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Davos, the Pope and the missing part of reality
by Luigino Bruni
Published in Avvenire Avvenire on January 23, 2014
In Davos theair is filled with optimism in 2014. The great post-2008 crisis is seen already as outdated matter to be archived in the history books and in the drawers of sad memories of families and peoples. Too bad that this optimism does not have a solid foundation one could build on. So the key question becomes: why would Davos want to offer the public a picture of the economy other than what the vast majority of the people have so vividly in mind?
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The answer can be found on the list of the protagonists of the "World Economic Forum" which is composed of leaders of world finance and major transnational lobbies, with representatives of the political and economic institutions that perform essentially the role of spectators and sometimes customers. The elites whose representativeness is very low. Capitalist economy is not a democratic enterprise: voting is not by the heads but by capital. In symposia such as this the reality of what Federico Caffè described a few decades ago becomes tangible, namely that markets are not anonymous - in fact they have "a name, a surname and a nickname, too".
Of course, some optimism is definitely needed to understand, that is, to realise that for these elites and for the people represented by them as natural persons and legal entities, economyis not doing that bad after all. Actually, it is doing quite well. Once the not-too-remote bankruptcy of the global financial system of a few years ago has been averted (temporarily), there's a whole speculative finance which continues to reap profits from its business and, above all, some golden annuities. To understand what is really happening in Davos, we should interpret it together with the report presented by Oxfam a few days ago (Working for the few). It states, inter alia, that the eighty-five super-rich of the world possess the equivalent of what is owned by one half of the world's population. These eighty-five, and with them a few million people now scattered in almost all countries (in India the number of billionaires shows a ten-fold increase in the past ten years), are very well represented in Davos. All the rest is who are not there. It isn't surprising that among them we find great numbers of the "extreme poor", many of whom are the inhabitants of the African continent devastated by quite a few of the multinationals that today, among the Swiss mountains, make a fine show of their social budgets. But also many European families can be listed here, impoverished by a crisis likely to have been unprecedented save for the one that occurred at the beginning of the industrial revolution.
A second reason for this strange "optimism of the few" is linked to the increasing distance between the representatives meeting in Davos and the lives of ordinary people, especially the poor. What do these elites know about the life of a family in a village in South Sudan, or of a European family with one spouse unemployed, having two or three small children? Practically nothing. One of the most serious diseases of this generation of capitalism is the total separation between the top managers of large companies, banks and mutual funds (and often also of global humanitarian organizations) and the common people. When those who govern no longer feel the smell of people queuing in the shops or travelling in the metro, in regional trains, then these powerful people cannot tell any more whether they are governing and managing people or machines, souls or centres of costs and revenues. Today the public transport means and the average city traffic (not the one of the cars with sirens nor that of private helicopters) are the primary venues for practicingcitizenship, and it is in these places that we understand its paradoxes and its value. Sooner or later the social contract is broken if we all do not breathe in the same smells of life, the bad ones and the good ones, too.
With his message the Pope wanted to convey a cry of alarm on behalf of the non-elites to these eliteswho are risking to lose touch with the real places of social life. The biggest risk, however, is that this important warning is received like that of the director in the theatre in a story narrated by Søren Kierkegaard: "The director of a theatre comes on stage to warn the audience that a fire broke out. However, the audience thinks that his appearance is part of the comedy they are watching and so the louder he shouts, the more they applaud." For the words of Francis to bring fruit, it would take other Forums, in which the poor and the representatives of the peripheral countries excluded from Davos can tell other stories on this financial capitalism - with the politicians and the powerful just sitting quietly and listening to them.
The most obvious venue for such a different Forum would be Pope Francis' Rome, for he is the only one in possession of the authority and credibility to bring everybody together around himself. The new economy that many wish for, the one that would overthrow the current views and protagonists will be inevitably arriving if our point of departure is from the poor and from the suburbs. An immense reality that today is the "the least among the cities".
Translated by Eszter Kató
 
Further commentaries by Luigino Bruni in Avvenire are available through the Avvenire Editorial
 
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    [text] => 
Davos, the Pope and the missing part of reality
by Luigino Bruni
Published in Avvenire Avvenire on January 23, 2014
In Davos theair is filled with optimism in 2014. The great post-2008 crisis is seen already as outdated matter to be archived in the history books and in the drawers of sad memories of families and peoples. Too bad that this optimism does not have a solid foundation one could build on. So the key question becomes: why would Davos want to offer the public a picture of the economy other than what the vast majority of the people have so vividly in mind?
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    [title] => Temperance (Beyond the Famine)
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Commentary - The virtues to be rediscovered and re-lived
by Luigino Bruni 
published in Avvenire on August 11, 2013 
 
Temperance is a word that is fading out from our civil vocabulary. It disappeared long ago from the economic vocabulary in order to leave space for its opposite. We ended up using it for pencils, the climate, musical scales or Bach's 'clavicemballo' (clavier) instead. These are also important things, but not the ones that are normally placed at the heart of our civil lives or social pact.

