February 27, 1960, the day of Adriano Olivetti's death, is a symbolic event from various points of view: it marks the sunset of the Italian "computer dream"; the end of the experience of the Olivetti community, which was losing its pivot and driving force; and, last but not least, an abrupt stop to the diffusion of the thought of Rudolf Steiner, father of the esoteric doctrine known as Anthroposophy, in Italy.
di Nicholas May
February 27, 1960, the day of Adriano Olivetti's death, is a symbolic event from various points of view: it marks the sunset of the Italian "computer dream"; the end of the experience of the Olivetti community, which was losing its pivot and driving force; and, last but not least, an abrupt stop to the diffusion of the thought of Rudolf Steiner, father of the esoteric doctrine known as Anthroposophy, in Italy.
In the course of his entrepreneurial and editorial activity, in fact, Adriano Olivetti financed the anthroposophical press and the Steinerian movements that had arisen in our country, showing that he knew and esteemed Steiner's thought, from which he most probably took and reworked the theories on social organization . It is in fact possible to see, beyond a common intention of both material and, above all, spiritual elevation of man, evident connections and parallels between Steiner's theory of social tripartition and social organization, through Olivetti's Community model.Β Aspects on which, therefore, it is essential to dwell, especially in view of a human and social renewal to come and to which both Rudolf Steiner and Adriano Olivetti have attempted to direct humanity.Β
Adriano Olivetti: business as a communityΒ
This article is intended as a kind of introduction to a deeper and more complex study, which I will undertake in due course, concerning relations and connections between the thought of the anthroposophist Rudolf Steiner and that of Adriano Olivetti , one of the last enlightened and free entrepreneurs and intellectuals of the last century, regarding the idea of ββthe Society-Community, its purposes, functions, values ββin the social, cultural and economic context of Europe in the second half of the twentieth century. Ergo, as an opening text, it is hoped that it will initiate a fruitful debate on the topic and other more detailed studies.Β
Innovative for its time β and for times to come β Adriano Olivetti's business model (1901-1960) , entrepreneur, shareholder, writer, intellectual outside the traditional schemes of conservative Italy after the Second World War, still today remains a fundamental point of reference for those who, entrepreneur, industrialist, free thinker, man, want to implement business strategies - and lifestyles β aimed not only at personal enrichment, profit and material needs, but also at the well-being (physical, mental, spiritual) of its employees.
The peculiarity of the Olivetti method lies in fact in having been able to combine within his family business, the "SocietΓ Ing. C. Olivetti e C.β, founded by his father Camillo, economic performance, productivity and satisfaction of the physical, emotional, mental needs of employees, a balance between social solidarity and profit.
The social organization, in fact, applied by Adriano Olivetti within his company, is avant-garde and advanced for the time: we are in a devastated Italy but recovering from the post-Second World Conflict and the Piedmontese entrepreneur has a intuition: he is able to understand, in a climate of general economic-industrial recovery, that the satisfaction of the needs of his employees is closely related to greater work productivity, qualitatively better and aesthetically accurate, precise, original.To achieve this ultimate balance, between collective happiness and economic efficiency, the Piedmontese entrepreneur arranges better living and working conditions for his employees, who, for example, received salaries on average higher than those of other companies - similar factories of the time in Italy (about 20% more than the average salary of an employee of the contemporary FIAT), and also enjoyed various work agreements and free social services, absent elsewhere in the Italian corporate / industrial landscape.Β
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In the context of the Olivetti enterprise there were also kindergartens, for the children of the workers, large spaces and houses adjacent to the factory, with a low environmental and landscape impact, for the use of employees. Finally, the latter could also make use of libraries and rooms where they could follow debates and concerts, relate to painters, artists, singers, who appeared to be welcomed in the company - think, among others, of Pasolini, Montale, Dario FΓ². Attention to and education for beauty were at the center of Olivetti's vision: the factory and adjacent structures, the library, the kindergarten were the result of a design that founded modernity and aesthetic originality, art and architecture: patron, on his mural painting is done on commission boogie woogieby Renato Guttuso, in 1945, for the Olivetti showroom in Rome on a two-story wall; then, in the 70s, when the restaurant ceased its activity, the work was detached and relocated to the canteen of the Scarmagno (Turin) establishments. Adriano also surrounds himself with well-known architects, such as Figini and Pollini, Ignazio Cardella and Luigi Cosenza, but also with intellectuals and writers such as Geno Pampaloni, the sociologist Franco Ferrarotti, the designer and photographer Ettore Sottsass, the fruit of which are the new and original systems of Ivrea, Pozzuoli, Scarmagno, the production of technologically advanced machinery and, at the same time, avant-garde in terms of design and attention to detail; again, Olivetti would write,
βBeauty, together with love, truth and justice, represents an authentic spiritual advancement. The men, the ideologies, the states that will forget only one of these creative forces, will not be able to show anyone the path of civilization.Β
Adriano Olivetti, The world that is born , Community Editions, Turin, 2014
Furthermore, during working hours, the employees carried out their duties in well-lit and comfortable spaces, since Olivetti was well aware of the beneficial effect of sunlight both on the activity, productivity, physical and mental health of its employees, which can be translated as a greater yield, and on the internal environment in general.
