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Commentary – The market and human relationships.
By Luigino Bruni
Published in Avvenire on May 5, 2013
Movie theaters are not only businesses but a unique means to build relationships. However, lately a great number of them have had to close down due to the crisis. Unfortunately, they have been replaced by goods that better respond to the demands of today's consumeristic, lonely individuals. Some believe this change is a result of the law of the market. I agree that the market does sell goods against loneliness, and that the demand for such goods was created by the market itself. However, only a sector of the market.
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One does not need to read economic and sociological studies to recognize the significant difference between going to a movie theater versus a “home-theater experience”; this difference is especially pronounced when the first is experienced with friends and the second while alone in front of a PC. To go to the movies with friends implies an investment of time. One has to dress up, go to the theater, and discuss which film to see with others. Often the final selection differs from one's personal preference (thanks to friends, I have discovered many splendid movies that I would not have otherwise seen). Friends talk to each other before, during and, most importantly, after the film. Thus, the movie, which on its own is a simple consumer good, brings people together and becomes a relational good; such goods are produced or consumed together as a shared experience. The shared emotions elicited during certain scenes can be so enjoyable that one will go again to the movies with other friends (hoping to experience the same mutual feelings again). In fact, two and a half centuries ago, Adam Smith wrote that shared emotions are one of the major sources of people's happiness. When one watches a movie alone at home or on the TV, there are hardly any shared emotions and relational goods involved; seeing Amarcord in a theater is completely different from seeing it on a PC. These two experiences represent two very different categories of goods, which, unfortunately, are considered by the market to be equivalent.
Let's explore this topic further. In the recent past, people had to interact with others if they wanted to “consume” certain goods (like art, culture, celebrations, music, religion, sports, politics, games, schools, therapy, etc.). Thus, people were inextricably linked to relational goods. Music was enjoyed in concert halls or ballrooms, sport in stadiums and movies in crowded movie theaters. Today, the market allows us to separate the relational aspect from many goods, leaving only the individual component. For example, I can listen to my iPod alone on my run in the park. Although I pass many other lonely runners, I don't actually meet anyone. Later, if I feel like doing so, I can hang out with friends. The same is applied to films, politics (rallies were replaced by monologues on TV) and even universities (there are people who enroll in online programs and get their degree without interacting with anyone). Human interaction has been removed from a great many products. The 'me and you' relationship has been replaced by 'me and a product' and 'you and a product'. A possible 'us' is always postponed for the future.
This is the kind of humanism that the capitalist market (not just any market), individuals and the freedom of choice have brought about. These Western and Christian-rooted values set people free from many obligatory relationships; the required “spheres” of life that their loved ones have no part in. However, one should read through research about the well-being of humans before evaluating the market's influence on people and trying to reform it. Over the last few decades, the consumption of relation-free goods has radically increased. Due to market competition and technological progress, consumer goods cost less today than ever before, as far as money and, more importantly, time are concerned.
It is easier and cheaper than ever to watch a movie at home; one doesn't even need to get out of bed! On the other hand, going to the movies or exercising with friends doesn't cost less than a hundred years ago, and investing in friends and family requires pretty much the same sacrifice (time, resources, love, …) as a thousand years ago. Besides, investing in friendship is risky because you may get hurt if your friends do not reciprocate. A very simple economic law teaches us that if we drastically reduce the price of a (consumer) good and keep the other constant (relational good), the latter will become much more “expensive” than the former. In other words, as the market separates products from relationships (in the name of freedom), the cost of relational goods continues to increase. “Days ago,” a friend told me, “I asked my Dad to come see my wife singing in a chorus. I rang the bell and he said he'd changed his mind. I didn't insist. It was raining and I knew that dressing up and leaving was much more “costly” than watching a movie on the living room couch.” He then added, “but he probably regretted his decision the next day.” What can be done about all this? Not much, but we should definitely support social goods by taxing consumer goods (we should particularly promote relational goods since a lack of personal ties makes people unhappy). We can also make use of education to bring about change.
Schools should educate their students about consumption and differences between types of goods; they must teach students how to distinguish consumer goods, which are here today and gone tomorrow, from relational goods, which are real investments for a good life. Furthermore, technology should serve to improve human relationships. For example, social groups and parishes can easily set a private “movie theater” with an inexpensive video projector and revive the magic and the joy of shared experiences. We must promote community building; the loss of community has impoverished us all.
Further commentaries by Luigino Bruni in Avvenire are available through the Avvenire Editorial
Translated by Cristian Sebok
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Commentary – The market and human relationships.