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Along with temperance the entire lexicon of the ethics of the virtues is fading away from the grammar of communal life, and by now the political, civil and economic consequences of this eclipse are sadly noticed by all.
Our civilisation (at least the western one) risks not understanding the message of good life contained in the ethics of the virtues any more. There are many reasons for this, but two of them are especially important.
The first one is the disappearance of the category of the education of character starting from the education of our children. All that is natural and spontaneous becomes immediately good without any need to correct or give orientation for the forms of behaviour and inclinations that are spontaneous but not good. I know some parents who in the name of some unspecified Neo-Rousseauian pedagogical theories let their children call them Luisa and Marco instead of mum and dad. "It comes naturally", they argue seeing my perplexity "why should we force them to do otherwise?!" The ethics of virtue, however, lives off of a dynamic tension between nature (we are all capable of virtue) and culture (but some practice, discipline and willingness are necessary to become what potentially we already are).  For this reason, the greatest - and often unconscious - cultivators of the ethic of the virtues are the real athletes and real scientists. The second reason is that we are no longer able to recognize that there is value in the experience of the limits, too. And if you are not able to see the positivity of the limit it is impossible to understand and appreciate the virtues, especially that of temperance which consists in valuing the limit as the hedge on Leopardi's hill of The Infinite (a famous poem by Giacomo Leopardi, Italian poet, 1798-1837), which excludes the horizon but opens up the «endless spaces beyond the hedge». Perhaps writing on clay tablets in Mesopotamia started because a messenger of the Lord of Uruk could not speak.
We don't even speak of temperance any more, but the bad fruits of the famine of it are many, very many: from the destruction of the environment to the lifestyles of the new rich and the powerful; from how we speak and write emails to the family tragedies and the endless misery too often caused by men and women who are no longer educated for self-control and control of their passions, that is, temperance.
Temperance was also a great economic virtue of the past generations. It served to orientate consumption and above all it generated the savings that enabled economic development after World War II. A virtue that also formed the lives of entrepreneurs (not the profit makers, whom I will never tire to distinguish from the entrepreneurs, nor to identify their proliferation as the first disease of every decadent society), who, in fact, despite knowing and enjoying abundance, educated their children and themselves for the good use of things and a certain sobriety that would not humiliate the poor. The virtue of temperance brings me to not consume a portion of my income today to save it for myself and my family tomorrow, and to allow my fellow citizens to use that wealth for other investments during my abstinence. It is significant that the classical economic theory would use the same word "abstinence" to justify savings, and for fasting and chastity, too, to remind us that these three phenomena were all the children of Madonna Temperance.
Our economic culture that relies on the highest consumption possible here and now, better if through debt, however, needs to feed on the vice of intemperance (a web of avarice and greed) to survive. The nature of the virtue of temperance is best understood if we think that it is developed in a world characterized by an absolute scarcity of resources. It is better not to abuse goods, since what I consume as superfluous is what the other is lacking as needed. All the teaching of the Church Fathers on the use of goods and on poverty should be read and understood in this context of limited resources, and economic relations as "zero-sum games". Also to be included in this horizon of shortages is the farmers' ethics pivoting on the virtue of temperance, including its typical flowering which was the movement of the rural banks, especially in North-East Italy (it is certainly not a coincidence that the region of Trentino Alto Adige today has the lowest rate of population suffering from severe lack of temperance called gambling!).
In the twentieth century, with the second industrial revolution we thought that the age of scarcity was over and we landed in the Eden of the infinite reproducibility of goods. And people began to look at the world as a place of potentially unlimited resources. Hence the decline of temperance as a virtue. Too bad that this phase of boundlessness lasted little more than a heartbeat because first the environment, then energy and water, and hence the deterioration of civilian, relational and spiritual capital have gradually shown us other limits that are no less stringent and severe than those of the age of the scarcity of private goods and abundance of collective capital. In fact, today the new limits are primarily social and global limits, and because of this the virtue of temperance should be rediscovered immediately and it should become the new economic and social virtue.
The internalization of the value of the limit is by now an undelayable step, and only a new ethics of virtue can do it because every internalization requires knowing how to assign an intrinsic value to things above the utilitarian cost-benefit calculation that is dominating every aspect of our culture now. But while yesterday there was a clear relationship between my temperance and my personal well-being and our common good, today, in the age of complexity, this link is blurred. The use of air conditioning in my house is no longer associated immediately to the higher temperature in our cities (and the subsequent further increase of the use of air conditioning, spiralling towards gloomy future scenarios). Economic rationality alone does not help in this awareness (in fact, it makes us sink even more) because we would need logical records of virtue leading us to actions because of having internalized its intrinsic value. Therefore if we do not de-marketize our society, that is if we do not free ourselves from the logic of prices and incentives occupying and colonising important areas of civil life today, we will understand less and less the value of sobriety, abstinence, self-control and our children will understand it even less.
Finally, without temperance there is no sharing of goods and there is no joy of communion. If we do not educate ourselves continually to demarcate the boundaries of our ego, all we will share with others will be the crumbs of unsound food. But this way we are not going to experience true brotherhood, which is the result of costly choices of the person capable to reducing his regions of "mine" to build those of "ours", and those of all.
 Translated by Eszter Kató
 
Further commentaries by Luigino Bruni in Avvenire are available through the Avvenire Editorial
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    [text] => 
Commentary - The virtues to be rediscovered and re-lived
by Luigino Bruni 
published in Avvenire on August 11, 2013 
 
Temperance is a word that is fading out from our civil vocabulary. It disappeared long ago from the economic vocabulary in order to leave space for its opposite. We ended up using it for pencils, the climate, musical scales or Bach's 'clavicemballo' (clavier) instead. These are also important things, but not the ones that are normally placed at the heart of our civil lives or social pact.

