Il socialismo morale di Aldo Capitini (1918-1948)

This monograph is focused on the reconstruction of the socialism of Aldo Capitini (1899-1968). As the author shows, Capitini’s socialism is a very atypical one. It stems from an attempt to overcome that cultural, philosophical and religious crisis which culminates in the First World War and that is due to the end of the faith in progress. Therefore, Capitini’s socialism is peculiarly nourished by a religious perspective which cannot be reduced to Catholicism, nor to any other version of the reformed Christian churches existing in Europe. In a similar way, Capitini’s socialism rejects all those ideologies, such as communism and liberalism, which are based on the assumption that history is led by progress. Capitini’s socialism underlines the importance of individual responsibility seen as a fundamental crossroads able to promote change and revolution in a world which has become indifferent to any metaphysical reference to progress. Lots of manuscripts and unpublished materials have been consulted with a view both to uncovering the sources of Capitini’s socialism and to finding an answer to some theoretical knots, such as that – which Norberto Bobbio himself did not manage to solve in a satisfactory way - of the relationship between this kind of socialism and the institutional framework. According to this reconstruction, Capitini's socialism favours some form of integration between its moral and religious inspiration and the state.