Città Nuova

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    [title] => Speculative finance gives a hand to microcredit
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Economist Bruni makes a proposal: tax 5 percent of financial transactions to support developing countries

By Sara Fornaro

Published on cittanuova.it on 29/10/2010

wall_streetA tax of 5 percent on speculative financial transactions to fund microfinance projects in developing countries. This is the proposal made by Luigino Bruni, professor at the University of Milano-Bicocca and vice-director of the Econometica Interuniversity Center of research on business ethics, together with economists Leonardo Becchetti, Gustavo Piga, Lorenzo Sacconi, Francesco Silva and Stefano Zamagni. Through the FIT (Financial transaction tax), there would be the double advantage of minimally regulating the financial market and gathering funds to help reach the Millennium Development Goals defined by the UN and to finance global public goods. It is a project that is generating always more consensus, even among leaders of the main economic powers, like French President Nicolas Sarkozy, for example.

[fulltext] =>

Considering the frequency and proportion of speculative transactions, through FIT, it would be possible to gather as much as 200 million dollars each year. To understand the contribution of this proposal, just think that 30 million Euro would ensure obligatory elementary education in the whole world. "The extent of our civilization is staked on the tax on financial transactions," said the appeal, "as is the fact that we can truly call ourselves civil"

Professor Bruni, what point are we at?
"We have gathered many supporters in the academic world, both in economics and in banking. Many more than we thought. That is why it seems like this is the right moment to relaunch this proposal, with greater weighting and less urgency than the way we did two years ago. After the proposal went ahead in 2001 in Genoa, by the Focolare Movement and thanks to the involvement of businesses that adhere to the Economy of Communion project, we have now entered a second phase: an analogous proposal, but even more shared, spread and articulated. I feel that this is the way in which we must go ahead."

What are the plans? 
"Ten years later, we want to present the Genoa manifest again in 2011, this time in Brazil, on the occasion of the twentieth anniversary of the Economy of Communion. We want to present it as our concrete proposal to be launched worldwide and with greater emphasis. By now, we not just talking about financing governments and non-governmental organizations. There is need to give an impulse to the capitalization of the millions of micro financing institutions that exist in developing countries. We, with the worldwide network of Economy of Communion businesses, can support this project. Besides, we want to launch a big project of exchange among professors throughout the world, because without quality education, one cannot get out of dire poverty."

Can you explain this exchange project better?
"We could reinforce the links between the different academic institutions, which are very fragile in developing countries. We could also finance exchange projects, which would involve foreign professors that could spend a certain amount of time in their universities."

Among your proposals, there is also that of not taxing Italian Treasury Bonds in order to not weigh on citizens.
"Family savings should not be taxed. We propose a tax on speculative finance – but not to demonize finance in general, because it is necessary, and we should not forget that it was invented by the French in the Middle Ages. The problem is not only that of gathering money, but also that of spending it well. Speculative finance never stopped, even during the crisis. It never failed. A minimum percentage of its organisms closed, but others were recycled in thousands of other ways. Just think of the recent scandal of a bank, saved by public funds, that continues to pay enormous bonuses to its managers. It will always do so as long as no institutional change takes place. We should not close everything, but if we want things to work, we need a system of rules and controls. As someone said, there can be no good society and good economy without good finance, which requires regulation by on the part of governments and new civil protagonism on the part of the people."

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Economist Bruni makes a proposal: tax 5 percent of financial transactions to support developing countries

By Sara Fornaro

Published on cittanuova.it on 29/10/2010

wall_streetA tax of 5 percent on speculative financial transactions to fund microfinance projects in developing countries. This is the proposal made by Luigino Bruni, professor at the University of Milano-Bicocca and vice-director of the Econometica Interuniversity Center of research on business ethics, together with economists Leonardo Becchetti, Gustavo Piga, Lorenzo Sacconi, Francesco Silva and Stefano Zamagni. Through the FIT (Financial transaction tax), there would be the double advantage of minimally regulating the financial market and gathering funds to help reach the Millennium Development Goals defined by the UN and to finance global public goods. It is a project that is generating always more consensus, even among leaders of the main economic powers, like French President Nicolas Sarkozy, for example.

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Speculative finance gives a hand to microcredit

Speculative finance gives a hand to microcredit

Economist Bruni makes a proposal: tax 5 percent of financial transactions to support developing countries By Sara Fornaro Published on cittanuova.it on 29/10/2010 A tax of 5 percent on speculative financial transactions to fund microfinance projects in developing countries. This is the proposal ma...
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    [title] => Profit or the common good?
    [alias] => profit-or-the-common-good
    [introtext] => 

Beyond Capitalism - Both. But there's need to change the economic and social model.

By Luigino Bruni

Published on Città Nuova n.15-16/2010 of 10-25/08/2010

Current public debate on work, employment and crisis (and the suffering of families) can offer us the opportunity to more deeply reflect on what was not done during the last few decades on the nature of businesses, profit and therefore, of capitalism. We won't get out of the serious crisis we're living - from the area of finance, to terrorism and unemployment - until we don't seriously question the current economic and social model. Capitalism, the shape that the market economy has taken during the last two centuries, must evolve into something else. And while the enormous capacity of civilization and freedom that capitalism contains must be saved, 8 million people also need to be allowed to cultivate their own humanity. 

One of the most serious facts about the financial crisis in the last two years was the vulgarity (I can't find another word for it) of the stipends and million-dollar bonuses that banks and insurance agencies saved in fall 2008 with public money and then began to redistribute to their managers in the first few months of 2009. Even in times of cutbacks and union conflicts, no one questioned the high profits of the businesses and the salaries of the superstars. There lacked courage to question the capitalistic system, and discussion was limited to speaking about economic ethics, responsible business, non-profit and philanthropy, functional and necessary phenomenon to the existing economic system.

[fulltext] =>

But are we sure that the goal of business activity is maximizing profit? If we limit ourselves to the most positive part of the market economy (omitting the discussion about the nature of speculative "profits"), we can affirm that profit is the added value generated from the company's activity that is attributed to owners, who at one time were called capitalists. Therefore, profit is not the entire added value, but only a part of it. An example: Business A produces automobiles, transforming raw material into a finished product called a "car", at the cost of 10. If we add the cost of work (8), charges and down payments (3), the gross profit (before taxes) of a car sold at 30 is 9. If the business then pays taxes of 4, the net profit becomes 5. 

At this point, two questions come to mind. The first: where does this profit come from and on what does it depend? History of economic thought is also a history of different theories on the nature of profit. One hundred years ago, Schumpeter, for example, sustained that profit is the "award of innovation" to an entrepreneur, therefore, the compensation for an entrepreneur's innovative capacity. A half a century earlier, Marx affirmed that profit is nothing other than capitalists robbing workers, as the one true source of added value is human work, especially that of the workers. Today, we know that added value includes many things, among which is an entrepreneur's creativity, human labor, institutions of civil society, the tacit culture of a people and the quality of family relationships in which children grow during their first six years of life (as Nobel winner James Heckman has shown). In that added value of "5", there is not only the creative role of those who own a company's means of production, but something more that deals with the life of the entire collectivity. There is also this awareness behind the 41 article of the Italian constitution, when it declares the "social function" of a business, a function which also has a social nature. 

