Sismondi's analysis on the contradictions, dysfunctions, and evil social and economic consequences of the unbridled capitalism, based on the ideas of David Ricardo and his disciples is still valid. Two centuries of experience in economic policy have confirmed it. Sismondi's critic commentaries were repeated later, in a passionate and radical manner, by Karl Marx and his followers. Sismondi's thinking had a big influence on that school, even if there are basic divergences concerning the conclusions and above all, the recommendations.

The fact that Sismondi's or Marx's critic analysis is still valid is not due to either of them having a special foresight talent. It happens because the system we have today is the same – only enlarged and worsened – than the one shaped two hundred years ago. It still follows the ideas of Ricardo and the rest of the Anglo-Saxon School. Their version of the capitalist system has not evolved; the basic principles are the same, regardless of the social failures and recurrent devastating economic crisis. Those principles are still taught as established economic science in most Anglo-Saxon Universities and have influenced many others. It is now labeled as Neo-liberalism, after retouches by the Austrian school under Ludwig Von Mises and Friedrich Von Hayek and by the Chicago School of Economics under Milton Friedman

Wealth distribution among productive classes

Both Sismondi and Marx were very exceptical about the market proclaimed virtues to turn greed and self interest into an instrument for social and economic equity. Marx, always radical, did not even bother to elaborate on how to improve wealth distribution. He considered the capitalist production system as unredeemable and proposed to eliminate private property altogether. Wherever his proposal for public ownership of means of production was applied, it developed a curious economic tendency: accessible public services and scarcity of consumer goods. We could elaborate on that, but Marx or Marxism is not our subject today.

In what concerns the validity of Sismondi's ideas for the XXI Century, we will first approach the issue of wealth distribution, or more to the point, wealth concentration; which is already related to the title of his main economics work: New Principles of Political Economy or of Wealth in relation to the population.

Sismondi was the first philosopher to worry about wealth distribution among the population. He explains that Adam Smith -who he considers his teacher - was the first to demonstrate that work was the only source of value and that accumulated value constitutes wealth. But he explains that Smith didn't approach the issue of how wealth was distributed among the population. Such an omission left an important void concerning the effects of the Industrial Revolution on the standard of living of the working population. That is his reason for the title of his main economics book. His purpose is to describe wealth distribution among the population that produces it, and to propose more equitable principles. What was then Sismondi's lonely concern, is now, two centuries later, and a mayor subject of political debate.

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Pisa, Dec. 2015

- Umberto Mazzei has a PhD in political science from the University of Florence. He is Director of the Institute of International Economic Relations Sismondi, in Geneva. www.ireisismondi.org, www.ventanaglobal.info