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Commentary - The virtues to be rediscovered and lived/6
by Luigino Bruni 
Published in Avvenire on September 15, 2013 

There are some words that have the ability to express something in its entirety. Words like justice, beauty andtruth possess a power and completeness that prevents us from surrounding them with adjectives to make them more complete. What else is there to add to a real person, a righteous man or a beautiful life? Faith is one of those few great and absolute types of words. You can live long, and sometimes even well, without money and goods, but you cannot live without believing. We are all capable of believing because inside each person there is a "window" looking at what is "beyond", and a slit remains there even when we, looking inward, do not see anything (anymore) or wall it up to put shelves or a TV in its place. Because faith is a great word to describe what's human, it is also a word to use in the context of economics.
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The economic and social history of Europe is, above all, a story of faith. What beauty still remains is mainly in the works of art and architecture that were born of the faith of our ancestors. They were capable of creating great works because they were animated by faith to engage in things that were greater than their earthly existence.
Churches, abbeys, the Baglioni Chapel, Mantua, and Lisbon have all blossomed from a faith that still inspires creation in areas that save us. These places are where we collect the fruits and seeds that others have sown for us in the past; from the windows of their souls and of their time, they knew how to see greater things. There are so many people today who can work or live well thanks to the many in the past who invested their wealth thinking about the distant future that also would be inhabited by other human beings. Faith (not just religious) allowed them to feel like these future others were their neighbours. For this reason, too, faith is a string (fides), the rope that connects citizens and generations with each other: it is a tradition, which is the transmission of an alliance, a pact that lives through time and history; it is a gold thread. What "grains" are we sowing today for future generations to harvest? Without fides, no elderly person would plant an acorn in the soil. Without fides the ceiling of your home or office becomes the horizon of the world, which is too low for the person who has been obsessed with the infinite since the beginning of time. It is not high enough for the person that, until the age of huts and nuraghes (ancient Sardinian edifices), felt the need to pierce the top of their shelter, not only for the smoke from the fire but also to make the sky the highest ceiling of their house. In the absence of this profound vision that elevates us, we settle for the images from television's virtual skies, which have neither the warmth of the sun, nor the depth of the horizon nor the feeling of breeze, which could only enter if we opened one of our house's windows. The opposite of faith has always been idolatry, which is not the attitude of someone who does not believe in anything, but of those who believe in things that are fake and artificial.
But fides-faith was also essential for the emergence of markets. It provided the basis for large businesses, answering the main question of any market economy: why should I trust a stranger? At the dawn of our economy, when merchants were travelling from one city to another and met at fairs along the great rivers of Europe, legal systems, courts and penalties were very fragile, often non-existent. However, for complex, risky, long and costly business operations, a real act of trust was necessary to cooperate with the other party. This was, then, the main guarantee that the other would do his part and send the goods: it was a guarantee offered by their shared faith. This way they could trust a person that they did not know because, after all, the other wasn't really a stranger. He shared my faith (Christian), so I could trust him because he was faithful. So fides (faith and trust) made a greater European community that was similar to the Greek polis of Pericles, and trading became a new form of philia (Greek for friendship). Though it was like a polis, it was much more extensive and had many more markets, which multiplied the amount of goods and the number of business, social and religious meetings. Faith became trust, and trust generated markets and wealth. Europe was the result of this fides-trust-string-belief-credit. Whenthis fides was broken up by the Protestant Reformation and later by the Catholic Counter-Reformation, capitalism was born, which, little by little, invented a new fides embodied by central banks and finance. Europe was re-established by this cultural revolution, which was fully embodied by the U.S.A. and gave rise to a capitalism of the new "sola fide." However, there are crucial differences between the first and second fides.
That first fides, for example, was a relational asset because - even though there were coins, securities and banks - Niccolò trusted Miguel, and the exchange took place thanks to the credit granted to a man of flesh and blood; it was an inherently fragile and vulnerable experience, possibly subject to abuse and, therefore, human. The invention of the new capitalist faith-religion no longer needed this kind of personal trust and relationship because the de-personalization of economic relations had already started, which has grown to literally explode in the last crisis of our time. This system depends in large part on the financial system it has built, which is very distant and independent of those human relationships of trust that actually generate economic goods. A capitalist bank's response to a request for funding from a good enterprise in difficulty is entrusted, all too often and increasingly so, to an index that comes out of an algorithm, without any person "credit" and without a meeting between people - thus it becomes inhuman. The crisis we are going through is telling us that we have to meet and trust people despite their vulnerability; when the economy and finance lose contact with the face of the other, they become inhuman. If we do not seek out and restore all the dimensions of fides today, starting from the territories, there will be no tricks or government that can truly save us.
But there is not only one fundamental link between faith and trust. Another essential dimension of faith is loyalty, as we are reminded of by the name of wedding rings in various languages (fede – faith in Italian, Aliança – alliance in Portuguese and Catalan). Faith has a lot to do with loyalty because any real experience of faith is first and foremost a love story, the adherence to a pact - so it too is a virtue. Faith is in full bloom when we remain faithful in the night of faith, when we cling to the rope, when we remain confident about a meeting-alliance that now seems very distant and blurred, almost a comforting self-deception, when the fog does not vanish outside out window that we don't feel like ever opening again and when we cannot remember the forms of the ancient landscape, turning instead to the TV's fake skies. Moreover, we find out that in those faithful nights that we were faithful to what is most real and profound in us. You can be righteous and true even without faith, but never without loyalty.
Whoever lives this dimension of true faith is capable of true dialogue and true brotherhood with those who do not have faith, with those who have lost it or with those of other faiths. This type of person alone is capable of moving mountains because he does not move them for himself. It is this faith that allows humanity, the economy and enterprise to reach the great heights where faith continues to generate extraordinary things. Faithful people are always important for the Common Good and the beauty of the earth, but they are also essential for bringing us out of any crisis because they can show us a larger horizon. They can pierce the roofs of our houses, showing us the full sky and how to make a fresh start.
 