However, one thing is certain. If Business A sells cars for 30, and has a profit of 5, in a hypothetical "no-profit" world (meaning profits of 0), cars would cost 25 instead of 30. In other words, profits of businesses are also a form of tax on goods, paid by citizens, which reduces the collective well-being of a population. That is why a "no-profit economy" is often desired, dreamed of, and in certain moments of history, made real on small or vast scales. However, this often creates greater damage than the problems people wish to remove, as in collectivist experiments of the 20th century. These experiments did not work for many reasons, all deep, but one of these reasons is that when you take that "5" away and you hand it over to society, those who build businesses (public or private) no longer commit themselves to innovation and work. The wealth of a nation then diminishes, and not only economic wealth. Everyone grows poorer and even that value (5), hoped to be given to society, disappears. At the same time, the great crisis we're living teaches us that an economy founded on profits and speculation is also unsustainable. What can we do then?

Considering what has been said, what is happening today in the so-called civil and social economy, and particularly in the Economy of Communion, can be read in two different ways. One reading, minimalist and conservative, sees civil and social economy as the cork in the capitalist system. Normal (for-profit) businesses are not able to worry about the "losers" who fall along the way (in the language of G. Verga), and there's need for someone else that plays the role that families and churches played in the past. It's the logic of the 2 percent (no-profit) that leaves the remaining 98 percent intact (for-profit economy).

However, there is also another reading of the civil economy movement. Imagine, for now just on a small scale, an economic system where true added value, both economic and social, is distributed among many (not only to shareholders). Imagine that this happens without entrepreneurs and workers changing their commitment to work for lack of incentive, in order to avoid falling into the same problems of the collectivist and socialist economies. The true wager of the new market economy that awaits us will then be to show entrepreneurs (individuals and also communities) who are motivated by "reasons greater than profit".

The last phase of capitalism (which we can call functionalist-individualist) arises from pessimistic anthropology, tracing back at least to Hobbes: here, human beings would be too opportunistic and self-interested to think that they can commit themselves with high motivations (like the common good). We can't leave the last word about common living to this "anthropological defeat". We have the ethical responsibility to leave a positive view towards the world and towards man for those who come after us.

But so that all this does not remain just written on a page but becomes life, what is needed is a new humanism, a new educative season. What is needed are "new men and women" who are the center of the Economy of Communion project, capable of committing themselves and working, not just for profit but also to make their working activity a work of art. If this happens, then the new market economy, in which new significant protagonists are entering (like Africa, for example), will be a beautiful place in which to dwell, live, love.

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Beyond Capitalism - Both. But there's need to change the economic and social model.

By Luigino Bruni

Published on Città Nuova n.15-16/2010 of 10-25/08/2010

Current public debate on work, employment and crisis (and the suffering of families) can offer us the opportunity to more deeply reflect on what was not done during the last few decades on the nature of businesses, profit and therefore, of capitalism. We won't get out of the serious crisis we're living - from the area of finance, to terrorism and unemployment - until we don't seriously question the current economic and social model. Capitalism, the shape that the market economy has taken during the last two centuries, must evolve into something else. And while the enormous capacity of civilization and freedom that capitalism contains must be saved, 8 million people also need to be allowed to cultivate their own humanity. 

One of the most serious facts about the financial crisis in the last two years was the vulgarity (I can't find another word for it) of the stipends and million-dollar bonuses that banks and insurance agencies saved in fall 2008 with public money and then began to redistribute to their managers in the first few months of 2009. Even in times of cutbacks and union conflicts, no one questioned the high profits of the businesses and the salaries of the superstars. There lacked courage to question the capitalistic system, and discussion was limited to speaking about economic ethics, responsible business, non-profit and philanthropy, functional and necessary phenomenon to the existing economic system.

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Profit or the common good?

Profit or the common good?

Beyond Capitalism - Both. But there's need to change the economic and social model. By Luigino Bruni Published on Città Nuova n.15-16/2010 of 10-25/08/2010 Current public debate on work, employment and crisis (and the suffering of families) can offer us the opportunity to more deeply reflect on wha...
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    [title] => Fortune and virtue
    [alias] => fortune-and-virtue
    [introtext] => 

Today, we observe a great revival of fortune. The search for happiness is always less linked to virtue.

By Luigino Bruni

Published on: Città Nuova n.12/2010 on 25/06/2010

One of the most important elements in the birth of Western civilization was the opposition between fortune and virtue. In the world of Greek myths, a tight relationship between happiness and fortune existed: he who had a good (eu) god (daimon) on his side was considered happy. Socrates and the long season of Greek philosophy affirmed, instead, that happiness, human flourishing, depends on virtue and not on fortune. Virtue beats bad luck. This is the basis on which all personal and collective ethics in Europe has been built. And thanks to the great Christian event, Europe has affirmed that good living, happiness, depends on the capacity to cultivate virtue, on our commitment and on our responsibility. 

Today, instead, we witness a great revival of fortune. The search for happiness is always less linked to virtue, and work in particular, and always more linked to fortune, game and luck. Television programs based on promises of easy money, scratch-and-win, sweepstakes, slot machines, lottery, and telepoker abound.

[fulltext] =>

The financial and economic crisis is also an expression of this revival of archaic culture and the separation from the idea of virtues and work. Our Republic was born and founded on work, a thesis that frames centuries of civilizations in which the West and Christianity affirmed that wealth that isn't generated from human work normally does not bring individual and collective happiness. Today, instead, this culture of fortune (that goes together with magic, astrology, other spheres of strong growth and other neo-pagan spheres) promises us, eluding us, that one can gain wealth without working but rather by finding a lucky investment or winning the lottery. There isn't much cultural difference between those who systematically consume scratch-and-win tickets and those who speculate on the stock market. It's the culture of fortune that is taking revenge on the culture of virtue. We'll get out of this crisis by working, better and together, relaunching a season of public virtue, of collective goods and of common projects. If this doesn't happen, we'll continue to wait for someone or something else to save us, and we'll further push back the time of individual and collective responsibility.

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Today, we observe a great revival of fortune. The search for happiness is always less linked to virtue.

By Luigino Bruni

Published on: Città Nuova n.12/2010 on 25/06/2010

One of the most important elements in the birth of Western civilization was the opposition between fortune and virtue. In the world of Greek myths, a tight relationship between happiness and fortune existed: he who had a good (eu) god (daimon) on his side was considered happy. Socrates and the long season of Greek philosophy affirmed, instead, that happiness, human flourishing, depends on virtue and not on fortune. Virtue beats bad luck. This is the basis on which all personal and collective ethics in Europe has been built. And thanks to the great Christian event, Europe has affirmed that good living, happiness, depends on the capacity to cultivate virtue, on our commitment and on our responsibility. 

Today, instead, we witness a great revival of fortune. The search for happiness is always less linked to virtue, and work in particular, and always more linked to fortune, game and luck. Television programs based on promises of easy money, scratch-and-win, sweepstakes, slot machines, lottery, and telepoker abound.

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Fortune and virtue

Fortune and virtue

Today, we observe a great revival of fortune. The search for happiness is always less linked to virtue. By Luigino Bruni Published on: Città Nuova n.12/2010 on 25/06/2010 One of the most important elements in the birth of Western civilization was the opposition between fortune and virtue. In the wor...
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    [title] => Price and Value
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Prices that are too high or too low are problematic.