By Luigino Bruni
Published in Avvenire on May 5, 2013
Movie theaters are not only businesses but a unique means to build relationships. However, lately a great number of them have had to close down due to the crisis. Unfortunately, they have been replaced by goods that better respond to the demands of today's consumeristic, lonely individuals. Some believe this change is a result of the law of the market. I agree that the market does sell goods against loneliness, and that the demand for such goods was created by the market itself. However, only a sector of the market.
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Commentary – Genovesi's call to Italy (and South of Europe): Be yourself!
By Luigino Bruni
Published in Avvenire on April 28, 2013
The connected, interdependent networks making up the market economy can bring about both wonderful and terrifying outcomes. In times of prosperity, wealth is distributed among everyone, while during depressions problems are interconnected and amplified; the virtue of interdependence is replaced by a vicious cycle of people inflicting losses on one another. Customers don't pay, banks don't loan, and suppliers don't receive payment and are unable to pay their own debts. This process, like a maelstrom, spirals ever downwards swallowing factories, jobs, houses, lives.
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Throughout Italy, but particularly in the South, and in southern Europe workers and the unemployed have been suffering. The crisis has canceled the economic development of the past two decades. I believe that it is possible that an economic recovery will make the South Europe's new center of gravity. Many talented people and potentialities from the South have been crushed and stifled by events in the recent and far past.
Latin and southern culture is full of blessings, but mainstream capitalists only see its wounds (shortcomings). Though we thought we had ended the unfortunate brain drain to the North, a new massive one has begun. The best of our young people migrate for “bread and dignity”. Southern Europe needs trust, esteem, and self-esteem; it needs “courage”, according to one of the fathers of Italy's Civil Economy, Antonio Genovesi. People today should read his works and more about him.
His book, Lessons of Civil Economy (a new edition will soon be released), is even more relevant today than back when it was written in 1765. Regarding southern Italy he wrote: “Their wines are served as nectar on the best tables, held in highest-esteem by England and even France, where Burgundy is intensely praised... It consists of counties covered with wool, linen, canapé, and various animal species; it is the country of cheese, wheat etc., and great minds... We should therefore have four times more money than the other nations; five times actually, if we include the oil, six for the wine, seven for the silk, and so on.” Therefore, the question is still the same: where is this money? “I'll never believe in the lack of talent – does one really think that colder climates produce sharper brains than warm ones? – nor in the absence of hard work;… I therefore conclude that we are short of courage and are misusing our labor.”
For Genovesi, the absence of “courage” and well-employed "labor" is due to: “The burden of finance encumbers the arts but not land and possessions. This has discouraged and devalued the arts.” These are indeed inspired words. The future of a nation is gloomy if it “discourages” and “devalues” the arts, i.e., if it taxes craftsmen and businesses while promoting speculation. In fact, our neo-feudal social and economic system (together with all other feudal regimes) is sustained by privileges that overvalue income from assets.
We have condemned this and will continue to do so. Genovesi saw quality and potential in the Italian economy and ingenuity in the soul of Italy and its people – besides their other evident attributes. He was aware though that, despite these virtues, there were also shortcomings; they are always present. In fact, after listing the virtues and merits of the kingdom, he pointed out that: “If a foreigner happens to read this article, he or she should keep in mind that I wrote it after chugging a dram of rhubarb on an empty stomach.” His optimistic writings inspired reforms and revolutions in the Kingdom of Naples. None managed to last long, but they were inspiring and followed by others.
The ability to promote pride and hope based on the national attributes of both past and present depends on the civil talent of governors and intellectuals; they can give a “soul” to the country. Through this they offer the people a “not yet fully realized” reality that is better than the one “already here” or which “once was”. When a nation doesn't have this ability, people only denigrate, criticize, curse, and infect each other with pessimism.
If we wish to boost our economy and civil society, we must produce income from art, culture, nature, history, food, wine, tourism, beauty, and the many other unique national and European assets. These are still under-valued and should be promoted, especially in the South. We are called upon to recover our economically productive identity. It is one not based on Germany or the USA, but based on the human and cultural capital we inherited from the past; this heritage is still capable of producing wealth. Our ancestors and nature have granted us extraordinary gifts: “Oh how bewildered are you! You have turned your back to nature that generously offers its true, long-lasting and blessed riches, and have followed bodiless bizarre fantasies. When will you ever wake up from these dreams?”.