Further commentaries by Luigino Bruni in Avvenire are available through the Avvenire Editorial
 
Translated by Eszter Kató
 
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Commentary - The virtues to be rediscovered and lived/6
by Luigino Bruni 
Published in Avvenire on September 15, 2013 

There are some words that have the ability to express something in its entirety. Words like justice, beauty andtruth possess a power and completeness that prevents us from surrounding them with adjectives to make them more complete. What else is there to add to a real person, a righteous man or a beautiful life? Faith is one of those few great and absolute types of words. You can live long, and sometimes even well, without money and goods, but you cannot live without believing. We are all capable of believing because inside each person there is a "window" looking at what is "beyond", and a slit remains there even when we, looking inward, do not see anything (anymore) or wall it up to put shelves or a TV in its place. Because faith is a great word to describe what's human, it is also a word to use in the context of economics.
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Commentary - The virtues to be rediscovered and lived/4
by Luigino Bruni 
Published in Avvenire on September 1, 2013 

If there is a virtue that is especially valuable in times of crisis, then it must be fortitude. It is the capacity to go on with life and persist despite long-lasting hardships. It is a spiritual and moral force that was considered extremely important by past generations, so much so that it was commonly called the cardinal virtue.
Fortitude keeps you from quitting when circumstances align against you. It is this inner strength that compels you to persist in your search for justice in the midst of corruption; it is what drives you to continue to pay taxes when others don't, to respect others when there is no respect and to remain meek in the midst of violence.
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Fortitude keeps us well-tempered even when we are immersed in intemperance, gives us the strength to endure an ill-chosen workplace and keeps us with our family and community when everything tells us to leave, except our soul.
Fortitude is one of the virtues, but it also stands out as the pre-condition for us to be able to live the other virtues through our actions in difficult, long lasting situations. This virtue is servant to the others because it drives us forward even if there is no reciprocity. For this reason, there is a word that implies many of the meanings of strength today: resilience. It also suggests the ability to cling on railings, to not give in and to not slip down the many slippery slopes of our personal and social existence. This is why strength, above all, has always been - and is still - the salvation of the poor. It is thanks to this virtue that they can make up for the unjust lack of resources, rights, freedom and respect, and this is how they stay alive. It helps them persist during long famines and in the infinite absence of their husbands and sons who either emigrated or were lost in one of the many wars (there is a special connection between strength and women). Drawing from history and our times, Edmond Dantès (The Count of Montecristo) offers the strength of hope despite being imprisoned for decades just for being poor.
Fortitude also has the paradoxical logic of each virtue. There are decisive moments in life when strength has to be able to turn into weakness in order to really be virtuous. The quiet acceptance of misfortune, a serious illness, a failure, the death of a spouse or the last stage of life, reconciling when someone (or a voice from within) tells us that our hour has come. Our dignity and moral force in these moments of virtuous weakness surely depend on how much strength we have managed to acquire throughout our existence.
Strength is also essential to overcome temptations: a word that has been thrust beyond the horizons of our cities, because it is too real to be understood by our society immersed in consumerism, financials and games. However, temptations are there, and if you know how to recognise and overcome them, you will not become lost in life. It is your inner strength that compels you to refuse the benefits offered by morally unsupportable endeavours, and it prevents you from selling a good family business managed for generations with love and pain. It is this virtue that keeps you from indulging in an unwanted love affair and returns you home faithfully.
The economy is a part of life and therefore, to make life good, is in need of fortitude too. There are, however, two contexts where inner strength plays an essential part. The first one is in the life and vocation of an entrepreneur. Even if many people think - and unfortunately also write - the exact opposite, the market economy is not a system that offers a regular return for merit and talent, or a better return than other systems (like sport, scientific associations, family...). In the dynamics of the market , there is no firm connection between an entrepreneur's virtuous behaviour (innovation, loyalty, correctness, legality) and their success in the market. This connection often exists though sometimes it may not. The outcomes of a business depend on numberless circumstances that are out of the entrepreneur's control and do not depend on their merits. This is why worthy efforts may not always yield a return and that the prize may go to someone with less merit and talent. Misfortune may strike - and it does every now and then - even the righteous, virtuous entrepreneur, especially in times of crisis. Maintaining their fortitude may save them and keep them from giving up, getting them back into the race.
The second environment is completely inside organisations. When a company goes through periods of real crisis, especially if deep personal motivations are involved, their ability to overcome it depends on the presence of enough people who are sufficiently resilient. If no one (not even one person) is able to think beyond the logic of incentives and keep fighting without worrying about schedules and the waste of resources, then the company will not overcome the crisis. The art of directing a company consists mainly in knowing how to attract highly resilient people, how to keep them and how to strengthen their resilience-fortitude through their experiences at work . Strength in fact needs to be nourished continuously. If it is true that you learn to be strong by practicing being strong, it is even more true that, as a 'long-lasting virtue', strength is especially susceptible to exhaustion. An unmistakable sign that strength is about to be exhausted (or is exhausted) is the common saying: "it is not worth it any more". This means that you are not able to see any value in the exhaustion of resistance. Therefore, it is very important not to consider the strength of others (or even your own) as an unchanging characteristic or take it for granted. It may wither and even die if it is not nourished (through one's interior life, poetry, prayer...), if those around a person do not express their esteem, compassion, appreciation and recognize, affirm that person.. You can resist for a long time in the midst of great difficulties if you are not alone and are supported by the virtues of others and your own, nurtured interior.
Finally, strength is essential to conserve joy, happiness and cheerfulness in life in times of trouble, illness or betrayal. One of the most sublime things in the world is the existence of people who can take real joy despite objectively bad and difficult conditions. This type of virtuous joy is but a hymn to life, a common good that enriches all those who are touched by it. The quality of having the necessary strength to conserve joy is no less precious and powerful than that which helps you to put up with life's difficulties and pain. This joy is but the sacrament of all virtues' authenticity, a fragile and powerful joy that renders the yoke of long lasting hardship easier, and even sweet.
 
