Significant Dates in the Career of Aurelio Peccei

Aurelio Peccei was born and raised in Torino in 1908. There, influenced by his family and the local social culture, he developed his life-view in which man, with his human resources and his desire for freedom, was the central element. He graduated from university in Torino with a degree in economics in 1930. During the early 1930s, he acted on his desire to meet different people and visit new places, went to the Sorbonne with a scholarship and was awarded a free trip to the Soviet Union. His knowledge of other languages and his proven desire to travel beyond Italy’s borders brought him to Fiat, which gave him the opportunity to work and lead their activities in China, Shanghai, and Nanchang in the mid 1930s.

In China, Peccei got to know the country and its people, whose human capacities he held in high esteem throughout his life - another example of his ability to be forward-thinking. Peccei highly admired the ability of the Chinese people to undertake any kind of work, no matter how new or complicated it might be, and found their wisdom and patience, distilled from centuries of culture, very interesting.

Having returned to Italy at the eve of World War II, Peccei soon became involved in the anti-fascist movement and the Resistance, where he was a member of ‘Giustizia e Libertà’. During the war he was arrested and tortured. However, as Peccei wrote, this period served to make him better un­derstand the importance of mankind’s inner capacity and strength, which allows men and women in terrible situations to defend human dignity. His experiences in China and the dramatic period of the resistance confirmed his interest in human potential.

After the war, Peccei was engaged in the rebuilding of Fiat and was involved with the same energy and ability to look beyond the present, in various of the private and pub­lic efforts then under way to rebuild Italy, including the founding of Alitalia. This myriad of activities was carried out without accepting any political or economic posts, which he could easily have had, given his role in the Italian Resistance. In 1949 his desire to experience and operate in a larger context led him to accept a trip to Latin America to help Fiat restart their operations there, which had essentially been halted during the war. He settled in Argentina, where he lived for nearly a decade with his family. During this period, he started Fiat Concord, which built cars and tractors, and became rapidly one of the most successful automotive firms in Latin America.

During this period, however, he continued to maintain his broader interests in man­kind, irrespective of social status, and kept an eye open for political and social devel­opments in other regions, including the Mediterranean. This led him, in 1958 with the backing of Fiat, to found Italconsult and become the Chairman of the Board, a position he held until the 1970s when he became Honorary President. Italconsult was an engineering and economic consulting group for developing countries, in which Italian firms were engaged. It operated under Peccei’s leadership, on the whole, mostly as a non-profit consortium. Also during this activity, Peccei left his mark through the development of human potential.

In 1964 he was asked to manage Olivetti. This large and established firm, which had been at the forefront in the development of typewriters and other office machines, was also well known for its internal social policies and for supporting the links between industry and culture. Olivetti was in significant difficulties at that time due to the profound changes in the office machine sector. Peccei, with his foresight and his entrepreneurial vision, as well as his strong belief that the human potential can be the key to change, was able to successfully turn Olivetti’s situation around in this instance.

Peccei began to seriously worry about global problems, particularly in the area of the environment. He became involved in the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) as a member of its International Board, and was a strong supporter of their mission, not only internationally but also locally in Italy.

In 1969 ‘The Chasm Ahead’ was published. The book illuminates clearly the principles which became the vision of the Club of Rome. This vision was one directed to the future, and is the key to both Peccei’s and the Club of Rome’s message. In ‘The Chasm Ahead’, Peccei identified the following key principles which emerge when thinking about the future:

• Humanity and the global environment are both parts of the same integrated macrosystem.
• Many of the components of this macro-system are at risk of breaking down, or even of totally being destroyed.
• Developing such a global plan and implementing it are a collective obligation of all groups that have the capacity to do so.

As a result of activities that started in the 1960s and continued into the 1970s, Peccei was one of the principal architects of the International Institute of Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) in Laxenburg, Austria in 1972. This Institute was formed after a considerable struggle, but then served as an important bridge between East and West, partly because its founders included the United States (through the National Academy of Sciences), the Soviet Union (through the Soviet Academy of Sciences), and further countries in the then Western and Eastern sector of the world, such as the Italian Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche. IIASA became a meeting place for scholars and scientists from around the globe and provided a bridging function for the scientific world, producing important studies in different fields, including climate change, energy and agriculture.

The introduction of his 1976 book ‘The Human Quality’ is also quite telling about Peccei’s thinking. After an analysis of global problems, he writes “Why do we have this general and incurable moral, political, social, psychological, economic and ecolo­gical crisis which, in different forms, subtle or explosive, touches us all, developed or not, making us lose our bearings and pushing us towards dark futures?”. To overcome the difficulties he saw for the world in 1976, he asks further “Don’t we need something quite different than what is being proposed by the various social actors, be they national politicians or the United Nations, on what is by now a global Chess­board?”. He answers this question by suggesting that what is needed “is a true and proper mutation, a new way to live for man which would put him in harmony with the reality he continually manipulates, transforms, and creates himself”. This is the jump in human quality he discusses in his book. It gives a true sense of his thinking and the need for action he felt, and proves his anticipatory capacity which became so clear with his total engagement with and for the Club of Rome.