Genovesi's words aren't enough, nor are the most inspiring thoughts from other philosophers or poets; much more is necessary to boost the economy. However, during hard times it is useful to seek help among the great visionaries; they can give us insights into how to find solutions from within and from the spirit of the world around us. Businesses, communities and people are bound together in a moral and civil network, which is full of hidden resources, goods and capital. If we are able to recognize this, we could produce jobs and income. Once a farmer told me: “I was hopeless. One morning though I walked out of my house and saw a warehouse. It had always been there, I just hadn't noticed it in the past years”.
Solutions are almost always under our noses, but in hard times we just don't see them. We are called upon to find our true capital and goods. The worst consequence of a crisis is when it blinds our souls and minds.
Further commentaries by Luigino Bruni in Avvenire are available through the Avvenire Editorial
Translated by Cristian Sebok

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    [text] => 
Commentary – Genovesi's call to Italy (and South of Europe): Be yourself!
By Luigino Bruni
Published in Avvenire on April 28, 2013
The connected, interdependent networks making up the market economy can bring about both wonderful and terrifying outcomes. In times of prosperity, wealth is distributed among everyone, while during depressions problems are interconnected and amplified; the virtue of interdependence is replaced by a vicious cycle of people inflicting losses on one another. Customers don't pay, banks don't loan, and suppliers don't receive payment and are unable to pay their own debts. This process, like a maelstrom, spirals ever downwards swallowing factories, jobs, houses, lives.
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Commentary – Recovering the purpose and productive capacity of capital to overcome the crisis.
By Luigino Bruni
Published in Avvenire on April 04, 2013

Crises, especially deep rooted and severe ones,  cause a loss of productive capacity in the economy and civil society, inhibiting the ability to create true economic, civil, political, cultural and scientific value; society unable to distinguish what is truly valuable. At the heart of the evolution of economies and civilizations is the following rule: when the productive power of society reaches its peak, its ability to continue to create ceases.  An economy's continued successes eventually extinguish societies' hopes and dynamism, which are both necessary for economic growth.
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History and today's emerging economies confirm this rule. China – where I am now –, the Philippines and Brazil are booming thanks to their civic engagement and their desire and drive, socially and individually,  to develop. In fact, in these countries you can feel that the people, particularly children and the poor, live lives full of joy.
Moral and spiritual resources are not inherently renewable and society consumes them; sooner or later they run out. It's a ruthless yet indispensable process that forces some people and countries to get off while allowing others to get on the merry-go-round of wealth and prosperity. When the economy is expanding, civil and economic forces guarantee that capital (stock) serves to create income (flow): farms, houses, real-estates, savings and shares are used to ramp up the income from labor (salaries) and business (profit). Capital is important in this phase as long as it creates more income and is reinvested in development and for the common good.
Hope is the virtue which guides this period of growth. It allows us to consider capital (real and financial) an instrument, the fruitful talents that one should put to work, that makes stocks the means to produce flows. Our hope in the future product of the investment, which is worth “five”, makes it more valuable than the existing capital, which is worth “a hundred”. In fact, the flow, income, represents the productive capacity of an individual or their company. Good wheat will not usually accumulate in the granary. Similarly, there is an essential difference between farmers and mercenaries, investments and mere accumulation, entrepreneurs, who promote growth, and speculators, who spawn decline.
People are happy and fruitful when wealth produces income, while miserable and barren when it is accumulated for it's own sake. In Latin cultures representations of working tools, children and fertile crops (Campania felix) have symbolized happiness (felicitas). In both past and present, children have been symbols of happiness and fertility for families and peoples. The art of great cultures has usually chosen greedy characters, not poor ones, as the main icons of unhappiness. Misers are rich yet miserable since they cannot partake in the joy of creation while protecting their possessions; they are like capital sent (deported) to fiscal paradises (tax havens).
Businesses, economic systems and civilizations decline when the goal of production and capital becomes merely a means to increase capital. When this happens, fear replaces hope, wheat fills up barns instead of sustaining workers, and workers are ignored by the system. In economic terms, crises start when income (flows) serves only to create capital (stocks), while profit and salaries are saved rather than reinvested. Thus, entrepreneurs, who successfully started the growth of these economic and civil cycles, become speculators. They gather together in social classes and work primarily to maintain their previously acquired wealth and privileges. During the phase of happiness, trust and cooperation prevail, inspiring people to work together in new ventures. When the decline begins, suspicion spreads, colleagues become rivals and everyone focuses on protecting their own slice of revenue from others, potential thieves. Deteriorating social relationships increase distrust as the others (not us) are considered dishonest tax evaders; their wealth is a risk to ours. However, when economy is doing well “the market teaches us to treat the wealth and richness of others with respect” (John Stuart Mill, 1848). The creation of new pies are important, not the slice size of the old ones. In Italy the situation is even worse. A Sicilian entrepreneur once said to me: “We are able to fight over pies that we'll never make”.