Further commentaries by Luigino Bruni in Avvenire are available through the Avvenire Editorial
 
Translated by Eszter Kató
 
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Commentary - The virtues to be rediscovered and lived/4
by Luigino Bruni 
Published in Avvenire on September 1, 2013 

If there is a virtue that is especially valuable in times of crisis, then it must be fortitude. It is the capacity to go on with life and persist despite long-lasting hardships. It is a spiritual and moral force that was considered extremely important by past generations, so much so that it was commonly called the cardinal virtue.
Fortitude keeps you from quitting when circumstances align against you. It is this inner strength that compels you to persist in your search for justice in the midst of corruption; it is what drives you to continue to pay taxes when others don't, to respect others when there is no respect and to remain meek in the midst of violence.
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Commentary - Virtues are not a luxury to invest in the world of economy
by Luigino Bruni 
Published in Avvenire on August 4, 2013

One of the paradoxes at the heart of our economic and social system is the peaceful coexistence between the radical rejection of masters and controls in the political sphere and the equally radical acceptance of other masters and controls in businesses and organizations. We started and still lead many fights and revolutions against tyrants and dictators, but as soon as we leave the square and pass the gates of the company we place our dress of democratic citizens on the hanger and meekly wear the clothes of the regulated and controlled subject.
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This paradox derives in large part from misconceptions of the term incentive, which is becoming the main tool of the capitalist cult, a magic word that many rely on, and at all levels, to the point of being able to talk about a real "ideology of incentives" that is invading our lives.
'Incentive' is actually an ancient word. During the Middle Ages incentivus (from incinere, sing and enchant) was a wind instrument, the flute in general, to which the voices of the choir had to be adjusted. The flute is also the tool of the snake-charmer whose snake gets bewitched by its sweet sound and goes obediently where the sound leads it. The use of the incentivus was then extended from the flute to the trumpet and the dictating the pace of running for the soldiers in battle. The incentive, therefore, is something that spurs us, makes eager or urges us to bold action, something that enchants us with its sound and makes us go where the one who is playing the instrument wants to take us. The incentive presents itself as a free contract, and this is why it is fascinating. The capitalist company proposes a pay or career scheme, and we, workers "freely" accept it. The aim, as the ancient root suggests, is to harmonize the various members of the company, i.e. to make sure that the employee's behaviour aligns with the set goal of the owners, and in the absence of this agreement, the objectives and actions would naturally become divergent, discordant and forgotten.
To understand the nature of the ideology of incentives it is necessary, however, to look at its history that does not originate from the tradition of economic sciences but emerged from among the scientific theories of management. These started to develop in the U.S. around the twenties, that is, between the two world wars and in the presence of fascism, totalitarianism and collectivism. A phase of civil and anthropological pessimism similar to the one Machiavelli and Hobbes lived in, generated a theory based on a pessimistic and thrifty way of thinking about human nature. The logic of incentives was first received with strong controversy and heated ethical debates which, however, soon fell silent. During the Cold War the control of people by incentives appeared in fact as a vaccine against a disease that appeared to be much more serious. Control and planning within organizations were the small dose of poison ingested for protection from the possibly deadly virus of totalitarian planning and control by an illiberal system that was establishing itself in the other part of the world. So it was considered a necessary evil to make sacrifices of freedom and equality inside companies in order to keep up the capitalist system and democracy. Political democracy was defended by sacrificing economic democracy. Freedom in society, but central planning inside enterprises. Today collectivist systems are history, yet their vaccine continues to be injected into our bodies, and it works well beyond the scope of the largest industrial enterprises for which it was originally invented.
