Giammaria Ortes
Reverend Giammaria Ortes | |
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![]() Giammaria Ortes | |
Born | |
Died | 22 July 1790 | (aged 77)
Nationality | Italian |
Occupations |
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Known for | having anticipated certain doctrines of Adam Smith and Thomas Robert Malthus |
Title | abbot |
Parent(s) | Giacomo Ortes Angela Ortes |
Academic background | |
Influences | |
Academic work | |
Discipline | Political economy, political philosophy |
School or tradition | Classical economics |
Influenced |
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Abbé Giovanni Maria Ortes (2 March 1713 – 22 July 1790) was a Venetian composer, economist, mathematician, Camaldolese monk, and philosopher.[1] Ortes was one of the more renowned pre-Smithian Italian economists.[2] He is better known for his population predictions that preceded those of Malthus.
Ortes belonged to the Camaldolese monastic order. When he was thirty, however, he left the cloister and for the remainder of his life he was an abbé, dressed as a priest and fiercely loyal to the Church, but living with his family or friends and giving all of his time to scholarship and writing.
Ortes was probably the first person, according to Adam Ferguson, to use the term "economics" for the science in which he exercised a remarkable activity, particularly in his works Economia Nazionale (1774) and Riflessioni sulla popolazione (1790), which along with other of his works were reprinted in Pietro Custodi 's anthology "Scrittori classici italiani di economia politica" (1802–16). He was opposed to mercantilism.
He anticipated certain doctrines of Adam Smith and Thomas Robert Malthus, especially the latter, as he felt that the population propagation, if it were allowed free rein, would take place in a geometric progression with a doubling every 30 years. These views were expounded in his Riflessioni sulla popolazione delle nazioni per rapporto all'economia nazionale (Reflections on the Population of Nations in respect to National Economy), published in 1790.[3]
Life and works
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/50/Ortes_-_Errori_popolari_intorno_all%27economia_nazionale_e_al_governo_delle_nazioni%2C_1999_-_5903620.tif/lossy-page1-220px-Ortes_-_Errori_popolari_intorno_all%27economia_nazionale_e_al_governo_delle_nazioni%2C_1999_-_5903620.tif.jpg)
Giammaria Ortes was born in Venice on 2 March 1713. His father, Giacomo, owned a glass manufacture.
In his Economia Nazionale (vols. XXI, XXII and XXIII of Pietro Custodi’s Scrittori classici italiani di Economia Politica, Milan, 1802-1816) Ortes endeavors to demonstrate that as “the wealth of a nation is determined by the (previous) wants of its members, the riches of one of them cannot increase unless at the expense of another one; the bulk of existing riches is in each nation measured by its wants, and cannot by any means whatever exceed this measure” (Discorso Preliminare). From this rather startling proposition, Ortes, who certainly was an original thinker, deduces the condemnation of the principles on which mercantilism was based. “Money is only a sign of wealth, and must never be considered as being wealth itself. The error of those who mistake money for wealth, proceeds from a confusion between the equivalent of a thing and the thing itself, or between two equivalents which they consider as identical things, although they are not” (ch. IX).
In his Riflessioni sulla Popolazione (Venice, 1790, and vol. XXIV of Custodi) Ortes controverts the prevailing opinion that an increase of population must necessarily increase the wealth of a nation, and maintains that ‘‘in any nation whatever the population is compelled to keep within fixed limits, which are invariably determined by the necessity of providing for its subsistence” (Prefazione). In his very first chapter he asserts that, if natural instincts were allowed full play, population would increase in a
Ortes was a fervent mathematical student, and expresses himself in algebraical formulae in his Calcolo sopra il Valore dell’Opinioni umane (vol. XXIV Custodi). In the same work he illustrates his meaning by curves, which, if not actually traced, are at least minutely described.
