title: The basic laws of human stupidity (Italian Edition)
author: Carlo Cipolla
description: The stupid are all around us: they are in every place, in every class, ready to cause damage to others and naturally (they are stupid, are they not?) to themselves. The stupid form the most dangerous category of human beings. Woe betide those who underestimate them. The historian Carlo M. Cipolla wrote this essay in a constructive effort to detect, know, and thus possibly neutralize one of the most powerful, dark forces which hinder the growth of human welfare and happiness. And if it then proves impossible to save ourselves from stupidity, at least we can take vengeance by laughing at it.
zlib_text: Carlo M. Cipolla
  T H E  B A S I C  L AW S  O
  F  H U
  M A N
  S T U
  P I D I T Y
  W
  ith a foreword by
  N assim N icholas Taleb
  
  CO NTENTS
  Foreword by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
  Publisher’s Note
  The Mad Millers to the Reader
  Introduction
  I. The First Basic Law
  II. The Second Basic Law
  III. A Technical Interlude
  IV. The Third ( and G olden)  Basic Law
  V. Freq uency Distribution
  VI. Stupidity and Power
  VII. The Power of Stupidity
  VIII. The Fourth Basic Law
  IX . Macro Analysis and the Fifth Basic Law
  Appendix
  
  ABO U T THE AU THO R
  C A R L O  M
  . C IP O L L A  ( 1922– 2000)  was an Italian economic
  historian, Fulbright Fellow and professor at the U niversity of
  California, Berkeley. Cipolla was elected as a Corresponding Fellow
  of the British Academy in 1989 and awarded the International Balzan
  Prize for Economic History in 1995. He also held honorary degrees
  in Italy and Switzerland.
  His classic treatise The B asic L aws of H uman Stupidity has sold
  more than half a million copies worldwide in over te