The main, large and harmful side effect of the ideology of incentives is that it created a realm of human relations in which there is nothing anymore that has an intrinsic value, something that shows as valuable before the cost-benefit calculation. There is a second crucial element called power. The alignment produced by incentives is not reciprocal. It is the powerful party that sets out the objectives and designs the incentive scheme, while the weaker party is only required to align with the magical singing of the charmer. Incentives are therefore offered by those in power to those who do not have the power to control their actions, motivations and freedom. It is the nature of incentives to provide unilateral power for the management and no reciprocity between equals; and its function is control, not freedom. Unions, for example, cannot understand a lot of the reasons for their current crisis and they will not be able to rediscover their vocation unless they interpret the world of work within the framework of this new ideology.
Finally, the culture of incentives reduces the anthropological and spiritual complexity of the person. The great classical culture knew that there are many human motivations and they cannot be traced back to a single measuring means, let alone money. It also knew that using money to motivate people inevitably tends to reduce intrinsic motivation after some time, and thus it greatly impoverishes organizations, society and people who have an infinite value because they know how to find more forms of value in things and in themselves. In fact, it would take many instruments to tune people well within organizations and to bring them into agreement with each other, including, of course, the flute of incentives, but only in harmony with the violin of respect, the oboe of philia, the viola of gratitude Because if there is only one instrument to play, then biodiversity, creativity, generosity, and freedom will be lost in the workplaces, and you end up forcing your people to produce less beautiful sounds and boring, sad melodies.
Regarding the everyday lives of families and civil society we know how necessary the multidimensionality of incentives is and the same is true for the even more important awards (which, unlike incentives, recognize the virtue, not create it artificially or control it). But we make the mistake of thinking that other values do not count in businesses, because they are too high to waste them in the vulgar world of economy. If that was the case, it would be impossible to explain the history and present of so much of cooperative, social and civil economics, or the impact of the many Italian and European entrepreneurs and workers who are sons and daughters of another economic, spiritual and civil culture. In fact, they are still going their way, they react instinctively to the logic of incentives and they still resist consultants, banks and institutions that look at them through the glasses of the ideology of incentives, and would like to treat them so.
Throughout life we have all made choices, from small and ordinary to decisive ones, going beyond and against the logic of incentives, opting for less money and career to gain what is more expressed in other values. We have done it and many continue to do so, not for heroism but for dignity and loyalty to the not-for-sale part that lives deep within us all. In the pages of every person's and every organisation's book of life there are many words written with invisible ink - the cold logic of incentives cannot see this because it lacks the heat of some other relational registers that would be necessary for that. But if these sentences remain invisible, we will not be able to either tell what really happens in the world of work or to improve it.
 
Further commentaries by Luigino Bruni in Avvenire are available through the Avvenire Editorial
Translated by Eszter Kató
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    [text] => 
Commentary - Virtues are not a luxury to invest in the world of economy
by Luigino Bruni 
Published in Avvenire on August 4, 2013

One of the paradoxes at the heart of our economic and social system is the peaceful coexistence between the radical rejection of masters and controls in the political sphere and the equally radical acceptance of other masters and controls in businesses and organizations. We started and still lead many fights and revolutions against tyrants and dictators, but as soon as we leave the square and pass the gates of the company we place our dress of democratic citizens on the hanger and meekly wear the clothes of the regulated and controlled subject.
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    [title] => Away From the Imperial Cult
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Commentary - Financial Capitalism and the Antidotes Against It
By Luigino Bruni
Published in Avvenire on July 07, 2013