By Luigino Bruni

Published on www.cittanuova.it on 5/05/2010

In almost all airports of the world, you can pay to get Internet service. In Zurich, with one Euro, you can be connected for 4 minutes: almost all the booths were available.  A few days ago, in Porto, I found free Internet service in the airport. I waited in line for more than an hour, and then I gave up because those using the booths were not moving. Maybe if the cost in Zurich was a little less, and in Porto a little more, the efficiency of both systems would improve. 

Prices that are too high or too low are problematic. Oil prices that were too low for decades not only accelerated the exhaustion of natural oil deposits, but it also slowed down research of alternative energies. The price of a good, when markets are competitive, should express its economic and social scarcity; but there are goods like oil (and in general, the environment) where, so that their prices truly show their scarcity, we should include the availability of that good for future generations. 

[fulltext] =>

Then, talking about prices that are too high, I still haven´t found an economist colleague who can give me theoretical justification for CEOs´millionaire salaries. I´m convinced that if we paid private and public directors, based on the scarcity and the value of their contribution to a business and to the society, we could reduce the cost of goods, policies and bills that rise because members of these exclusive clubs decide their income on their own.  Lower salaries would then favor cohesion and social harmony, which are always put into crisis by strong inequalities. I´m convinced that in the management field there is also need to develop research for "alternative sources". But, also here, as long as the salaries of the directors of large companies and public administration remain scandalously high, it will be very arduous for social and civil economy to attract the best young leaders.  Luckily, however, I know many youth who, while have optimum alternatives, choose to commit their best years to NGOs and to social and civil businesses, where one can find those "alternative energies" on which the social, economic and spiritual sustainability of the next few years will depend. 

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Prices that are too high or too low are problematic.

By Luigino Bruni

Published on www.cittanuova.it on 5/05/2010

In almost all airports of the world, you can pay to get Internet service. In Zurich, with one Euro, you can be connected for 4 minutes: almost all the booths were available.  A few days ago, in Porto, I found free Internet service in the airport. I waited in line for more than an hour, and then I gave up because those using the booths were not moving. Maybe if the cost in Zurich was a little less, and in Porto a little more, the efficiency of both systems would improve. 

Prices that are too high or too low are problematic. Oil prices that were too low for decades not only accelerated the exhaustion of natural oil deposits, but it also slowed down research of alternative energies. The price of a good, when markets are competitive, should express its economic and social scarcity; but there are goods like oil (and in general, the environment) where, so that their prices truly show their scarcity, we should include the availability of that good for future generations. 

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Price and Value

Price and Value

Prices that are too high or too low are problematic. By Luigino Bruni Published on www.cittanuova.it on 5/05/2010 In almost all airports of the world, you can pay to get Internet service. In Zurich, with one Euro, you can be connected for 4 minutes: almost all the booths were available.  A few ...
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    [title] => What is the value of a vote?
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According to economic theory, examining the costs and benefits linked to the vote, citizens should desert the polls. Is this the only cause for abstention to the latest elections and are there other kinds of motivations?

By Luigino Bruni

Published on : www.cittanuova.it on 01/04/2010

Why do people go to vote? 

Economics is still not able to give us completely convincing answers to this question. If we would reason using purely economic criteria, which leads us to choosing in terms of cost and individual benefits, no rational citizen would go out to the voting polls. In fact, the impact that a single vote has on the final results of a political election is very close to nothing, while the cost (especially in time) are all on the individual. In other words, if each person asked himself "what does my vote add to national politics?" and acted accordingly, we ought to find ourselves with deserted polling stations. 

[fulltext] =>

But why then, in spite of economic theory and economists, do so many people still go out to vote? Maybe because when we participate in civil and political life, we´re not only looking at individual and material benefits and costs. Rather, we attribute intrinsic or ethical value to political participation in itself. When Franca has to decide to go and vote or not, if the material cost of the vote is 2 (time, gas...), and the benefit is 0.1 (how much her vote will influence election results), if she does not consider other types of benefits, she would calmly stay at home or travel. If, instead, political participation causes her well-being or happiness, and if to that 0.1 a non-material value is added and is high enough, it makes her go to the polls instead of enjoying a restful Sunday.

From this perspective, what can we say about the fall in voter turn-out? Above all, we can deduce that this fall is also a result of a growing number of people who are reasoning in purely individualistic and "economical" terms.

But we can also say something more. When the quality of public debate and the morals of politicians descends, the intrinsic and symbolic value of participation that people have is reduced. And when it goes below a certain critical threshold (for Franca it is 1.9, and each person has his "critical threshold") they may no longer go to vote. "It´s not worth it" is a commonly heard expression that summarizes everything. And even if Franca ignores her "critical threshold", if she does not vote this year, her choice shows us that the intrinsic value she gives to participation has fallen. In this case, even a non-vote is a sign of uneasiness and maybe a request for better quality in political life. Of course, there are citizens whose ethical value for political participation is very high, but many others gravitate around the "threshold", and the moral crisis of politics could have induced many of these to give up voting.

What can we conclude? If we want people to continue to vote, to use their main right-responsibility in a democracy, we need to fill politics with ideals and morality, and do what is necessary so that symbolic but very real value always remains high, and that it "is worth it".  

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According to economic theory, examining the costs and benefits linked to the vote, citizens should desert the polls. Is this the only cause for abstention to the latest elections and are there other kinds of motivations?

By Luigino Bruni

Published on : www.cittanuova.it on 01/04/2010

Why do people go to vote? 

Economics is still not able to give us completely convincing answers to this question. If we would reason using purely economic criteria, which leads us to choosing in terms of cost and individual benefits, no rational citizen would go out to the voting polls. In fact, the impact that a single vote has on the final results of a political election is very close to nothing, while the cost (especially in time) are all on the individual. In other words, if each person asked himself "what does my vote add to national politics?" and acted accordingly, we ought to find ourselves with deserted polling stations. 

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What is the value of a vote?

What is the value of a vote?

According to economic theory, examining the costs and benefits linked to the vote, citizens should desert the polls. Is this the only cause for abstention to the latest elections and are there other kinds of motivations? By Luigino Bruni Published on : www.cittanuova.it on 01/04/2010 Why do people g...
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    [title] => Work Ought to be Saved, Sought and Created
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Faced with the serious employment crisis, it´s time to do something

by Luigino Bruni

Published on Cittanuova.it on 19/02/2010

Benedict XVI recently reaffirmed the need to "do all that is possible to safeguard and increase employment." The center of the economic system must be held by the person, even today, and especially today. Technological, financial and social capital are certainly important, but "human capital", the workers, remains the key factor in an economy that wants to be person-friendly. Instead, the global economic and financial crisis strongly shows that human labor is decidedly relegated to the backdrop of our capitalistic development model, which, being always more in the hands of finance, has lost contact with the fatigue of work.

[fulltext] =>

On the other hand, this serves consumption, giving life to one of the most worrying phenomenon of our time: the chase after consumer products. But history teaches us that peoples develop when the "competitive" tendency of human beings is not expressed primarily through consumption (one competes by possessing cars and phones that are more expensive than those of others) but rather in work and production. Besides, this crisis should have taught us that the only kind of wealth that produces true well-being is that which results from human labor. Promises of wealth without work are always suspicious and are very often individual and social bluffs.