Legacy
Ortes is undoubtedly the most eminent of the Venetian economists of the 18th century; his genius — original and sometimes paradoxical, is often opposed to the general tendency of the ideas of his time, and though his researches are occasionally faulty in their method, he has left a deep impress on the history of
While Ortes applied a mathematical method to economics, his arguments are based throughout on abstract theory, disregarding the study both of facts and of
Works
- Vita del padre D. Guido Grandi, abate camaldolese, matematico dello Studio Pisano. Venice: Giambatista Pasquali. 1744.
- Dell'economia nazionale. Venice. 1774.
- Ortes, Giammaria (1780). Della religione e del governo dei popoli per rapporto agli spiriti bizzarri e increduli de' tempi presenti. Venice.
- Saggio della filosofia degli antichi, esposto in versi per musica. Venice. 1757.
- Dei fidecommessi a famiglie e a chiese e luoghi pii. Venice. 1784.
- Riflessioni sulla popolazione delle nazioni per rapporto all'economia nazionale. Venice. 1790. OCLC 65337492.
- Errori popolari intorno all'economia nazionale e al governo delle nazioni. Milan: Ricciardi. 1999. Retrieved 23 June 2015.
- Riccardo Donati, ed. (2007). Saggio della filosofia degli antichi, esposto in versi per musica [Essay on the philosophy of the ancients, written in verse for music]. Genoa: ISBN 9788874942008.
References
- ^ a b c d e f Del Negro 2013.
- ^ Reinert, Sophus A., 'The Italian Tradition of Political Economy: Theories and Policies of Development in the Semi-Periphery of the Enlightenment', in Jomo KS and Erik S. R einert (eds.), The Origins of Development Economics: How Schools of Economic Thought Have Addressed Development, New Delhi: Tulika Books, 2005, p. 42.
- S2CID 149517702.
- ^ Overbeek 1970, p. 568.
Bibliography
- Palgrave, Robert Harry Inglis (1913). Dictionary of political economy. London : Macmillan.
This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
- Lampertico, Fedele (1865). Giammaria Ortes e la Scienza Economica al suo tempo. Venice and Turin: G. Antonelli e L. Basadonna.
- Errera, Alberto (1877). Storia dell'Economia Politica nella Repubblica Veneta. Venice. pp. 92–156.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - Gobbi, Ulisse (1884). La Concorrenza Estera e gli antichi Economisti Italiani. Milan. pp. 197–202.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - Cossa, Luigi (1892). Introduzione allo studio dell'economia politica. Milan: Hoepli. pp. 188–189, 305–306.
- Gonnard, René (1904). "Un précurseur de Malthus: Giammaria Ortès". Revue d'économie Politique. 18 (8/9): 638–666. JSTOR 24680353.
- Uggé, Albino (1928). "La teoria della popolazione di Giammaria Ortes". Giornale degli Economisti e Rivista di Statistica. 68 (1): 35–74. JSTOR 23227086.
- Sauvy, Alfred (1959). "Deux techniciens, précurseurs de Malthus, Boesnier de l'Orme et Auxiron". Population. 10 (4): 691–704. JSTOR 1525259.
- Prandi, Alfonso (1966). "Giammaria Ortes: la religione fondamento della società". Religiosità e cultura nel '700 italiano. Bologna: 379–435.
- Torcellan, Gianfranco (1969). Un économiste du XVIIIe siècle, Giammaria Ortes. Genève: ISBN 9782600040532.
- Overbeek, Hans (1970). "Un démographe prémalthusien au XVIIIe siècle: Giammaria Ortes". Population. 25 (3): 563–572. JSTOR 1530103.
- Erba, Alighiero (2011). "Economic structure and national accounting: G. Ortes' contribution to economic science". History of Economic Ideas. 19 (1): 55–83. JSTOR 23723559.
- Del Negro, Piero (2013). "Ortes, Giovanni Maria". ISBN 978-8-81200032-6.
- "Giammaria Ortes on the Limits of Population Growth". S2CID 239794132.
External links
- Giammaria Ortes entry (in Italian) by Anna Maria Ratti in the Enciclopedia Treccani, 1935
- Erba, Alighiero (2012). "Ortes, Giammaria". Il Contributo italiano alla storia del Pensiero: Economia. Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana. Retrieved 24 August 2023.