To understand what truly lies behind the growing resistance to the closure of businesses on Sunday, we must have the courage to seriously consider the anthropological and cultural aspects of our capitalism. Philosopher Walter Benjamin wrote in 1921 that “one can behold in capitalism a religion, that is to say, capitalism essentially serves to satisfy the same worries, anguish, and disquiet formerly answered by so-called religion. (...) Capitalism itself developed parasitically on Christianity in the West” (Capitalism as Religion, 1921). And prophetically he added: “A commanding view will, however, later become possible”.
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Indeed, the religious nature of capitalism is much more evident today than it was in the 1920s, especially when one considers how increasingly rare it is to find areas of our lives that are not for sale. It is a pagan religion that calls for an exclusive form of worship and aims to replace Christianity (not any other religion), because it spawned from Jewish-Christian humanism. According to this view, modernity is not characterized by a desecration or disenchantment of the world, but instead by the affirmation of a new religion, i.e., by the transformation of the Christian spirit into the “spirit” of capitalism. The argument is strong and inevitably controversial, but it undoubtedly captures a fundamental dimension of our time, one that was perceived at the dawn of capitalism by the philosophical genius of Antonio Rosmini.
The intertwined relations between Christianity and capitalism run deep since their very origins. Capitalism borrows from the vocabulary of the Bible (faith-trust, credit-belief...), and even the evangelists use the economic language of their time to make comparisons and compose parables. And we cannot understand the Middle Ages, the Reformation or Modernity unless we take into account the numerous intersections between grace and money. Nevertheless, only in recent times has capitalism fully revealed its true nature as a pagan religion. It is not limited to the worship of goddess Fortuna, supreme deity of countless “games” who dominates whole new categories of underprivileged. Nor is it confined to shopping centers designed like temples, or to the culture of multilevel marketing companies that initiate their sessions with the sign of the cross looking for new followers for their must-have products, or even to the creation of a financial system that is based exclusively on faith and lacks any connection with the real economy.
This new religion promises and offers us much more: a pseudo-eternity, a surrogate for eternal life. As an individual product, an automobile ages and deteriorates, but if one has money or credit, a new one can be immediately purchased and death may thus be vanquished. From the apotheosis of cosmetic surgery, it offers the elixir of (illusory) eternal youth. As all pagan religions, it celebrates pleasure and youth, and as a result it deliberately turns its gaze away from death and conceals it (which also includes the glorified idea of self-determination that leads to euthanasia and assisted suicide). Death is concealed because it is too real to be understood by capitalism: who runs across a funeral procession along our streets anymore? Who sees the children gather around the bedside of their deceased grandfather any longer? Idolatry, which is the illness of every religious civilization, has thus transformed the worship of money, together with capitalism, into a de facto religion complete with its own priests, churches, incenses, liturgies and saints, whose worship is performed twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, in a perpetual state of adoration that has no regard for the Sabbath, Fridays, or even Sundays. It is therefore a naïve illusion to think the capitalist culture capable of respecting Sunday rest: there is no Sunday in that religion, because every day is a day of worship. There is no possible coexistence between the culture of Sunday and the culture of capitalism.
The various forms of capitalism, however, are not all the same – or at least they were different until recently. Europe, in particular, has produced its own version of capitalism, which represents the culmination of a conception of economics and society that was born at the heart of the Franciscan and Dominican monastic charisms. The Reformation and Counter-Reformation inflicted a deep wound in the market economy that made Florence, Venice and Lisbon into great and beautiful cities.
The long history of Europe, which afforded her a vast amount of experience with different and mixed societies, has been able to bring to life a social kind of capitalism or, as I prefer to say, a civil market economy that has produced economic miracles, the development of a cooperative movement (the greatest non-capitalist market economy experience in history), a great project for a united Europe, and the creation of a communitarian and welfare state and that the civilized world envied. Let us not forget today, in the age of globalization, that our capitalism was different because it was based on the idea of market and communitarian solidarity. If our civil capitalism were still alive, there would be no “legal” betting and gaming companies that “donate” a mere 0.0001% of their enormous profits to foundations that offer treatment for the very addiction to games of chance they themselves have created. By the same token, there would be no foundations or government agencies that would accept such dishonest and deadly contributions. And no European citizen would witness in silence those human sacrifices to these new pagan gods. Nonetheless, these situations do exist and proliferate due to the complicity of our governments and a lack of political vigor, accompanied by a deficiency of deep thinking and the absence of a mature and responsible civil society. In the twentieth century, the Churches, especially the Catholic Church, identified the great collectivist systems as enemies of the faith and played a decisive role in the collapse of their walls. And even before the dust of those crumbling walls settled, the voice of the Pope was faithful to warn of another presumptuous and “unbridled” force that continued to threaten the men and women of our time.
However, there is still no pervasive consciousness of the equally anti-Christian and devastating danger of financial capitalism, which, partly due to our own carelessness, is dominating and paganizing the world. The capitalist man cannot be evangelized, because he already has his own gospel, one that demands much less than the Gospel of Jesus.
The good fight to preserve Sunday as a day free from a one-track market culture makes sense if interpreted as a symbol of the resurgence of a different kind of political and economic thinking, one that calls into question the dogmas and taboos imposed by the cult of the market. The Christian and humanist roots of European civilization cannot be invoked only to recognize where we come from; they should also point towards the path we are to follow. And they are disclaimed and opposed exactly because they are a sign of a contradiction, because they provide the moral resources necessary to plot an alternative course to the one currently imposed. As every other empire in history, the empire built by financial capitalism and its religion is destined to fall, and there are numerous signs that foretell its imminent collapse. We must take to heart the responsibility to act and react immediately to ensure that in two or three decades our grandchildren can grow free from the totems and taboos that have taken up our time and even our souls.
Further commentaries by Luigino Bruni in Avvenire are available through the Avvenire Editorial
Translated by Tomás Olcese
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Commentary - Financial Capitalism and the Antidotes Against It
By Luigino Bruni
Published in Avvenire on July 07, 2013