 What can we do, then, during this profound employment crisis? First of all, we need to remember that work is not a good that can be left only to supply (of workers) and demand (of businesses). Work, better described as working, is a primary good, since the dignity and the identity of persons, their dreams and their possibility to acquire other goods depends on this, and as this is what makes the economy spin. Therefore, unions will always be a great sign of civilization and full humanization of civil life.

We´ll get out of this crisis if we know that we need to find a  new working arrangement. Globalization and the entrance of new continents on the economic scene are radically changing the economic model that dominated the Western world during the 20th century. In that model, a state-market binomial, which brought extraordinary results in economic growth, the capitalistic market was entrusted with the role of production and of employing workers. The state was given the task of filling in the gaps left by the market, including gaps in employment. All that dealt with private and associative life, and therefore to ideal and political values, did not fit into the market or the state. It was a "third sector," and any jobs that it created were marginal, since its nature was something other than economic.

Today, this model is going into a mortal crisis: the traditional market can´t take it anymore, and the state is even worse. The third sector must evolve into what we call "civil economy", a new economic and social model where civil society is not a residual element (a third) but the fulcrum of creativity for the entire economy. We need a new season of innovation where citizens do not entrust work only to large traditional corporations and to the state, but that they be protagonists of new businesses in high innovation sectors.

Work today must not only be "saved" and "sought" but also "created." We must imagine a system where cooperatives and associations do not only worry about treating people but also about goods with high added value. Therefore, a new social pact needs to be invented so that civil economy does not only have the function of redistributing resources but also of creating them.

If Italy wants to continue to hold a significant place in the new world economic scene, a phase of new creativity must be re-launched in which new scenes and new markets are imagined and include relational, cultural and environmental goods, which are always more scarce and, therefore, precious.

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Faced with the serious employment crisis, it´s time to do something

by Luigino Bruni

Published on Cittanuova.it on 19/02/2010

Benedict XVI recently reaffirmed the need to "do all that is possible to safeguard and increase employment." The center of the economic system must be held by the person, even today, and especially today. Technological, financial and social capital are certainly important, but "human capital", the workers, remains the key factor in an economy that wants to be person-friendly. Instead, the global economic and financial crisis strongly shows that human labor is decidedly relegated to the backdrop of our capitalistic development model, which, being always more in the hands of finance, has lost contact with the fatigue of work.

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Work Ought to be Saved, Sought and Created

Work Ought to be Saved, Sought and Created

Faced with the serious employment crisis, it´s time to do something by Luigino Bruni Published on Cittanuova.it on 19/02/2010 Benedict XVI recently reaffirmed the need to "do all that is possible to safeguard and increase employment." The center of the economic system must be held by the person...
stdClass Object
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    [title] => Costs and Benefits of Heart-to-Heart
    [alias] => costs-and-benefits-of-heart-to-heart
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Editorial - Evolved Societies

by Luigino Bruni

Published in Città Nuova n.3 - 2010

There are businesses, organizations and associations that organize events and publicize them by sending emails to millions of people. With just a click, they reach millions, and they save time and money compared to the archaic methods of only a few years ago (telephone, the regalo_ridpostal service, etc...). However, often, very often, what happens is that these events take place in half-empty auditoriums, and of the millions of people reached, only a few, sparse groups arrive. How is this possible?  Reducing costs is not always positive from a social point of view. When we receive an invitation to a conference, together will hundreds of other people, perhaps with an anonymous letterhead - "Respectable Sir/Madame" - we´re well conscious that that invitation only cost a few seconds of time, and this is why it makes us indifferent. Instead,
when we receive an email, or even better a personal letter by "snail-mail" or a phone call, we know that the greater cost or commitment required from this way of communicating is also a sign of greater attention towards us. 

[fulltext] =>

This shows a more general tendency in human relationships. Just think of the relational rule of gifts: when we receive a gift that we know did not cost the other anything or very little (in terms of time and/or money), we tend to not appreciate it. This is the main reason why the social norm on not "re-packaging" gifts exists: don´t recycle gifts and give them again as another "gift". If we want to reach goals, we need to make investments. If I want someone to make the choice to use more energy than sitting in front of a plasma TV, which "thanks" to today´s market offers us better programs, and find a way that he or she decides to go out after dinner to a cultural or spiritual meeting, we need to invest time and commitment. Otherwise, we don´t go beyond the sound wall of our consumer society, and our signals get lost in the magma of many superficial signals that reach us each day.

We need to learn to recover face-to-face communication: reducing telephone calls, emails, text messages, and using the time we save for knocking on someone´s door. The fruits of this investment in saved time are abundant, especially in a society that live´s virtually, where
human heart-to-heart meetings are becoming an always more scarce resource, and are therefore increasing in value.

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Editorial - Evolved Societies

by Luigino Bruni

Published in Città Nuova n.3 - 2010

There are businesses, organizations and associations that organize events and publicize them by sending emails to millions of people. With just a click, they reach millions, and they save time and money compared to the archaic methods of only a few years ago (telephone, the regalo_ridpostal service, etc...). However, often, very often, what happens is that these events take place in half-empty auditoriums, and of the millions of people reached, only a few, sparse groups arrive. How is this possible?  Reducing costs is not always positive from a social point of view. When we receive an invitation to a conference, together will hundreds of other people, perhaps with an anonymous letterhead - "Respectable Sir/Madame" - we´re well conscious that that invitation only cost a few seconds of time, and this is why it makes us indifferent. Instead,
when we receive an email, or even better a personal letter by "snail-mail" or a phone call, we know that the greater cost or commitment required from this way of communicating is also a sign of greater attention towards us. 

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Costs and Benefits of Heart-to-Heart

Costs and Benefits of Heart-to-Heart

Editorial - Evolved Societies by Luigino Bruni Published in Città Nuova n.3 - 2010 There are businesses, organizations and associations that organize events and publicize them by sending emails to millions of people. With just a click, they reach millions, and they save time and money compared to th...
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    [title] => Civil Economy and Economy of Communion. What are the differences?
    [alias] => civil-economy-and-economy-of-communion-what-are-the-differences
    [introtext] => 

Civil Economy and Economy of Communion

by Luigino Bruni

Published in Città Nuova n.1/2010

Civil economy is a tradition of thought that views the market and business not as the reign of individual interests alone but as a matter of reciprocity and fraternity. If we consider the economy in this way, then we can say that the Economy of Communion (EoC) is truly economy and not just a marginal experience of good entrepreneurs going ahead to plug the holes in the economy that actually counts. It´s something new that cannot be framed within the dualistic scheme of "for-profit" and "non-profit", typical of the capitalistic tradition.

[fulltext] =>

When we look at the EoC from the cultural perspective of civil economy, it becomes a paradigm of those "for-project" businesses (who are neither "for" or "against" profit)  typical of civil economy, in which entrepreneurs are builders of shared projects and in which profit is only an element.

