Alcide De Gasperi, Wilhelm Röpke and the Idea of the “Third Way”

In this article, the author intends to show the reasons for the cultural relationship which, in the aftermath of the Second World War, Alcide De Gasperi had with the Swiss-German economist Wilhelm Röpke. The article takes into consideration the three public interventions during which the statesman from Italy directly referred to the work of the German economist, with regard to the notion of “Third Way.” Furthermore, the author analyzes Röpke’s concept of “Third Way,” distancing it from an interpretation which would replicate the ideological limits present in the two fundamental “Ways”: “capitalism” and “socialism.” In sum, by assuming the notion of a “Third Way” which differs in a qualitative element from public intervention: “intervention not in conformity with the market,” and that of “strong state for a free society,” the article focuses on the totalitarian phenomenon, as a result of the monopoly of the political sphere over the social, where the presumed good end would justify any means, even the most nefarious and when it is good, the Prince decides