Page 152 - IANUS n. 26 - Fideiussioni omnibus e intesa antitrust: interferenze e rimedi
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VALENTINO CATTELAN





                                                 «The word “risk” derives from the early Italian risicare,
                                                 which means “to dare”. In this sense, risk is a choice
                                                 rather than a fate. The actions we dare to take, which
                                                 depend on how free we are to make choices, are what
                                                 the  story  of  risk  is  all  about.  And  that  story  helps
                                                                                  2
                                                 define what it means to be a human being» .

               1. Gods, men and the (un)expected: from Bernstein’s risk to the Arabic rizq (ﻕﺯﺭ)

                  Peter L. Bernstein’s extraordinary book Against the gods: the remarkable story of
               risk  has been able to popularize and make accessible to the general public the
                  3
               intricacy of a concept, that, as he remarks, «touches on the most profound aspects
               of psychology, mathematics, statistics, and history» (p. ix). The volume itself won
               the Edwin G. Booz Price for the most insightful, innovative management book in
               1996, as well as the Clarence Arthur Kelp/Elizur Wright Memorial Award in
               1998; not really unexpectedly, considering this success, Against the gods has sold
               over 500,000 copies worldwide.
                  Indeed, dealing with the (un)expected is what risk management is all about:
               something that Bernstein defines as that ‘revolutionary idea’ shaping modernity,
               where, far from being an antagonist, as the unpredictable whim of gods or the
               mysterious fate, the future has become an opportunity. Moving away from the
               fear of the unexpected, his volume tells us about «[…] the story of a group of
               thinkers whose remarkable vision revealed how to put the future at the service of
               the present… [converting] risk-taking into one of the prime catalysts that drives
               modern Western society. Like Prometheus, they defied the gods and probed that
               darkness in search of the light that converted the future from an enemy into an
               opportunity. The transformation in attitudes towards risk management unleashed
               by their achievements has channelled the human passion for games and wagering
               into economic growth, improved quality of life, and technological progress» .
                                                                                     4
                  From Fibonacci’s Liber Abaci (1202), Cardano’s Liber de Ludo Aleae (1525) and
               Galileo’s Sopra le scoperte dei dadi (1623), the astonishing story of risk developed in
               Western society through the laws of probability framed by Pascal, Fermat, and
                                 5
               Chevalier de Méré , and the science of statistics of Graunt, Petty, and Halley,
               fostering the development of insurance as a commercial concept in the eighteenth
                      6
               century . It was in that time, with Bernoulli’s paper on Specimen Theoriae Novae de
               Mensura Sortis (1731), that risk-taking was related not only to objective facts but
               also to a «subjective view about the desirability of what is to be gained, or lost, by





                  2  BERNSTEIN, Against the gods: the remarkable story of risk, New York, 1996, 8.
                  3  See previous note.
                  4  ID., 1.
                  5  ID., 57-72.
                  6  ID., 92.

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