At the same time, the EoC and the spirituality from which it arose have provided us theoretical categories for giving content to civil economy. These include reciprocity, gratuitousness, fraternity and relational goods - words we have "learned" even by observing the life of the entrepreneurs, workers and the poor of the EoC project. Therefore, without the experience and the spirituality of the EoC, the theoretical content of civil economy would probably be (at least on my part) much more meager and certainly different. Without the elaboration of civil economy, the EoC would have less scientific dignity and would be considered an anomalous exception, without the extensiveness that civil economy´s perspective gives it.

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Civil Economy and Economy of Communion

by Luigino Bruni

Published in Città Nuova n.1/2010

Civil economy is a tradition of thought that views the market and business not as the reign of individual interests alone but as a matter of reciprocity and fraternity. If we consider the economy in this way, then we can say that the Economy of Communion (EoC) is truly economy and not just a marginal experience of good entrepreneurs going ahead to plug the holes in the economy that actually counts. It´s something new that cannot be framed within the dualistic scheme of "for-profit" and "non-profit", typical of the capitalistic tradition.

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Civil Economy and Economy of Communion. What are the differences?

Civil Economy and Economy of Communion. What are the differences?

Civil Economy and Economy of Communion by Luigino Bruni Published in Città Nuova n.1/2010 Civil economy is a tradition of thought that views the market and business not as the reign of individual interests alone but as a matter of reciprocity and fraternity. If we consider the economy in this way, t...
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    [title] => Unemployment and civil creativity
    [alias] => unemployment-and-civil-creativity
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By Luigino Bruni

Published on Città Nuova n.22/2009

When we go to visit a friend after an accident, we ask, "How are you?", and they many answer, "My leg is getting better, my rib still hurts, the swelling hasn´t gone down, but my arm is all right". This is the condition of the economy, which is trying to recover from a (serious) accident. Overall, there are three parts of the "body" that were damaged by the September 2008 fall: financial structure, production and employment. The reason that the data on the crisis and the comeback are contrasting is that today we´re talking about the leg, yesterday about the rib and tomorrow about the swelling.

[fulltext] =>

Metaphor aside, we can say that the serious financial crisis is over. Today, it is no longer possible for the system to fall (at least in the near future). Real production is starting up again, and within a few months it is likely that we´ll return to a positive GDP. Instead, what won´t heal is the world of work. I believe that, globally, we won´t go back to pre-crisis levels of employment. Why? Above all, crisis are always moments in which partially obsolete industrial assets are destroyed and new ones are created - they´re moments of "creative destruction". Besides, with the entry of new players into the market, the industrially mature sectors in the Northern hemisphere will necessarily have to restructure.

Some estimates say that the traditional economy will take up not more than 2/3 of the work force in the next few years. What can we do? There´s an answer that´s received little attention so far: giving potential to and developing the capacity and the productive vocation of civil society, the so-called civil economy. What´s necessary, then, is that a larger portion of civil society and families not "look" for work in large businesses or those that the state has "created", as according to the pre-2008 model. What is needed is that civil society is always more capable of creating work for itself, and not only in services that provide care but also in sectors with extra high value, and it needs to be done in sinergy with traditional businesses and the institutions.

Then, we need to move beyond the idea of social economy, or non-profit, as a sector financed mostly by public contributions. This model cannot be sustainable if it is true that the state mainly obtains wealth by taxing traditional businesses (which will always be fewer). Therefore, it´s urgent that civil economy acts with innovative capacity, private wealth and be able to itself produce added value.

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By Luigino Bruni

Published on Città Nuova n.22/2009

When we go to visit a friend after an accident, we ask, "How are you?", and they many answer, "My leg is getting better, my rib still hurts, the swelling hasn´t gone down, but my arm is all right". This is the condition of the economy, which is trying to recover from a (serious) accident. Overall, there are three parts of the "body" that were damaged by the September 2008 fall: financial structure, production and employment. The reason that the data on the crisis and the comeback are contrasting is that today we´re talking about the leg, yesterday about the rib and tomorrow about the swelling.

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Unemployment and civil creativity

Unemployment and civil creativity

By Luigino Bruni Published on Città Nuova n.22/2009 When we go to visit a friend after an accident, we ask, "How are you?", and they many answer, "My leg is getting better, my rib still hurts, the swelling hasn´t gone down, but my arm is all right". This is the condition of the economy, which is...
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    [title] => The market, traffic, and "point-system ethics"
    [alias] => il-mercato-il-traffico-e-lqetica-a-puntiq-en-gb-1
    [introtext] => 

The Italian economy within the context of international uncertainty. Instructions on how not to "flood your engine".

By Luigino Bruni

Published on 08/10/2009 inwww.cittanuova.it

Economy is a social science that makes much use of metaphors and images. The first, and still one of the most famous, was the "invisible hand", the metaphor that economist Adam Smith used to explain the 17th century market as a mechanism that transforms private interests into the common good. Still today, the economy borrows images from sports (competition as a sporting race), from music (the manager as the director of an orchestra), and many other areas. These images allow economists to explain dimensions of reality that remain inaccessible to the language of mathematical formulas and balance exercises. However, metaphors don’t always truly help, and they sometimes lead us astray, especially when the borrowed image is used for ideological goals and has an excessive amount of simplifications.

[fulltext] =>

More recently, for example, it’s always more often that we find the combination of market and street traffic. When a person leaves his house and joins traffic, he does so because he has motives and personal interests that drive him on (work, friends, amusements), and not out of love for his city or for the other drivers. But if traffic is well-regulated by instruments (traffic lights, roundabouts, and control cameras), institutions (police and traffic officers), infrastructures and good laws, each person is able to reach their own goal. But for road conditions to work well, the institutions, instruments, controls and laws are not enough. There is also need of a certain ethic for motorists and road maintenance. And when this mechanism is blocked (by traffic jams, for example), the answer is not trying to make the motorists "better" people, but rather in the need to improve streets or substitute traffic lights with roundabouts. The market is the same: with good instruments and institutions, rules and "watchmen", wide and comfortable "streets", respect of the law - and each person is able to reach their objective, giving life to a "spontaneous order" that doesn´t require a regolatory plan that fixes prices from above or regulates demand and sales.

But there’s more. In the midst of traffic, it´s not opportune (and it’s actually inconvenient), to look into the eyes of the other drivers when we pass them or stop at a traffic light. We´re not asked to live altruism while driving, as it is often dangerous (because it´s unpredictable). For example, when an "altruistic" driver sees an elderly person who wants to cross the street where there is not crosswalk, he comes to a grinding halt and gets rear-ended by the car behind him. The only moment when looking into the other’s eyes and being altruistic fits into street traffic is during moments of crisis (as in a bad or unforeseen maneuver), or the favor of letting someone turn onto the main road from a secondary one. The market is the same: anonymity and being impersonal work better than friendly or familiar relationships. In business, you don’t look at anyone "in the face". Respecting the rules, plus a few small donations - this is the maximum that can be asked of the economic ethic in normal times. Only during crisis is it necessary to do something extra.

But are we sure that things truly fit into this model? I don’t think so. The market-traffic analogy catches some aspects, but risks running us off course in other very important ones. Above all, we live ethics in other very relevant aspects of traffic conduct - from what type of car we buy (ecological or not), to a responsible and prudent driving style (not slowing down only when we know there is a camera), to the self-control we exercise when we react to other’s driving errors. And the role of institutions isn’t limited only to the maintenance of traffic lights and cameras, but extends to favoring more ecological transportation systems (trains, for example), to public transportation or new models of renting cars (the so-called car-sharing) and ownership.

