Apologia del libero mercato

Abstract

In a dusty square of an ancient neighborhood of Palermo there is a miserable second-hand market, called “mercato dell’Albergheria. Merchandise sold is mainly stuff collected from garbage. Those who sell and buy are some of the poorest and most marginalized among urban population, so none of the sellers has a permission or pays any tax. Nevertheless, Albergheria market had existed undisturbed for about twenty years. It therefore seems to be an actualization of the free market ideal. The State is not there: neither to give, nor to require. In the main square, where the market is, a peculiar coincidence occurs: one of the buildings, an ex-cinema, is now a lecture-hall of the Law Department of the University of Palermo. So, where everything is illegal, youth is trained in the legal professions. This paradoxical circumstance was the occasion of a legal clinical education experiment, configurable in terms of “street law upside-down.