Antonio Rosmini’s Social Ethics and his Relationship to German Thought

Abstract Putting the economic and social–ethical thought of Rosmini in relationship to the German tradition of social market economy, either a pertinent collocation of the liberal catholic thinker Rosmini or new perspectives for the concept of social market economy, which is in search for a new identity, have been made. The justification of this paper lies in the fact that Rosmini introduced the idea of social justice right in the sense of social market economy, on the one hand, and in the way in which the late 19th-centrury economic theory in Italy received his economic thought, on the other hand. Hence, despite his theoretical and cultural distance from Röpke, both have many interesting economic reflections in common.