The same goes for the market: ethics isn’t mainly in the smile that one gives a client or colleague, but in being professionally up-to-date, in preparing oneself before a meeting, in not selling one’s dignity for a career, in job security, in being indignant in the face of injustices.

"I love my patients by studying their charts before a visit", a primary care doctor from Milan told me. Today, for who loves ethics and values, the challenge is to pull them back out of the margins where we have confined them: a smile from the car window, a SMS to show our support, or pre-tax donations. These are all positive things, but the ethical quality of public life is played through the use of the 99.5% of income, through solidarity with Abruzzo six months after the first SMS during the emergency, or through fairness in work relationships.

The crisis that we are living, and the many others which we will live, tell us that the ethical dimension of business and banking is not measured by the amount given in philanthropic donations. Rather, it’s measured with the culture of their entire activity. Let´s not resign ourselves to a culture  that is transforming values into the "Limoncello" (a lemon liquor) of a lavish lunch - agreeable but not an essential part of life.

Ethnics are neither the limoncello nor the first course. It´s mostly the way in which the lunch is prepared, served and looked after. It is the quality of the relationships during the meal, the attention to who doesn’t eat with us or who doesn’t eat at all because excluded from our opulent banquets. If we forget all of this, values will soon become simple merchandise that each person can buy at a good price and consume as he wishes, in a type of "point-system ethics", with relative rehabilitation facilities.

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The Italian economy within the context of international uncertainty. Instructions on how not to "flood your engine".

By Luigino Bruni

Published on 08/10/2009 inwww.cittanuova.it

Economy is a social science that makes much use of metaphors and images. The first, and still one of the most famous, was the "invisible hand", the metaphor that economist Adam Smith used to explain the 17th century market as a mechanism that transforms private interests into the common good. Still today, the economy borrows images from sports (competition as a sporting race), from music (the manager as the director of an orchestra), and many other areas. These images allow economists to explain dimensions of reality that remain inaccessible to the language of mathematical formulas and balance exercises. However, metaphors don’t always truly help, and they sometimes lead us astray, especially when the borrowed image is used for ideological goals and has an excessive amount of simplifications.

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The market, traffic, and "point-system ethics"

The market, traffic, and "point-system ethics"

The Italian economy within the context of international uncertainty. Instructions on how not to "flood your engine". By Luigino Bruni Published on 08/10/2009 inwww.cittanuova.it Economy is a social science that makes much use of metaphors and images. The first, and still one of the most famous, wa...
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The Italian economy within the context of international uncertainty. Instructions on how not to "flood your engine".

By Luigino Bruni

Published on 08/10/2009 inwww.cittanuova.it

Economy is a social science that makes much use of metaphors and images. The first, and still one of the most famous, was the "invisible hand", the metaphor that economist Adam Smith used to explain the 17th century market as a mechanism that transforms private interests into the common good. Still today, the economy borrows images from sports (competition as a sporting race), from music (the manager as the director of an orchestra), and many other areas. These images allow economists to explain dimensions of reality that remain inaccessible to the language of mathematical formulas and balance exercises. However, metaphors don’t always truly help, and they sometimes lead us astray, especially when the borrowed image is used for ideological goals and has an excessive amount of simplifications.

[fulltext] =>

More recently, for example, it’s always more often that we find the combination of market and street traffic. When a person leaves his house and joins traffic, he does so because he has motives and personal interests that drive him on (work, friends, amusements), and not out of love for his city or for the other drivers. But if traffic is well-regulated by instruments (traffic lights, roundabouts, and control cameras), institutions (police and traffic officers), infrastructures and good laws, each person is able to reach their own goal. But for road conditions to work well, the institutions, instruments, controls and laws are not enough. There is also need of a certain ethic for motorists and road maintenance. And when this mechanism is blocked (by traffic jams, for example), the answer is not trying to make the motorists "better" people, but rather in the need to improve streets or substitute traffic lights with roundabouts. The market is the same: with good instruments and institutions, rules and "watchmen", wide and comfortable "streets", respect of the law - and each person is able to reach their objective, giving life to a "spontaneous order" that doesn´t require a regolatory plan that fixes prices from above or regulates demand and sales.

But there’s more. In the midst of traffic, it´s not opportune (and it’s actually inconvenient), to look into the eyes of the other drivers when we pass them or stop at a traffic light. We´re not asked to live altruism while driving, as it is often dangerous (because it´s unpredictable). For example, when an "altruistic" driver sees an elderly person who wants to cross the street where there is not crosswalk, he comes to a grinding halt and gets rear-ended by the car behind him. The only moment when looking into the other’s eyes and being altruistic fits into street traffic is during moments of crisis (as in a bad or unforeseen maneuver), or the favor of letting someone turn onto the main road from a secondary one. The market is the same: anonymity and being impersonal work better than friendly or familiar relationships. In business, you don’t look at anyone "in the face". Respecting the rules, plus a few small donations - this is the maximum that can be asked of the economic ethic in normal times. Only during crisis is it necessary to do something extra.

But are we sure that things truly fit into this model? I don’t think so. The market-traffic analogy catches some aspects, but risks running us off course in other very important ones. Above all, we live ethics in other very relevant aspects of traffic conduct - from what type of car we buy (ecological or not), to a responsible and prudent driving style (not slowing down only when we know there is a camera), to the self-control we exercise when we react to other’s driving errors. And the role of institutions isn’t limited only to the maintenance of traffic lights and cameras, but extends to favoring more ecological transportation systems (trains, for example), to public transportation or new models of renting cars (the so-called car-sharing) and ownership.

The same goes for the market: ethics isn’t mainly in the smile that one gives a client or colleague, but in being professionally up-to-date, in preparing oneself before a meeting, in not selling one’s dignity for a career, in job security, in being indignant in the face of injustices.

"I love my patients by studying their charts before a visit", a primary care doctor from Milan told me. Today, for who loves ethics and values, the challenge is to pull them back out of the margins where we have confined them: a smile from the car window, a SMS to show our support, or pre-tax donations. These are all positive things, but the ethical quality of public life is played through the use of the 99.5% of income, through solidarity with Abruzzo six months after the first SMS during the emergency, or through fairness in work relationships.

The crisis that we are living, and the many others which we will live, tell us that the ethical dimension of business and banking is not measured by the amount given in philanthropic donations. Rather, it’s measured with the culture of their entire activity. Let´s not resign ourselves to a culture  that is transforming values into the "Limoncello" (a lemon liquor) of a lavish lunch - agreeable but not an essential part of life.

Ethnics are neither the limoncello nor the first course. It´s mostly the way in which the lunch is prepared, served and looked after. It is the quality of the relationships during the meal, the attention to who doesn’t eat with us or who doesn’t eat at all because excluded from our opulent banquets. If we forget all of this, values will soon become simple merchandise that each person can buy at a good price and consume as he wishes, in a type of "point-system ethics", with relative rehabilitation facilities.

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The Italian economy within the context of international uncertainty. Instructions on how not to "flood your engine".

