Luigi Einaudi: Where Liberalism Meets the Land
Recently, I had the pleasure of speaking at the University of Eastern Piedmont in Novara about a lesser-known yet foundational chapter of Luigi Einaudi’s life: his experience as a farmer.
Luigi Einaudi: Where Liberalism Meets the Land
Before becoming President of the Republic, Governor of the Bank of Italy, and one of the key architects of Italian liberalism, Einaudi was first and foremost an agricultural entrepreneur. At just 23, fresh from his law degree, he bought 15 hectares of land in Dogliani. This wasn’t a romantic gesture or a nostalgic return to his roots—it was a calculated economic move, grounded in knowledge, reason, and experimentation.
His farm became the open-air laboratory where he forged the core principles of his liberal thought. Property, credit, competition, innovation, and profit: these weren’t abstract concepts for Einaudi—they were tools he worked with daily in the soil of the Langhe.
For Einaudi, private property was not just an economic asset, but a moral foundation for freedom and dignity. Ownership empowered individuals to innovate, to become independent, and to take responsibility. It was through land—not through state handouts or aristocratic privilege—that ordinary people could escape poverty.
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Profit, too, was essential. In his famous Lode del Profitto, Einaudi called it “the price to pay for truth to advance, for innovators to test their ideas, and for progress—both material and moral—to happen.”
His liberalism was not born in ivory towers but among vines and wheat fields. It remains a call to action: a reminder that freedom grows where individuals are trusted to think, risk, and build.
Luigi Einaudi, the farmer, still has much to teach us today – if only we are willing to listen.
Snapshot
At 23, Einaudi bought 15 hectares of poor land in Dogliani.
- Not for nostalgia. Not for politics.
- He did it to experiment, to learn, to build.
- His land became the lab for what we now call liberalism.
The roots of his ideas
– Property: Not privilege, but dignity.
– Profit: Not greed, but growth.
– Credit: A tool for opportunity.
– Competition: The way to freedom.
– Innovation: The only way forward.
Einaudi believed freedom grows when people own, risk, and create.
No big speeches. No ivory tower. Just vines, wheat, and reason.
“The land is not a rent. It must produce. And to produce, it must innovate.”
Still relevant today
- Einaudi’s liberalism is alive.
- It speaks to those who believe in ideas tested by reality.
- And to anyone tired of empty slogans and state dependency.
