THE NORTHERN QUESTION: ITALY'S PARTICIPATION IN THE EUROPEAN ECONOMIC COMMUNITY AND THE MEZZOGIORNO'S UNDERDEVELOPMEN

This dissertation attempts to explain underdevelopment by analyzing the underdevelopment of the economic system of Southern Italy, the Mezzogiorno, in the context of Italy's participation in the European Economic Community (EEC).;Underdevelopment is not opposed to development; it is a type of development. Underdevelopment is opposed to, and organically united with, its "other": positive, balanced development.;The distribution of power among political actors determines the consequences of the integration of their economic systems. The strong benefit at the expense of the weak and determine preponderantly their destiny. With regard to the development of integrating economic systems, the systems of the strong experience generally positive, balanced development at the expense of the weak; the former cause the latter to underdevelop.;The unification of Italy under the Kingdom of Sardinia transformed the organic development of capitalism in southern Italy, under way long before the country's unification, into the Mezzogiorno's underdevelopment. The Kingdom of Sardinia's ruling class became Italy's ruling class, identified its interests territorially with the economic system of northwestern Italy (most of which belonged to the Kingdom of Sardinia) and placed the Mezzogiorno in a subaltern position in the Italian economy.;The United States, hegemonic over Western Europe, attempts to maintain the international balance of power in part by giving political and economic predominance in the EEC to West Germany and France, Western Europe's two most important states in the strategic equilibrium between the United States and the Soviet Union. The predominance of West Germany and France in the EEC induces Italy's current ruling class, heir to the Kingdom of Sardinia's, to protect its traditional position of dominance and its interests by intensifying the Mezzogiorno's underdevelopment to the advantage and benefit of the economic system of northwestern Italy.