By Luigino Bruni

Published on 08/10/2009 inwww.cittanuova.it

Economy is a social science that makes much use of metaphors and images. The first, and still one of the most famous, was the "invisible hand", the metaphor that economist Adam Smith used to explain the 17th century market as a mechanism that transforms private interests into the common good. Still today, the economy borrows images from sports (competition as a sporting race), from music (the manager as the director of an orchestra), and many other areas. These images allow economists to explain dimensions of reality that remain inaccessible to the language of mathematical formulas and balance exercises. However, metaphors don’t always truly help, and they sometimes lead us astray, especially when the borrowed image is used for ideological goals and has an excessive amount of simplifications.

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The market, traffic, and "point-system ethics"

The market, traffic, and "point-system ethics"

The Italian economy within the context of international uncertainty. Instructions on how not to "flood your engine". By Luigino Bruni Published on 08/10/2009 inwww.cittanuova.it Economy is a social science that makes much use of metaphors and images. The first, and still one of the most famous, ...
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    [title] => Southern Italy is not a problem
    [alias] => il-sud-ditalia-non-e-un-problema-en-gb-1
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Let´s get over the view of Italy as the sum of it´s North and South: Italy is a complex country, which needs to be seen on various levels in order to be understood and “treated”.

by Luigino Bruni

published on 12/08/2009 on www.cittanuova.it

The Italian political debate during the summer, maybe because of the climate, often takes on original characteristics, sometimes paradoxical ones. For example, let´s take the contrast between 1) the worried and unanimous reaction of the political class when faced with Istat data about the significant poverty in Southern Italy, and 2) the proposal reached a few days later, about the “salary gaps”, justified by the fact that in the South life costs less.  An impartial observer would have found this quite bizarre. As if there were no link between the greater poverty in the South and lower prices there (One doesn´t need to be professor of economics to understand that. It´s enough to spend some time on the streets of our cities and to truly meet the people).

[fulltext] =>

I must confess that these, and other not less serious political happenings of these summer months, leave one speechless – especially those who honestly try to understand the real problems of our country and try to resolve them. The “Southern question” has continuously come back into political debate for at least 150 years, and always refers to the “problem” that the North associates to something in the “South” of the country. The “solutions” proposed are always the same: the country (therefore, the North) has to do something extra and different for the South – particularly, the need to generously give money and resources.

As long as we continue to place the North-South question in these terms, we’re never going to find the effective solution to this problem. What can we do, then? First of all, we need to get over the interpretation of Italy as a sum of North and South. Italy is a complex country, which needs to be seen on various levels in order to be understood and “treated”. North and South are worn-out and generic categories to still be of any help today. Every region, and sometimes every city, of the “South” is different from the others: Sicily’s problems are in some ways the same as those of Apuglia, but in other ways more similar to those of Sardinia, and still for others closer to those of Lazio. When being above or below Rome becomes the main criterion for interpreting problems of this country’s people, we are totally going down the wrong road. More profound and serious analyses are needed.

Secondly, the “South” of Italy is not a problem, but an extraordinary resource of culture, good life, relationships and even economy. It’s a resource that – here is the point – is not valued by Italy and above all by it’s government because it is not understood. And it’s not understood because it is not adequately loved and esteemed. Until politicians who want to “help” the South have not learned to know and truly esteem the South, whatever help or maneuver “for” the South will be inefficient, as whoever has truly tried to help a person or community knows. Without reciprocity and without reciprocal esteem, there is no integral development. Rather, old and new social illnesses are nourished.

Only by esteeming and deeply understanding the vocation of the southern regions, which will never be an industrial vocation as it is (or was) for Lombardy or Piedmont, will Italy find its place in the new world order. Economic and civil development in 21st century Italy must pass through the main goods held and cared for within the folds of the Mediterranean culture. These are goods like environment, well living, food, relationships, history: goods that are values and resources, not problems. Only when we’re conscious of all this can infrastructure investments come to the South. These investments are extremely urgent, but only afterwards. Otherwise, we’ll continue to make mistakes and divide our country.

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Let´s get over the view of Italy as the sum of it´s North and South: Italy is a complex country, which needs to be seen on various levels in order to be understood and “treated”.

by Luigino Bruni

published on 12/08/2009 on www.cittanuova.it

The Italian political debate during the summer, maybe because of the climate, often takes on original characteristics, sometimes paradoxical ones. For example, let´s take the contrast between 1) the worried and unanimous reaction of the political class when faced with Istat data about the significant poverty in Southern Italy, and 2) the proposal reached a few days later, about the “salary gaps”, justified by the fact that in the South life costs less.  An impartial observer would have found this quite bizarre. As if there were no link between the greater poverty in the South and lower prices there (One doesn´t need to be professor of economics to understand that. It´s enough to spend some time on the streets of our cities and to truly meet the people).

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Southern Italy is not a problem

Southern Italy is not a problem

Let´s get over the view of Italy as the sum of it´s North and South: Italy is a complex country, which needs to be seen on various levels in order to be understood and “treated”. by Luigino Bruni published on 12/08/2009 on www.cittanuova.it The Italian political debate during the summer, maybe be...
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by Luigino Bruni

published in Città Nuova n.14/2009

Several papal encyclicals have marked epocal stages in history. The first wave of industrial capitalism had put many in crisis by the social questions it posed. Rerum Novarum gave voice to an entire cultural and social movement searching for answers to this crisis. Then, during a dark moment for Italy and for Europe, Quadragesimo Anno represented a cry of freedom and of fraternity symbolized by the principle of subsidiarity, which resounded like a civil liberation program. And emerging during a phase of social and cultural contestation, already denouncing the limits of second generation capitalism, Populorum Progressio represented a manifesto for social, economic and political commitment for an entire post-Council generation (both within and outside the Church).  Caritas in Veritate is another event that spans today’s history. The last encyclical of Benedict XVI should be greeted with joy and hope by who works in the civil, economic or political sphere. At the same time, it represents continuity with the social teaching of the Church and an important innovation (to be much reflected on in the next few years).

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First of all, in the first few lines of the letter, the pope makes an invitation to overcome one of the most radical contradictions of our society: that between the sphere or logic of gift or gratuitousness, and that of the market. This need for unity is at the heart of Caritas in Veritate´s message, and it represents a point of extraordinary prophetic strength. Of all things, gratuitousness is that which is missing most among today’s economic debate, in markets and in businesses. Whoever mentions gratuitousness is considered naïve, a hoax (“what’s behind this?”), and in any case, dangerous for the functioning of markets and businesses.

In fact, gratuitousness, on one side, is confused with “free” (gratis) or with philanthropy. On the other side, gift is mistaken for material “presents” or companies´ promotional giveaways. In reality, as the pope reminds us, gratuitousness refers back to charis, or grace (nothing like free: gratuitousness is weighty!), and to agape, the greek word that Latin-speakers translated as caritas (charity) to further underline the close link between Christian love and charis, or grace.

Gratuitousness is, in fact, a grace as it is a gift not only for who receives acts of gratuitousness but also for who performs them. The capacity to love gratuitously is always something that happens in us and always surprises us, as when we are capable of starting again after big failure or of truly forgiving serious mistakes of others. This is the type of gratuitousness that the capitalistic market isn´t acquainted with. Instead, this encyclical calls us to put it at the center of our economic, political and social relationships, where it seems impossible, but where there are already many living this way in the “`civil economy` or the `economy of communion`”(n. 46).

