Selected Publications
- Silvestri P., Economia, diritto e politica nella filosofia di Croce. Tra finzioni, istituzioni e libertà [Economics, Law and Politics in Croce’s Philosophy. Between Fictions, Institutions and Freedom] Giappichelli, Turin 2012, 318 pp.
- Silvestri P., Il liberalismo di Luigi Einaudi o del Buongoverno [On the Liberalism of Luigi Einaudi or Of Good Government], Rubbettino, Soveria Mannelli 2008, 331 pp.
- Silvestri P., “Freedom and taxation between good and bad polity, and the economist-whole-man”, in L. Einaudi, On Abstract and Historical Hypotheses and on Value judgments in Economic Sciences, Critical edition with an Introduction and Afterword by Paolo Silvestri, Routledge, London-New York, 2017, pp. 94-136
- Silvestri P., “Disputed (Disciplinary) Boundaries. Philosophy, Economics and Value Judgments”, History of Economic Ideas, XXIV, 2016/3, pp. 187-221
- Silvestri P., “Anthropology of freedom and tax justice: between exchange and gift. Thoughts for an interdisciplinary research agenda”, Teoria e critica della regolazione sociale, 2/2015, pp. 115-132
FRIAS Project
Anthropology of Taxation. Enquiry into the Human Foundations of Fiscal Democracy.
Why do we pay taxes? What kind of reciprocities are involved in paying taxes and in redistributive policies? Is it possible to conceive taxation as a form of gift? The main purpose of the present research is to build up an anthropology of taxation – based on an interdisciplinary dialogue about the notion of reciprocity – capable of providing new answers to these old questions.
The two main steps towards such an anthropology of taxation are: 1) developing a model of good/bad societies and governments, aimed at re-modelling the social pactum as a three-dimensional social contract at the intersection between horizontal, vertical and intertemporal relationships of reciprocity; 2) developing an empirical enquiry into the “percentage philanthropy mechanism”, which is the only existing legal mechanism through which taxpayers can freely devolve part of their income tax as a gift to the third sector.
Overall, this approach aims to forge new lens through which to re-read the fiscal system as a key factor of social bond, and to conceive the possibility of a new welfare society and of a new fiscal democracy.