Our crisis reveals that we are destroying the civil and religious capital that fostered the miraculous economic and social development of the past decades. A new economic, civil and moral miracle is necessary. After the Second World War, our parents and grandparents made bricks from the ruins and rebuilt their houses; this reaction to the inhuman bloodshed of war,  became the cornerstone of Europe's new community. Today we too are called on to build a better world and must gather the necessary resources from the ruins to build new houses and a new eco-nomy. Although our debris aren't made of cement and dust, this crisis ravages houses, factories, churches; it claims new victims while creating heroes and resistance movements. In other words, to find the necessary resources to make bricks out of the rubble, we must dig deep; the best stones aren't on the surface. We must dig down to those buried stones, which are ignored – like our communitarian nature –, that are usually regarded as stumbling blocks and thrown away. It is essential that we save these stones and make them the cornerstones of our new homes, economy and labor market.
Further commentaries by Luigino Bruni in Avvenire are available through the Avvenire Editorial menu.
Translated by Cristian Sebok
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Commentary – Recovering the purpose and productive capacity of capital to overcome the crisis.
By Luigino Bruni
Published in Avvenire on April 04, 2013

Crises, especially deep rooted and severe ones,  cause a loss of productive capacity in the economy and civil society, inhibiting the ability to create true economic, civil, political, cultural and scientific value; society unable to distinguish what is truly valuable. At the heart of the evolution of economies and civilizations is the following rule: when the productive power of society reaches its peak, its ability to continue to create ceases.  An economy's continued successes eventually extinguish societies' hopes and dynamism, which are both necessary for economic growth.
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Commentary – Society and the economy, women and charisms
By Luigino Bruni
Published in Avvenire on March 30, 2013

It has never been more clear that the political, civil, and economic world we built in the 20th century is over and far from “resurrection”. It's Saturday, and the new world has 'not yet' been fully realized. Actually, it is not 'here' at all. There are plenty of Holy Saturdays in History, and many of them have marked profound change. European humanism flourished under Christianity, which is rooted in the Holy Saturday, the time between death and resurrection. As a matter of fact, Salvation History repeats itself throughout the history of humanity. One should consider Holy Saturday something more than just an interval or a period of emptiness, absence, hibernation, and expectation.
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In deed, it is the beginning of a new era, and as such it is a period of activity, vigil, and presence. While the fearful and disillusioned apostles hide themselves, unable to react to the great crisis, some other people, particularly a group of women, don't flee. In fact, as Carlo Maria Martini wrote in 2000, on Saturday we can rely on the presence of Mary, the mother of Jesus. While the men run away, the women stay and don't leave; they're active on Saturday as they work and watch. Given their culture, the way those women acted revealed three messages. First of all, they highlighted the importance of life and our bodies, even when wounded, or dead; in fact, in spite of the stone that blocked it's opening, they still went to the tomb to anoint the body. The second message is regarding the precious role of the poor: Women had no say and, as fragile and vulnerable beings, were considered to be among the dregs of society. However, these women didn't flee from the great trial as they persevered and continued to work full of hope.
Mary and the women represented the charisms in those circumstances (this is the third message). Such spiritual approach was naturally familiar to them, resulting in the prayer 'Hail Mary full of grace (charis)', or full of 'charis-ma' (and of graciousness). In fact, the notorious theologian Hans Urs Von Balthasar often took the “Charismatic principle” to be synonymous with the “Marian principle”. We know that charism is a gift that allows people to look further ahead, to see things that others – in this case the apostles – don't see. And those who see differently act differently. If we learn how to live well on “Saturday” time, our society and the economy may rise again from the dark.
Today people also run away from the crisis (living in fiscal paradises, immaterial virtual communities, or in cynical and apathetic social circles). We are in need of people who are “active on Saturday”, such as the many women who are forgotten by our society. We cry out for charisms. During history's “Saturday” periods, institutions have decayed and fallen apart. However, humanity has been saved thanks to the charisms and to those, particularly women, who managed to stand still under the cross or next to the tombs of their times; they hoped and worked for a new world. There was more than merely an empty gap between the fall of the Roman Empire and the rebirth of the Italian and European civil society. Monastic charisms discretely watched over Europe during this transition, replacing the old institutions and creating new ones, reinventing Europe.
