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Orio Giarini

Giarini, Orio (1936-2020)

Giarini, Orio (1936-2020)

Director, The Risk Institute, Geneva, Switzerland; Fellow, World Academy of Art & Science

Job Title

Director, The Risk Institute, Geneva, Switzerland; Fellow, World Academy of Art & Science

Orio Giarini : An Italian economist, he founded the Risk Institute (Trieste-Geneva-Zagreb-Pondicherry) in 2001 to promote studies on risk and uncertainty and their impact on society and currently serves as its Director. He is also founder and Editor-in-Chief of the European Papers on the New Welfare. He was also Secretary General since its foundation in 1973 up to 2000 of the Geneva Association, a global think tank for the study of insurance economics. Prior to that he was Director of the Techno-Economic Research Division of the Battelle Institute in Geneva. He served as a member of the Executive Committee of The Club of Rome from 1982-86. He has taught at numerous universities, in particular the Graduate Institute of European Studies of the University of Geneva and currently at the International University Institute for European Studies (Gorizia, University of Trieste). Giarini has published 12 books, including The Double Helix of Learning and Work with Mircea Malitza (2003), The Employment Dilemma: Report to the Club of Rome with Patrick Liedtke (1997), Limits to Certainty: Report to the Club of Rome (1993), The Emerging Service Economy (1988), and Dialogue on Wealth and Welfare: Report to the Club of Rome (1980), in addition to more than 100 articles in journals and magazines.

