the value of the economic governance action promoted by this ruling class. Absolutely central, in this regard, was the contribution of figures of the caliber of Morandi, Menichella, Saraceno, Cenzato, Giordani, to name just the main ones. The analysis of the motivations, both ideal and material, that drove these men to believe in the concrete prospects of industrial development in the South has thus allowed us to analyze, from a unique perspective, a historical experience that cannot be underestimated by those engaged in analyzing the structural causes of the socio-economic delays in Southern Italy.