One can understand, therefore, how the pope makes a strong invitation to overcome the distinction between non-profit and for-profit. Spheres or sectors of gratuitousness don’t exist: every business, beyond it’s form, is called to gratuitousness. This is the human code – if a business, whether for-profit or non-profit, isn’t open to gratuitousness, it isn’t a human activity and therefore cannot bring fruits of humanness. And one can also understand why: Benedict XVI reminds us that profit cannot be and should not be the main purpose of a business, but rather one among many elements, and certainly not the most important.

Re-launching gratuitousness into the economy, the encyclical calls the market back to its vocation of meeting between free and equal people, and it’s a radical critique of capitalism (precisely why the word is never cited in the text). We will save the market and its gift of civilization only by overcoming capitalism and moving towards a civil economy and an economy of communion.

After the first encyclical on charity, and the second on hope, we could have expected the third on faith. And actually, that is what happened, as only a vision of man, an anthropology that believes the person to be made in the image of a God who is communion, with “made in the trinity” stamped in its being, can accept the invitation to gratuitousness even in this world, in this economy. On this anthropological wager resides the hope that the economy announced will not be a utopia (a no-place) but a eutopia (a good place), the place of the human being.

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by Luigino Bruni

published in Città Nuova n.14/2009

Several papal encyclicals have marked epocal stages in history. The first wave of industrial capitalism had put many in crisis by the social questions it posed. Rerum Novarum gave voice to an entire cultural and social movement searching for answers to this crisis. Then, during a dark moment for Italy and for Europe, Quadragesimo Anno represented a cry of freedom and of fraternity symbolized by the principle of subsidiarity, which resounded like a civil liberation program. And emerging during a phase of social and cultural contestation, already denouncing the limits of second generation capitalism, Populorum Progressio represented a manifesto for social, economic and political commitment for an entire post-Council generation (both within and outside the Church).  Caritas in Veritate is another event that spans today’s history. The last encyclical of Benedict XVI should be greeted with joy and hope by who works in the civil, economic or political sphere. At the same time, it represents continuity with the social teaching of the Church and an important innovation (to be much reflected on in the next few years).

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The Novelty: Gratuitousness and Market

The Novelty: Gratuitousness and Market

by Luigino Bruni published in Città Nuova n.14/2009 Several papal encyclicals have marked epocal stages in history. The first wave of industrial capitalism had put many in crisis by the social questions it posed. Rerum Novarum gave voice to an entire cultural and social movement searching for ...
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by Luigino Bruni

published in Città Nuova n.14/2009

Several papal encyclicals have marked epocal stages in history. The first wave of industrial capitalism had put many in crisis by the social questions it posed. Rerum Novarum gave voice to an entire cultural and social movement searching for answers to this crisis. Then, during a dark moment for Italy and for Europe, Quadragesimo Anno represented a cry of freedom and of fraternity symbolized by the principle of subsidiarity, which resounded like a civil liberation program. And emerging during a phase of social and cultural contestation, already denouncing the limits of second generation capitalism, Populorum Progressio represented a manifesto for social, economic and political commitment for an entire post-Council generation (both within and outside the Church).  Caritas in Veritate is another event that spans today’s history. The last encyclical of Benedict XVI should be greeted with joy and hope by who works in the civil, economic or political sphere. At the same time, it represents continuity with the social teaching of the Church and an important innovation (to be much reflected on in the next few years).

[fulltext] =>

First of all, in the first few lines of the letter, the pope makes an invitation to overcome one of the most radical contradictions of our society: that between the sphere or logic of gift or gratuitousness, and that of the market. This need for unity is at the heart of Caritas in Veritate´s message, and it represents a point of extraordinary prophetic strength. Of all things, gratuitousness is that which is missing most among today’s economic debate, in markets and in businesses. Whoever mentions gratuitousness is considered naïve, a hoax (“what’s behind this?”), and in any case, dangerous for the functioning of markets and businesses.

In fact, gratuitousness, on one side, is confused with “free” (gratis) or with philanthropy. On the other side, gift is mistaken for material “presents” or companies´ promotional giveaways. In reality, as the pope reminds us, gratuitousness refers back to charis, or grace (nothing like free: gratuitousness is weighty!), and to agape, the greek word that Latin-speakers translated as caritas (charity) to further underline the close link between Christian love and charis, or grace.

Gratuitousness is, in fact, a grace as it is a gift not only for who receives acts of gratuitousness but also for who performs them. The capacity to love gratuitously is always something that happens in us and always surprises us, as when we are capable of starting again after big failure or of truly forgiving serious mistakes of others. This is the type of gratuitousness that the capitalistic market isn´t acquainted with. Instead, this encyclical calls us to put it at the center of our economic, political and social relationships, where it seems impossible, but where there are already many living this way in the “`civil economy` or the `economy of communion`”(n. 46).

One can understand, therefore, how the pope makes a strong invitation to overcome the distinction between non-profit and for-profit. Spheres or sectors of gratuitousness don’t exist: every business, beyond it’s form, is called to gratuitousness. This is the human code – if a business, whether for-profit or non-profit, isn’t open to gratuitousness, it isn’t a human activity and therefore cannot bring fruits of humanness. And one can also understand why: Benedict XVI reminds us that profit cannot be and should not be the main purpose of a business, but rather one among many elements, and certainly not the most important.

Re-launching gratuitousness into the economy, the encyclical calls the market back to its vocation of meeting between free and equal people, and it’s a radical critique of capitalism (precisely why the word is never cited in the text). We will save the market and its gift of civilization only by overcoming capitalism and moving towards a civil economy and an economy of communion.

After the first encyclical on charity, and the second on hope, we could have expected the third on faith. And actually, that is what happened, as only a vision of man, an anthropology that believes the person to be made in the image of a God who is communion, with “made in the trinity” stamped in its being, can accept the invitation to gratuitousness even in this world, in this economy. On this anthropological wager resides the hope that the economy announced will not be a utopia (a no-place) but a eutopia (a good place), the place of the human being.

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by Luigino Bruni

published in Città Nuova n.14/2009

Several papal encyclicals have marked epocal stages in history. The first wave of industrial capitalism had put many in crisis by the social questions it posed. Rerum Novarum gave voice to an entire cultural and social movement searching for answers to this crisis. Then, during a dark moment for Italy and for Europe, Quadragesimo Anno represented a cry of freedom and of fraternity symbolized by the principle of subsidiarity, which resounded like a civil liberation program. And emerging during a phase of social and cultural contestation, already denouncing the limits of second generation capitalism, Populorum Progressio represented a manifesto for social, economic and political commitment for an entire post-Council generation (both within and outside the Church).  Caritas in Veritate is another event that spans today’s history. The last encyclical of Benedict XVI should be greeted with joy and hope by who works in the civil, economic or political sphere. At the same time, it represents continuity with the social teaching of the Church and an important innovation (to be much reflected on in the next few years).

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The Novelty: Gratuitousness and Market

The Novelty: Gratuitousness and Market

by Luigino Bruni published in Città Nuova n.14/2009 Several papal encyclicals have marked epocal stages in history. The first wave of industrial capitalism had put many in crisis by the social questions it posed. Rerum Novarum gave voice to an entire cultural and social movement searching for answ...