Furthermore, between the decline of the ancien régime and the rise of modern social states, thousands of charismatic institutions flourished. Inspired by grace's (charis/charitas) creativity, these institutions implemented new ways of healing traditional and modern kinds of misery and social exclusion, while also educating women and men throughout the generations. The same occurred between the Industrial Revolution and the advent of the Social State, and in the gap between fascism and democracy. In India, Gandhi, Mother Theresa, and Nancy Pereira's systems of microcredit are further examples of this progress. The charisms are the first to be aware of a difficult situation and, just as Mary did in the wedding at Cana, they cry out: “They have no more wine!” The charisms played a major role in history's “Holy Saturdays”; they are the light which guides humanity through the dark passage between Friday and Sunday. We now live in a “Saturday” period, which suffers from the lack of charismatic eyes. Charisms don't exist or, if they do, are rejected from the public, economic, and political spheres.
In addition, it's disappointing to see that experts, professors, and intellectuals are called on to help us out of the shameful political-economic swamp we are in. For a long while their moral resources have shown to be insufficient to move the stone blocking the tomb... We don't need technical knowledge to remove the stone, but rather mystics, charisms, and prophets. They see things from the resurrection's perspective, i.e they notice when the wine is missing and are able to quickly solve the problem. Moreover, these people, men and mainly women, aren't trained to be what they are. Nevertheless, although small in quantity, the charisms are still alive and fruitful. Their voice is the voice of the poor to the poor and they should make it heard. These charisms are gifts to benefit the common good. Thus, the lay, civil, and political institutions they create should develop political plans.
When there aren't charisms or their voices go unheard, an institution can neither see nor promote the common good, particularly in times of “Saturday”. Our crisis is above all a spiritual one. The fall of ideologies has stopped the motor of the symbolic factory that produced our civil and economic systems. When a true paradise decays, artificial and limited paradises take over, soon creating a true hell.
Let us look at this “Saturday” through the eyes of the charisms.
Further commentaries by Luigino Bruni in Avvenire are available through the Avvenire Editorial menu.
Translated by Cristian Sebok
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Commentary – Society and the economy, women and charisms
By Luigino Bruni
Published in Avvenire on March 30, 2013

It has never been more clear that the political, civil, and economic world we built in the 20th century is over and far from “resurrection”. It's Saturday, and the new world has 'not yet' been fully realized. Actually, it is not 'here' at all. There are plenty of Holy Saturdays in History, and many of them have marked profound change. European humanism flourished under Christianity, which is rooted in the Holy Saturday, the time between death and resurrection. As a matter of fact, Salvation History repeats itself throughout the history of humanity. One should consider Holy Saturday something more than just an interval or a period of emptiness, absence, hibernation, and expectation.
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Commentary – Beauty brought about the Economy and Civility in Italy. Let’s protect it and start producing it again.
By Luigino Bruni
Published in Avvenire on March 17, 2013

Beauty’s civil and economic virtues are vital for us. Beauty is necessary to renew the economy and labor market, to establish new schools and universities, and to guarantee care for those who didn’t choose to be poor. The old and new kinds of poverty afflicting the poor can only be overcome through the beautiful poverty of St. Francis. Although the Italian economy and civil life “produced” (artistic, musical, urban…) beauty, it was beauty that first brought about the economy and civil life.

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Anything made in Italy has been precious for centuries. Artisans and workers of all periods have made this true. They grew up surrounded by cathedrals, piazzas, valleys, seas, and mountains, and were thereby nourished by beauty. So we must realize that it is not only raw material, capital, and labor that are inputs for our economy; Dante, Pinocchio, Fellini, stories, landscapes, frescos, churches, are the basis for national production. Beauty becomes translated into designs, cars, shoes, outfits, foods.
Food and wine tourism attract people to, for example, Umbria and Sicily. In such places one will not only “consume” accommodations, food, and wine, but will “eat and drink” the beauty accumulated over thousands of years of culture and in the landscape (one should bear in mind that although the entrepreneur sells this product, part of it's price isn't his; this is also true considering taxes). Economic value was created when people started adding value to products through beauty; when producers learned how to express beauty they translated it into products, goods, the economy, and welfare. Today we continuously consume beauty but are no longer capable of producing it, other than in very small quantities. We should start creating beauty once more so that goods and labor may flourish again. Beauty cannot be planned for in business schools or political forums; it is the fruit of graciousness. Grace (Charis in Greek) is the root of beauty (also gracefulness) itself, and it inspires love for places, cities, and regions.
It may not be as obvious today as in the past, but beauty is essential in maintaining good schools and universities. Currently they lack not only of economic and financial resources, but also beauty. Our children and youth should receive their education and develop their personalities in the most beautiful places. However, these places are in the hands of banks and speculators while students are crowded together in forgotten, decaying buildings. I just don’t know how one can teach, let alone how students can encounter and get to know Socrates, Pythagoras, and Leopardi, in such an ugly environment.
