MELCHIORRE

GIOJA (1767-1829)  , Italian writer on philosophy and political economy, was born at Piacenza, on the loth of September 1767 . Originally intended for the church, he took orders, but renounced them in 1796 and went to Milan, where he devoted himself to the study of political economy . Having obtained the prize for an essay on " the kind of free government best adapted to Italy " he decided upon the career of a publicist . The arrival of Napoleon in Italy drew him into public life . He advocated a republic under the dominion of the French in a pamphlet I Tedeschi, i Francesi, ed i Russi in Lombardia, and under the Cisalpine Republic he was named historiographer and director of statistics . He was several times imprisoned, once for eight months in 1820 on a charge of being implicated in a conspiracy with the Carbonari . After the fall of Napoleon he retired into private life, and does not appear to have held office again . He died on the 2nd of January 1829 . Gioja's fundamental idea is the value of statistics or the collection of facts . Philosophy itself is with him classification and consideration of ideas . Logic he regarded as a practical art, and his Esercizioni logici has the further title, Art of deriving benefit from ill-constructed books . In ethics Gioja follows Bentham generally, and his large treatise Del merito e delle recompense (1818) is a clear and systematic view of social ethics from the utilitarian principle .

In political economy this avidity for facts produced better fruits . The Nuovo Prospetto delle scienze economiche (1815-1817), although

long to excess, and overburdened with classifications and tables, contains much valuable material . The author prefers large properties and large commercial undertakings to small ones, and strongly favours association as a means of production . He defends a restrictive policy and insists on the necessity of the action of the state as a regulating power in the industrial world . He was an opponent of ecclesiastical domination . He must be credited with the finest and most original treatment of division of labour since the Wealth of Nations . Much of what Babbage taught later on the subject of combined work is anticipated by Gioja . His theory of production is also deserving of attention from the fact that it takes into account and gives due prominence to immaterial goods . Throughout the work there is continuous opposition to Adam Smith . Gioja's latest work Filosofia della statistica (2 vols., 1826; 4 vols., 1829-r83o) contains in brief compass the essence of his ideas on human life, and affords the clearest insight into his aim and method in philosophy both theoretical and practical . See monographs by G . D .

Romagnosi (1829), F . Falco (1866) ; G . Pecchio, Storia dell' economia pubblica in Italia (1829), and

article in Ersch and Gruber's Allgemeine Encyclopadie; for Gioja's philosophy, L . Ferri, Essai sur l'histoire de la philosophic en Italic au XIX' siecle (1869); Ueberweg's Hist. of Philosophy (Eng. tr., appendix H.); A . Rosmini-Serbati, Opuscoli filosofici, iii . (1844) (containing an attack_on Gioja's " sensualism "); for his political economy, list of works in J . Conrad's HandwOrterbuch der Stealswissenschaften (1892); L . Cossa, Introd. to Pol . Econ . (Eng. trans., p . 488) . Gioja's complete works were published at Lugano (1832-1849) .

He was one of the founders of the Annali universali di statistica .