El debate sobre las formas de gobierno en las «Apuntaciones al Genovesi» de R. de Salas

Abstract

During the last two decades of the 18th century, Spain initiated the first constitutional debate in its history. This article takes up the contribution that the university professor, Ramón de Salas, made to it from Salamanca in his extense essay entitles «Apuntaciones al Genovesi». He wrote this by hand in a manuscript unpublished to date. Chapter by chapter, he argued against the political and economic thought of the university professor, A. Genovesi, from Naples, in his widely disseminated Lezioni di commercio (1765-1767). In his essay, Salas shows an in-depth knowledge of some of the most influential currents of economic and political thought of the day. This enabled him to articulate a rich discussion on forms of governance, one of the key issues in his argument. Salas revitalised the importance of the characteristic values and principles of the republican political culture. In particular, he stress virtue and equality, in order to establish guidelines for regenerating the Spanish political system of his time. The employment made of the canonic text of Genovesi for such purpose highlights the importance of the Spanish Enlightenment thinking of political economics as a privileged channel for disseminating political thought.