The Ivrea factory thus became the practical rendering of perhaps the most revolutionary theory β and, in some ways, uncomfortable for many β of the Olivetti company as a βCommunityβ, an idea very probably drawn from and developed (in part) starting from theories of Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925). For both, in fact, there is no gap between the technical sciences and the humanities but, on the contrary, both collaborate in the completion and improvement of the others, for the economic, social and technological well-being of the Company and, hence, of the Community as a whole.
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Hypothesis on the influence of anthroposophical thought in the Olivetti "Community".Β
A multifaceted personality, an innovative entrepreneur committed to social issues, a tireless intellectual, Adriano Olivetti believed that the factory was the starting point for the complete implementation of his idea of ββCommunity, the end of his social policy: at the center of these socio-cultural entities, delimited by precise geographical boundaries, Adriano proposed the idea of ββa foundation that would bring together the most vital forces of society, shareholders, intellectuals, businesses, public bodies, universities, workers' representatives, in close and complementary relationships. These social forces, united, would have ensured scientific progress, the elimination of profound economic differences between the various members of the community, fueling the fruitful cultural exchange,An idea of ββCommunity that saw its exceptional laboratory in Ivrea and that Adriano wanted, from there, to expand throughout Italy, on a national level: a noble intention that he was unable to carry on due to his premature death (1960) and the short-sightedness of Italian politics, but the case of Matera remains commendable, where Adriano conducted an urban-social study, directing the work of the UNRRA-CASAS, which led to the creation of the village of Martella and the rehabilitation of the Sassi area, and of Pozzuoli , headquarters of an Olivetti plant, perfectly integrated into the natural - Mediterranean and very productive context; both cases are excellent examples of the practical implementation and functioning of Olivetti's social theories. Theories that aimed to improve the standard of collective and industrial well-being of the entire peninsula, including the South, in a context in which Italian politics and large companies shifted profits and entrepreneurial efforts towards the North, disregarding a Southern Italy in crisis, little industrialized and devastated by the War, but characterized by the considerable potential and exceptional vitality of its human resources . Olivetti had deeply intuited that social organization and territorial organization were closely connected: an efficient social organization depends on a rationalistic and positive development of the second, which is structured around the focal points (factory, industry, business with adjacent services , places of culture such as libraries, political and cultural meeting places such as the "Community Headquarters", numerous in Matera).