To understand what truly lies behind the growing resistance to the closure of businesses on Sunday, we must have the courage to seriously consider the anthropological and cultural aspects of our capitalism. Philosopher Walter Benjamin wrote in 1921 that “one can behold in capitalism a religion, that is to say, capitalism essentially serves to satisfy the same worries, anguish, and disquiet formerly answered by so-called religion. (...) Capitalism itself developed parasitically on Christianity in the West” (Capitalism as Religion, 1921). And prophetically he added: “A commanding view will, however, later become possible”.
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Commentary – Interpersonal business relationships
By Luigino Bruni
Published in Avvenire on June 16, 2013
Employed workers suffer from general anxiety due to the high rates of unemployment. In Southern Europe employees are increasingly unsatisfied (Ipsos, TNS-sofres). 68% of French workers state that the quality of their working life decreased between 2008 to 2012; among those who are 35 to 49 years old, 75% express their discontent. Middle-aged workers, usually half way through their career, suffer from chronic dissatisfaction.
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The motivations to work vary through time. During the first years of a new career people are excited and enthusiastic. After twenty years in the same office of an organization, the enthusiasm dies out. Without new and more compelling motivations, workers become weary and cynical. The above mentioned survey indicates that average public sector employees are the least enthusiastic about their work.
Workplaces are filled with discontent middle age workers. Much of the research done in this area reveals a U-shaped graph correlating happiness and age. The point of minimum happiness hits around 45 years of age. From this age, workers' happiness increases if they have good health and social relationships.
Labor regulations have ignored the different stages of human life. The 20 year old Mary was a different worker from the one she is now in her 60's. Businesses don't follow people's natural aging process. Thus, when one has “journeyed half of our life's way” [Dante], one is trapped in both a professional and private mid-life crisis – labor is life.
Enterprises don't invest enough in relationships. In private or state-owned companies, workers are often regarded as selfish and untrustworthy, and bosses believe they have to control and reward employees to make them productive. This environment produces unhappiness – when will countries take quality of working life indicators seriously? Therefore, workers seek happiness outside their workplaces, spending heaps of money on wellness centers and spas. Is this a wise and sustainable solution? Wouldn't it be wiser to develop healthy relationships within workplaces and thereby increase workers' well-being?
It is not by chance that religious orders have built the longest lasting institutions in the Western world – an average Benedictine abbey is 5 centuries old. Their old age and smooth operations flow from good governance. Business decision-makers should implement a few of their regulations; religious orders' rules contain management teachings that are people-centered and universal.
For example, the members of a religious order periodically meet with their superior in private. This practice promotes healthy relationships within the community. Regrettably, employees of numerous enterprises reach retirement having never talked privately to their bosses. In those few enterprises and cooperatives where such private meetings take place, they are few and irregular.
Today, more than ever, private talks between supervisors and workers – and not only the widespread practice of coaching – are vital. Regular private meetings (twice a year for example) would benefit workers and organizations in many ways.
Employees and bosses should be able to privately express their complaints, hardships, misunderstandings and woes. Taking this action can help avoid gossip, rumors and grudge that end up having a destructive impact on corporate life. Since biblical times people have spread rumors, not only gossipmongers and defamers. However, protests, critics and complaints can be constructive if institutions use such information wisely. In the same way, gratitude is essential in every community and most effective when properly expressed.
Saying “thank you!”, “good job!” or even “sorry” to an employee in the corridors or on the phone isn't enough. These words are precious ones that should not be used lightly.. 
Furthermore, one-on-one talks promote brotherhood rather than hierarchy; they increase philia among workers – those who partake in these conversations both listen and speak, give and receive. Executives will raise their game if they accept critiques from their subordinates and commit themselves to changing. Their biggest mistake in personal meetings is avoiding complaints by cutting off the employees (“you miss the point...”, “you don't see the full picture...”, “let me explain...”).
In private conversations one should not have to justify oneself, but listen and welcome criticism and hardships – we are so undeveloped in the art of listening!
A supervisor should listen, register and process critiques and not criticize in return. The employee has the right to complain, and the manager the duty to listen. Companies need to provide proper places and a schedule for private meetings. Workers and managers should also undertake ethical training to better take part in these. It isn't easy to hold one-on-one meetings; businesses should work hard on this and learn from prior mistakes – if they do, the fruits will be abundant.
Employees' first and last private talks with their bosses are very important. Welcome interviews should include a presentation on the enterprise's traditions, history, goals and mission. Newly hired workers will have a chance to share their aspirations, passions and introduce themselves to the working community; everyone should celebrate their arrival.
The farewell meeting is equally important. Many times it concludes the best period of someone's life. It is a life changing event. One may say “thank you” or “sorry” and make this critical encounter spiritually fulfilling and meaningful. Therefore, let us seek inspiration from the religious charisms; their teachings can increase the quality of relationships within our organizations. We are in dire need of better relationships in our businesses!
Further commentaries by Luigino Bruni in Avvenire are available through the Avvenire Editorial
Translated by Cristian Sebok
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    [text] => 
Commentary – Interpersonal business relationships
By Luigino Bruni
Published in Avvenire on June 16, 2013
Employed workers suffer from general anxiety due to the high rates of unemployment. In Southern Europe employees are increasingly unsatisfied (Ipsos, TNS-sofres). 68% of French workers state that the quality of their working life decreased between 2008 to 2012; among those who are 35 to 49 years old, 75% express their discontent. Middle-aged workers, usually half way through their career, suffer from chronic dissatisfaction.
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