Goodbye Sforza Fogliani liberalism against liberals

with disappearance Corrado Sforza Fogliani, we lose a lot. It would be said in the papers that the lawyer from Piacenza was important liberalThe Dominoes For a quarter of a century of confedilizia and an important figure in the world of banking. However, these are reductive formulations that say little about the man and intellectual he was.

I got acquainted with Sforza Fogliani many years ago, at the time of the old Pgliani. Like the writer, he belonged to many ranks He opposed the liberal transition who, at the end of the seventies, admired Valerio Zanon, who had already developed what Giovanni Malagudi had already started, after a center-left opposition that did not give him significant electoral results. As an Einaudian, Sforza Fogliani certainly could not accept this shift to the left: a choice that might have met the fashion of the time, but would have made the presence of this small party on the public stage all the more pointless.

Subsequently, it was thanks above all to the Confedilizia that I was able to meet him, and I confess that it has always shocked me because the reality that he was so institutionally deployed to defend the very specific (more than legitimate!) interests of the homeowners in his hands became so severe and moreover: A solid bulwark of the principles of freedom. For Sforza Fogliani, in fact, the protection of those with a home from the state’s tax gluttony was inseparable from the promotion – in general – of a society in which individuals and families would be stronger and more respectable. Private property and individual freedom They had to go hand in hand.

Even when he left the Assembly in the hands of Giorgio Spaziani Testa, who continued to govern the Confederacy according to the programmatic lines laid down by those who preceded him, the lawyer was always very attentive to what was involved. Italian independence by an increasingly stifling public authority.

Sforza Fogliani, his appeal against the “state pandemic”

I remember very well, for example, that when the epidemic started in 2020, he called me, asked me to write down A statement against what he rightly wanted to define”state pandemic“. He knew very well how the worst national politics – from Giuseppe Conte to Mario Draghi – would take advantage of this crisis to harass us all even more. And one day he also confided this to me, when it was imposed Vaccination duty As for the employees, he did everything possible and even more to protect the Banca di Piacenza workers who (for a variety of reasons) had no intention of undergoing the medical treatment imposed by the public authorities.

Some issues were out of the question for him. that they He never wanted a society of obligations and restrictionsThis is also why he was opposed to a bureaucratic and centralizing European Union. He was very clear about the origins of the project and the abyss it risks dragging us into. On the other hand, precisely at the head of the Confedilizia, he wanted to give space to a whole series of treatises on the subject of private cities (“private sector”) that not only affirmed the link between liberty and property, but in addition opposed the prevailing logic in an institution desiring to control on everything and organize it.

One of his most recognizable personality traits was his ability to defy clichés. Despite the pinstriped suits and the reassuring and calm atmosphere, Sforza Fogliani He had a revolutionary spirit: because he was a curious and truth-seeking person, because he hated the style and choices of our ruling classes, because no one should like him, but wanted instead to be true to the principles he believed in.

For this reason also, at the head of his city bank (Piacenza), he fought for a more pluralistic banking system closer to the needs of the regions, making his institution an impetus for the cultural life of the province.

A liberal, a Confederate man and a banker, did not disappear. A great man has disappeared.

Carlo Lotteri, December 10, 2022