ARTICLES BY THIS AUTHOR

Rethinking Economics, the Role of Insurance: Adam Smith Upside Down—The Central Role of Insurance in the New Post-Industrial (Service) Economy*   ( Economic Theory ), ( Money & Finance )
 Get Full Text in PDF Abstract In the first page of The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith described an apparently trivial issue, the making of a pin. In his search for ways to effectively fight poverty, he formulated the basis for a new view of economy based on the Industrial Revolution. Two centuries later, the perspective he developed remains intact and is largely outdated. It does not reflect the radical shift from an industrial to a service economy, which occurred during the later...
The Double Helix of Learning and Work*   ( Education ), ( Employment ), ( New Economics )
 Get Full Text in PDF Editors’ Note The Double Helix of Learning and Work by Orio Giarini and Mircea Malitza is a report to the Club of Rome first published by UNESCO in 2003. It advances fundamental paradigm-changing ideas in the field of education. Drawing inspiration from the double helix structure of DNA, the authors seek to strengthen the relationship between education and employment in order to bring ‘The Knowledge Society’ within reach. This article is an abridged version of the...
The Double Helix of Learning and Work*   ( Education ), ( New Paradigm )
 Get Full Text in PDF Editors’ Note The Double Helix of Learning and Work by Orio Giarini and Mircea Malitza is a report to the Club of Rome first published by UNESCO in 2003. It advances fundamental paradigm-changing ideas in the field of education. Drawing inspiration from the double helix structure of DNA, the authors seek to strengthen the relationship between education and employment in order to bring ‘The Knowledge Society’ within reach. This article is a slightly abridged version of...
The Double Helix of Learning and Work: Chapter 3 – I Work, Therefore I Am   ( Education ), ( Employment ), ( New Economics )
 Get Full Text in PDF Editors' Note The Double Helix of Learning and Work by Orio Giarini and Mircea Malitza is a report to the Club of Rome first published by UNESCO in 2003. It advances fundamental paradigm-changing ideas in the field of education. Drawing inspiration from the double helix structure of DNA, the authors seek to strengthen the relationship between education and employment in order to bring ‘The Knowledge Society’ within reach. This article is an abridged version of the...
New Paradigm in the Service Economy The Search of Economics for Scientific Credibility: In between Hard and Soft Sciences   ( Economic Theory ), ( New Economics )
 Get Full Text in PDF Abstract After the very long cycle (about 10,000 years) of societal and economic development based on agriculture, followed by a short cycle in which the industrial revolution became the prime mover (for less than 3 centuries), the world has entered a phase marked by the growing and determining importance of service activities (both monetarized and non-monetarized) . This transition is a key to understanding many of the current ‘crises’ confronting humanity and to...
The Riches of the Ocean for Humankind: Rethinking Value in Economics and Development   ( Sustainable Development )
 Get Full Text in PDF Abstract We acknowledge the inadequacy of the ancient model to develop the wealth of nations and the recognition that both economics and ecology are the best possible ways to manage world and human resources to achieve a better wealth of nations. The rebuilding of economics and of a credible strategy for increasing the wealth and well-being of nations is today at the center of the problem of providing a sound basis for the legitimacy and credibility of public...
Double Helix of Learning and Work   ( Education ), ( Employment )
 Get Full Text in PDF Editors’ Note The Double Helix of Learning and Work by Orio Giarini and Mircea Malitza is a report to the Club of Rome first published by UNESCO in 2003. It advances fundamental paradigm-changing ideas in the field of education. Drawing inspiration from the double helix structure of DNA, the authors seek to strengthen the relationship between education and employment in order to bring ‘The Knowledge Society’ within reach. This article is an abridged version of the...
Expanding Network of Networks   ( New Paradigm )
 Get Full Text in PDF The World Academy of Art & Science was founded as a network of concerned individuals committed to addressing the multi-faceted global challenges of the modern era. It would appear that a small group of people – no matter how distinguished – cannot expect to have significant impact on problems that span the entire globe and confront all of humanity. But appearances can be deceiving. On closer examination, we discover that each of our members is a member of many...
The Balance Sheet of the Parallel Action carried out by the Secretariat of the Soul and Precision, 100 Years Later   ( Knowledge, Science & Values )
 Get Full Text in PDF Abstract Exactly 100 years ago, Austrian writer Robert Musil’s book “The Man Without Qualities” foresaw the cultural challenge that Relativity and Quantum Theory would pose to the Newtonian mechanistic worldview of the 19th century. His book anticipated the transition that would eventually compel a deterministic, reductionist science of predictability to enter into dialogue with the emerging subjective and intuitive perception of uncertainty, complexity, freedom and...
The Double Helix of Learning and Work   ( Education )
 Get Full Text in PDF Editors' Note The Double Helix of Learning and Work by Orio Giarini and Mircea Malitza is a report to the Club of Rome first published by UNESCO in 2003. It advances fundamental paradigm-changing ideas in the field of education. Drawing inspiration from the double helix structure of DNA, the authors seek to strengthen the relationship between education and employment in order to bring ‘The Knowledge Society’ within reach. This article contains the first chapter of the...
Human Centered Development Perspective   ( Economic Theory ), ( Knowledge, Science & Values )
Get Full Text in PDF Insights from Trieste The Trieste Forum in March 2013 marked a significant milestone in the effort of the World Academy to evolve a comprehensive, integrated, transdisciplinary perspective for addressing global challenges. An initial presentation on the physics of Dark Matter aptly illustrated the need for new thinking in the social sciences. If the most mathematically rigo- rous of physical sciences is compelled to postulate the existence of an unknown, invisible...
The Demographic Revolution: Reconceptualizing Macroeconomics   ( Social Welfare ), ( New Economics )
Get Full Text in PDF Abstract It is important to reconsider the measurements which refer to the “Wealth of Nations” and from which the most appropriate references for better welfare policies are derived. In the present Service Economy, not all the “value added” measures indicate an increase in the level of wealth (the costs to cope with pollution for instance), whereas many developments in service functions and performances (in the case of many communication systems for instance) add to real...