Clear-sighted people working in schools know that classrooms, walls and yards speak and teach as well. They are “colleagues” who communicate in a non verbal language just as vivid as ours. Children are aware of this and have learned it from fairy tales and cartoons where grasshoppers, animals, and plants also speak, and where houses can open their eyes and smile. Evidentially children aren't simply incomplete grown-ups; they have something more than the adults, though this is eventually lost in time. Such an approach to beauty is necessary if true child-adult reciprocity is to be fostered. However, in schools today this is what happens: A child reads a poem of Ungaretti and a few minutes later runs outside, wishing to experience the mystery of poetry in real life (either one lives poetry in one’s own flesh, or it’s useless, it can even be harmful). The scruffy and decayed recreation space they play in doesn’t allow the student to learn the desired exercise in freedom and truth. Thus, the next day the teacher has to start again from scratch, a task worthy of Sisyphus. In short, a school is good if it’s beautiful.
Demand for beauty is even more urgent among the poor. In times gone by the population of a town, including the poor, would frequent the most beautiful places, namely the cathedrals and churches. It's stunning to think that Giotto’s and Caravaggio’s frescos decorated the rooms that offered shelter to poor, simple, humble and illiterate people. The harsh burden of a short life filled with struggle was eased by the gift of art. Artists and patrons handed the poor part of the richness that was once taken from them.
Of course back then there was also a lot of opulence and private wealth that was not shared with the poor. Today however, despite the French Revolution and democracy, even less beauty (wealth) is shared than before. Wealth is now produced by the financial market and then concentrated in fiscal paradises, in invisible and extremely private real-estate, or other assets. Towns are not at all made more beautiful by mansions of millionaires. People don’t see them, let alone live in them. They represent an uncivilized kind of wealth; they are neither in nor for the city. Thus, the luxury and pomp confined within their walls aren’t true to beauty. The inhabitants themselves won't enjoy its beauty as long as it remains hidden to others, mainly to the poor. “You chose to be condemned for life to enjoy only what brings joy to all”; the concept in this lovely verse by David Maria Turoldo is actually true for everyone. “In my cooperative”  a civil entrepreneur once told me “there will be very competent hairdressers, because” he continued “if an old lady breaks her thighbone, as long as she doesn’t feel beautiful she will not be cured, she might even let herself die”.
True beauty is therapeutic. Hideous surroundings may avoid cure or even cause death. When poor people are helped and offered shelter in an agreeable environment they will be capable of giving the first step out of their unfortunate condition. Beauty brings out the best in us. Beauty therefore is not a luxury good but is a necessary good that should go hand in hand with dignity and poverty. Let’s fill our cities, companies, and schools with beauty so we will not run out of the spiritual and symbolic strength to start again.
Further commentaries by Luigino Bruni in Avvenire are available through the Avvenire Editorial menu. 
Translated by Cristian Sebok
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Commentary – Beauty brought about the Economy and Civility in Italy. Let’s protect it and start producing it again.
By Luigino Bruni
Published in Avvenire on March 17, 2013

Beauty’s civil and economic virtues are vital for us. Beauty is necessary to renew the economy and labor market, to establish new schools and universities, and to guarantee care for those who didn’t choose to be poor. The old and new kinds of poverty afflicting the poor can only be overcome through the beautiful poverty of St. Francis. Although the Italian economy and civil life “produced” (artistic, musical, urban…) beauty, it was beauty that first brought about the economy and civil life.

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Comments – More Democracy is Necessary
By Luigino Bruni
Published in Avvenire on 03/03/2013

A referendum is being held in Switzerland today to put a break on remunerations for managers of societies quoted on the stock market.  This is a good occasion to reopen the topic of the incomes of so-called  ‘top managers’ here in our country as well ,and on that matter and much more importantly, as it lies at the root of the first problem , of economic democracy.  How about in Italy, or in Europe?  A reason for the absence of this type of initiative, or, as we hope, only lateness, is the inability of Europe, and more so of Italy, to propose in past decades a different business and economic culture.