Of these innovative ideas, positions and theories, Adriano himself left a copious and illuminating trace with his writings, among which are certainly to be mentioned The political order of the Community (1946) City of man (1959) The path of the community (1960)
These theories bring Adriano closer to another great figure of intellectual and thinker of the last century, Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925), with whom, according to some scholars of Olivetti's work and thought, there are relationships as regards theorization of social organization; in particular, Steiner, father of Anthroposophy, would have influenced Adriano with his writings β and this would be demonstrated by Olivetti's funding for the anthroposophical press and the Steiner movements. Through these channels (think of the magazine "Antroposofia" directed by Rinaldo KΓΌfferle until 1955 and by Silvia Schwarz Colorni from 1955 to 1984, directed by Luigi Bellavita since 1984) the ideas and theories of the "esoteric" intellectual were proposed and disseminated , in primis his Triarticulation of the Social Organism (1917-1922), a social model composed of three autonomous subsystems (economic sphere, cultural sphere and legal sphere) but all three interconnected as part of a single organism. In fact, Steiner contains some interesting and innovative principles, in which it is possible to trace similarities with Olivetti's thought on the Community: culture and science must be free from the conditioning of politics and the economy in order to express themselves at their best and innovate society; the best state of the economic and juridical life of society derives from a free, independent, transversal institution; workers' rights must not be affected by the needs of production and profit, but must be the priority, since labor rights must be the foundation of the economy, and not the other way around;
Whatever the hypothetical connections with Steiner's theory, Adriano Olivetti wanted to make the factory the first brick of democratic society, a place that could serve as a model for building a new society, as well as a cutting-edge and innovative workplace, where the needs of workers (both practical and cultural, emotional, intellectual) were fundamental to creating profit, and not subordinated to the latter: a new factory, a social experiment, which certainly found points of reference in some great authors, economists , critics and philosophers known and studied by Adriano, by the Welsh Robert Howen (1771-1858), by Henri Schneider (1840-1898) in France, by Marxist thought to Maritain (1882-1973).
Connections and parallels with the Father of Anthroposophy which, in my opinion, enrich the already abundant and complex panorama on the studies of Adriano Olivetti's work, activity and thought. After all, the thought of the entrepreneur from Ivrea remains feasible today more than ever: by raising the respect and satisfaction of the intellectual, emotional and spiritual needs of men to inviolable values ββand principles, the Olivetti Community becomes a theory-counter-system in the world of today, capable of opposing the speculative logic, the individualism and arrogance of contemporary man, the mechanical and, often, antiethical strategies, without respect for the fundamental rights of the employee, of the great neo-capitalist giants of our time.How can we not think of the internet multinationals (Amazon is just one of many examples), the big brands and, more generally, to the exploitation of the (worker, employee, neighbor) by economic giants or company managers, in an increasingly material and less spiritual working and social context, accustomed to the oppression of man who, for market reasons and the dollar, is crushed by individualism and a consumer policy (of Western origin) as an end in itself. Everything against which, albeit in different but effective ways, both Rusolf Steiner and Adriano Olivetti have always bravely and tenaciously fought, supported exclusively by the validity of their thinking.accustomed to the oppression of man who, for reasons of the market and the dollar, is crushed by individualism and by a consumer policy (of Western origin) up to itself. Everything against which, albeit in different but effective ways, both Rusolf Steiner and Adriano Olivetti have always bravely and tenaciously fought, supported exclusively by the validity of their thinking. accustomed to the oppression of man who, for reasons of the market and the dollar, is crushed by individualism and by a consumer policy (of Western origin) up to itself.Everything against which, albeit in different but effective ways, both Rusolf Steiner and Adriano Olivetti have always bravely and tenaciously fought, supported exclusively by the validity of their thinking.
SHORT REFERENCE BIBLIOGRAPHYΒ
A. Olivetti, The political order of the Communities. The guarantees of freedom in a socialist state , New Ivrea Editions, Ivrea, 1945
A. Olivetti, The political order of the State communities according to the laws of the Spirit , Community Editions, Rome, 1946Β
A. Olivetti, Society, State, Community. For a community economy and politics , Community Editions, Milan, 1952
A. Olivetti, City of man , Community Editions, Milan, 1960
A. Olivetti, Good factories , Community Editions, Rome/Ivrea, 2014
P. Ciorra, F. Limana, M. Trevisani (ed.), Olivetti universe. Community as concrete utopia , Community Editions, Ivrea, 2020
F. Colombo, M. Pace Ottieri, The time of Adriano Olivetti , Community Editions, Ivrea, 2019
F. Ferrarotti, The concrete utopia of Adriano Olivetti , EDB, Bologna, 2016
L. Negri, The Olivetti community: lots of Steiner and no Marx , in βThe Italian Confederationβ, 14 September 2022
Rudolph Steiner, How to operate for the triarticulation of the social organism , Anthroposophical Publishing, Milan, 2018 (1922)
