Rileggendo Einaudi e Croce: spunti per un liberalismo fondato su un’antropologia della libertà

The purpose of this essay is to problematize the Croce-Einaudi debate on the relation between “liberism and liberalism” in conceptual terms: what is the “economic”, the “ethical”, the “legal” and/or “political” aspect of liberalism they talk about? What are they defending when they maintain the unity and/or the distinction and/or the separation between liberism and liberalism? What is at stake? This inquiry allows me to show that: 1) visions of man and freedom are at stake in the debate; 2) such “anthropologies” (a) constitutes the background of their conceptions of the economic, ethical, legal and/or political; (b) clarify the fundamental disputes and misunderstandings that this debate still continues to feed. In conclusion, I show that the question “what is the relationship between liberism and liberalism?” hides a normative issue, which represents the true stakes of the debate: “what ought to be the relationship between liberism and liberalism in order to preserve or implement a certain vision of man?”