Editorial: Call for a Revolution in Economics
"The starting point is a human-centered theory of value that recognizes human welfare as the central objective and the creativity of human capital as the ultimate resource and source of all others." The discipline of Economics is at a cross-roads. Either it undertakes a comprehensive reevaluation of its fundamental postulates and a critical reassessment of their utility to solve real world problems or it risks sliding further into irrelevance. It is time for a renaissance of thinking in...
Counter-Aging in the Post-industrial Society   ( Employment ), ( Social Welfare )
Get Full Text in PDF Several articles in Cadmus Journal have explored the meaning of “Wealth of Nations” at a time when the Industrial Revolution has given way to the Service Economy. In parallel, the European Papers on the New Welfare has been examining the lengthening of human life cycle as a decisive social and economic issue. “Statistics based not on age but on the capacity to perform indicate, in fact, that in many countries, the population is not “aging” but “rejuvenating”.” The...
Human Capital
Editorial Society is a teeming ocean of human energies and capacities, unorganized but latent with unlimited productive potential. The organization of social energies and capacities converts social potential into Social Capital. Each member of society is a microcosm of human potential – an unorganized reservoir of energies, aspirations, and capacities. The organization of the energies and capacities of each member of society converts human potential into Human Capital. The formed Individual is...
Great Transformations   ( Economic Theory ), ( New Economics )
Great landmarks of history are few and far between. Normally they are recognized by scholars only long after the fact. Those in the thick of the fray may often be consciously inspired by the significance of their actions, but rarely does history come to share that perception. The rise of individualism in ancient Greece, its revival during the Italian Renaissance and the radical transformation of society following American, French and Industrial Revolutions retain a claim to lasting significance...
The Great Divorce: Finance and Economy   ( Economic Theory ), ( Money & Finance ), ( New Economics )
Social networking did not begin with the Internet. It is as old as human history. For what we now call social networking is really the evolution of human relationships which constitute the backbone of civilization. The emergence of the Internet is the third giant leap forward in a saga that began with the development of symbolic spoken language, the first great instrument that enabled human beings to evolve beyond their animal ancestry. Second came the invention of money as a symbol of value....
Economic Crisis and the Science of Economics   ( Economic Theory ), ( New Economics )
“Focusing on growth of the part without reference to its impact on the whole is a formula for social disease.”  The American subprime mortgage crisis, the international financial crisis that followed and the European financial crisis presently centered on Greece are all expressions of a deeper and wider crisis that has been preparing to surface for decades. This crisis encompasses not only government fiscal deficits, exchange rates and financial markets but spreads out in...
Inside This Issue
In moments of crisis, all thoughts are preoccupied with immediate remedies to meet urgent needs, rather than reflection on root causes and ultimate solutions. Yet history suggests that it is only when we are under supreme duress that we are willing to put all the cards on the table and consider the comprehensive and fundamental changes needed to effect permanent solutions. Thus, it required the dire circumstances of the Great Crash and the Great Depression to give birth...
The Evolution of Wealth & Human Security: The Paradox of Value and Uncertainty   ( Economic Theory ), ( New Economics )
Get Full Text in PDF Life evolves by consciousness, consciousness evolves by organization. Human life evolves by a progressive heightening of our awareness, expansion of our knowledge, widening of our attitudes, and elevation of our values. This evolving human consciousness progressively expresses itself through the formulation and creation of more complex and effective organization – a seamlessly integrated, organic web of relationships encompassing ideas, knowledge, people, activities,...
Inside this Issue
Cadmus Journal has been launched to promote leadership in thought that leads to action. The first issue focused on wealth and welfare and concluded that a paradigm change is necessary - a change as profound as the paradigm change in physical sciences at the beginning of the 20th century and much more profound than the Copernican paradigm change. The first issue of Cadmus identified major issues that need to be addressed by the new paradigm. In this issue Orio Giarini, Ian Johnson and Patrick...
Science and Economics: The Case of Uncertainty & Disequilibrium   ( Economic Theory ), ( New Economics )
Get Full Text in PDF 1. Neoclassical Economics & the “General Equilibrium” System 1.1 Supply and Demand in a Static “Perfect” Equilibrium The act of selling or buying goods always takes place at a given moment or instant in time, at which a price is agreed and paid. The general economic system is considered by standard economics to be based on a “General Equilibrium” which represents the various transactions taking place in the overall economic system. Prices agreed for transactions...
Updating macro-economics   ( Economic Theory ), ( New Economics )
Adam Smith’s analysis in the Wealth of Nations gave birth at the end of the eighteenth century to economics as we know it today. As a moral philosopher, he wanted to provide a better understanding of how to fight poverty. While most social thinkers insisted that wealth could only develop from agriculture, Smith observed that the beginning of the industrialisation process was the key and priority to promote the Wealth of Nations for the future. And he was right. Let me propose here first some...
Introductory Paper for a Programme on The Wealth of Nations Revisited   ( Economic Theory ), ( New Economics )
Get Full Text in PDF Table of Contents Introduction Theoretical Discontent From Newtonian to Human-Centered Economics Future of Work Money, Finance & Wealth The Service Economy Scarcity, Surplus & Markets Equity, Freedom & Social Stability Integration of Politics — Economy — Society Essential Issues for the New Economics Endnotes 1. Introduction Civilization is an instrument fashioned by human beings to improve the welfare and well-being of our race through a wide range of...