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Today business schools are all the same: at Harvard, Nairobi, San Paolo, Berlin, Peking, or Milan, the same things are taught, the same texts are used, at times even the same slides downloaded from the internet.  I have seen courses given on ‘Social Business Responsibility’ in classes where directors of cooperatives were sitting beside managers of speculative investment funds, because, as they explained, “Business is business”.  Therefore, it does not surprise us, but rather, saddens us to see a progressively shorter distance between the culture and the incomes of great cooperatives and those of capitalistic businesses, a resemblance that would certainly cause founders of the cooperative movement to turn over in their graves. They had imagined and brought about different enterprises also because they were able to covert the principles of fraternity and equality into paycheques, and not only to mention them in the premises of their statutes.
Yet, Italy and Europe had, and still have, a bit of another way to do business and society, another ‘capitalistic spirit’, which in Germany is called ‘social economy of the market’, in France ‘social economy’ in Italy ‘civil economy’, and in Spain and Portugal ‘economy of solidarity’.   A social cooperative is not a philanthropic institution (charity), but a matter of reciprocity and of productive inclusion, it is a ‘doing with’ before being a ‘doing for’.   A banking foundation is not   an American foundation, and small to medium family businesses,  as the load-bearing axis of our economy, have neither the culture nor the tools that anonymous corporations have, even if many of these businesses of ours have lost themselves in trying to follow those strange models.  In Italy we also had the glorious tradition of the Enterprise Economy, today on the way towards extinction, which was a happy attempt to convert a communitarian and relational model into organizational culture, where the aim of the enterprise was not the maximization of profit, but the balance between all the components of a company, in which the founding principle was “Satisfaction of human needs” (Gino Zappa, 1927).
The economic crisis is also fruit of a managerial culture that has revealed itself inadequate, certainly because of a mistaken or an insufficient legislation, but also from a form of thinking that begins in universities where economy is taught and it continues on into the masters; a wrong formation which is also at the base of justifications for those superstar salaries.  Current economic curriculums, all over the world, are more and more stripped of all their humanistic and historical dimensions, deluding themselves that by reducing economic thought to numbers, tables, graphics and algorithms (ever more simplified), one can form people capable of thinking and of being creative, of true innovation or of coordinating individuals whose anthropological and spiritual mystery remains such even as they work.  Yet, future jobs will come about, certainly in Italy, arising from culture, art, tourism, relationships, and to do these jobs well it is very useful to know the history of culture or of art, more so than techniques of budget balancing , evaluation and control.
We need then to open public debate on these crucial topics which cannot be left to ‘those in charge’: we have done so these past years, and the results are visible for all to see.  Modern democratic culture has put politics and governing of the state at the centre: great.  But the world has changed a lot and today we know, or should know, that good government passes also, and always more, through good governing of markets, businesses and organizations.  There is one Parliament (in Italy), but the administrative councils of banks and businesses are thousands: the quality of our lives, our dignity and freedoms depend also from these and we cannot continue to ignore this.  Economic democracy will be the challenge of the XXI century, if we wish to avoid reducing the democratic area into ever less relevant sectors of people’s lives, if we wish to feel like kings on election-day and lowly subjects on following days of many non-democratic rulers. The XX century created and maintained confines between areas of action of democracy and those kept by other non-democratic principles.
Amongst non-democratic areas the most important and relevant one was that of capitalistic enterprises.  The new era of common goods is forcing us to profoundly rethink the border of democracy if we don’t wish to lose it, or to smother it into a tiny region, perhaps to become irrelevant one day.  The market and businesses are not a private matter: they never have been, (think about workers’ and business owner’s syndicates).  This crisis however, had told us with great force and clarity that economy, finance and the market are also a truly ‘public matter’, with its delights and its crosses, for which we have the right and the duty to occupy ourselves , not just because it is us who will be paying all the consequences of bad government.  We must then invent new tools of economic democracy which cannot be the same ones used by political democracy.  We must think them on a Global scale.  But we must do it soon, for it is far too important.
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    [text] => 
Comments – More Democracy is Necessary
By Luigino Bruni
Published in Avvenire on 03/03/2013

A referendum is being held in Switzerland today to put a break on remunerations for managers of societies quoted on the stock market.  This is a good occasion to reopen the topic of the incomes of so-called  ‘top managers’ here in our country as well ,and on that matter and much more importantly, as it lies at the root of the first problem , of economic democracy.  How about in Italy, or in Europe?  A reason for the absence of this type of initiative, or, as we hope, only lateness, is the inability of Europe, and more so of Italy, to propose in past decades a different business and economic culture.
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Commentary – Labor and education in the course of our lives.
By Luigino Bruni
Published in Avvenire on February 10, 2013

We must urgently rethink the relationship between the workplace and the schoolroom; labor is hardly ever present in the education of young people. In a traditional society this may have been appropriate since labor was always present in the lives of children and young people. Those who lived in the countryside could count on having to work after school and sometimes in the morning before attending school. Even those who lived in the city were surrounded by various trades, professions and toys that mimicked the occupations of grownups. School, therefore, was a short and valuable period of escape from a (hard) labor dominated world.
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Today the situation has been reversed. Labor is gradually vanishing from modern urban culture and even the games our children play, and it has been replaced by finance, Internet-mediated relationships and, above all, consumption. A ride through the supermarket while sitting in a shopping cart is the first “economic” experience our children go through. Among the youth, friendship and labor during the crucial years of development have all but disappeared. Thus, when the time comes to start looking for work or finding an occupation, they are at first puzzled and often become unemployed.
Would it be too difficult to allow our students to engage in some form of labor a few hours a week during high school (at least in their senior years) or during the long months of summer vacation? The real obstacle, more serious than organizational or safety problems (the courtyards of our high schools have become extremely unsafe), can be traced to the deeply rooted idea that manual labor is not suitable for character development. A good education consists of studying literature, history and mathematics, not of working in a crafts workshop, an office, or a factory, let alone a farm. We have not yet freed ourselves, despite St. Benedict and Civil Humanism, from the vulgar idea that manual labor is impure and only suitable for servants and slaves. Young people carry this animosity towards labor into university, where working is considered unimportant and often pushed into the background. Many university students today do “odd jobs” for a living, but only a few engage in the profession they have chosen to pursue after graduation. During the past few decades, when the economy was thriving and prosperous (perhaps excessively), it may have made sense for people to study for twenty-four or twenty-five years and only start working after graduation. However, in view of the current stagnation of the economy (which is bound to continue for a while), a young person who spends four or more years preparing to practice a trade is very likely to discover that the conditions in society and the economy are not conducive to being able to get a job and actually practice that trade.
A sure sign of an economy or society in recession is that the present generation destroys rather than creates job opportunities for young people. In other words, young people who do not enter the labor market while attending university are at risk of never joining the workforce. If they are able, perhaps belatedly, they may find themselves in very unfavorable circumstances; while they dedicate themselves to their studies no one created good job opportunities for them. Thus, it is necessary to ensure that the years spent acquiring a university education are not simply preparation for a future (and uncertain) job. University students must seek for actual employment, not just “odd jobs”.
I realize this means going against the trend of recent decades that reduces and standardizes education programs. As a result, education has come to be regarded as a kind of fee people must pay in order to work under better conditions tomorrow. Instead, we should develop more flexible study programs that incorporate labor rather than replace it. Such programs may last many years because the goal is not just to earn a piece of paper, but to gain knowledge and learn. In a society as complex as ours, we learn much of our knowledge through labor.
Labor of any kind is mastered through experience, not in a classroom or by earning a master’s degree in a business school. This has important consequences for labor. My mother had to stop going to school when she was in fifth grade, but those five years of schooling grew within her; they became a jealousely treasured asset that bore fruit and shaped her life and her children's. Today, however, research shows that after only a few years of labor much of the knowledge gained during one's studies is lost. People are far more ignorant after ten years of labor than immediately after graduating from university. This is because we have built a civilization of laborers that regard education as an instrument to be acquired at a certain stage of life (youth). This instrument is then used only to find a job; the labor market (for adults) is separate from school and education.
This is especially true in large companies, which hire capable graduates and submit them to an unbearably demanding work environment. Such companies do not provide the time nor space necessary to cultivate our humanity outside the company, much less inside. Therefore, we are producing one-dimensional people whose sole motivation to study is to stay relevant or enhance their performance, which misses the most important characteristic of education: graciousness. We need to re-humanize the postmodern workplace by filling it with culture, art, beauty and graciousness. It must be an environment where people can flourish in every way while working. They need to have time to study beautiful and difficult things, even at forty or fifty years of age, so that they do not reach retirement exhausted and ignorant. It is necessary to bring more of the workplace into the classroom and vice versa.
Further commentaries by Luigino Bruni are available through the Avvenire Editorial.
Translated by Tomás Olcese
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Commentary – Labor and education in the course of our lives.
By Luigino Bruni
Published in Avvenire on February 10, 2013

We must urgently rethink the relationship between the workplace and the schoolroom; labor is hardly ever present in the education of young people. In a traditional society this may have been appropriate since labor was always present in the lives of children and young people. Those who lived in the countryside could count on having to work after school and sometimes in the morning before attending school. Even those who lived in the city were surrounded by various trades, professions and toys that mimicked the occupations of grownups. School, therefore, was a short and valuable period of escape from a (hard) labor dominated world.
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