Voices on Structural Greed
interview to Luigino Bruni published on lutheranworld.org, october 13, 2011
More than 40 delegates, including a dozen Muslims, church officials, economists and secular social activists met at the end of September 2011 in Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia to address the question of s...
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interview to Luigino Bruni published on lutheranworld.org, october 13, 2011
More than 40 delegates, including a dozen Muslims, church officials, economists and secular social activists met at the end of September 2011 in Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia to address the question of structural greed.
Dr Luigino Bruni, professor of political economy at the University of Milan, Italy, and member of the FOCOLARE movement, was one of the participants at the Department for Theology and Studies consultation.
[fulltext] => What were your expectations of this event?
My expectations of this event were very high because I think that at this moment of crisis religions have something new to say. This crisis is not simply a financial and economic crisis but an anthropological and ethical crisis. As during any crisis, the most precious reserve is usually the ethical one because ethics provide a deep motivation for action, the will to start something new. At this moment of crisis, what we lack particularly in Europe is an enthusiasm for starting new economic enterprises, because we are generally lacking an enthusiasm for life.
What have you learned from this event?
I have met very interesting people doing things related to my activity that are new to me. I met new perspectives on the economy from the Lutheran, Muslim and Eastern traditions. I leave this meeting with the deep hope that if we are united as religions at this moment of crisis then we can say something important to the world.
How can Christians and Muslims help one another to live lives less touched by the structures of greed?
The first help is dialogue in order better to understand the other’s point of view. In today’s world, there is a deep rooted sense of distrust of and lack of confidence in both Christian and Islamic cultures. To spend time in understanding one another is the first step. We need to form new sorts of alliances showing how there are new spheres of the economy emerging in both Islamic and Christian contexts such as the economy of communion, fair trade, etc. We need to show that there is a new vitality of civil society in both contexts. Moreover, it is vital that religion counteracts pessimistic approaches and brings a positive message. We must bring a message of hope, showing that we envision a new world. Together we can transform structures of greed into structures of grace.
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[text] => Voices on Structural Greed
interview to Luigino Bruni published on lutheranworld.org, october 13, 2011
More than 40 delegates, including a dozen Muslims, church officials, economists and secular social activists met at the end of September 2011 in Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia to address the question of structural greed.
Dr Luigino Bruni, professor of political economy at the University of Milan, Italy, and member of the FOCOLARE movement, was one of the participants at the Department for Theology and Studies consultation.
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Loppiano (Florence) – Martha Nussbaum is among the fe
I read with joy about the important article of Prof. Severino Dianich in this magazine (
The main event of the convention’s last day was the signing of the “agreement” between the Economy of Communion and Catholic University (CUEA) to develop the EoC together in the next few years. It was a solemn, strong, symbolic moment, full of meaning. The previous day, the Nuncio had celebrated liturgy with the whole university, and even if I don’t know what the liturgies of the first Christians at Antioch were like, neither those of Francis of Assisi, and I have never seen a liturgy in the Andes or in Australia, it’s truly hard to imagine that there can be any masses more beautiful than the ones I’ve seen here.
collaboration always more, also involving Sophia University Institute (Vice-chancellor Fr. John C. Maviiri attended the inauguration of Sophia).
Then, in this context what stood out strongly was to understand once again that, in order for the EoC to work, it needs a direct relationship with poverty. When Chiara Lubich launched the project, touched by the crown of thorns – by the poverty of Sao Paulo and of Brazil – she called the Brazilian community mainly to do something more to resolve that scandal. So Brazil took off, poor but many, building the business park, the 100 businesses…because the EoC was linked (today, perhaps less directly even in Brazil) to an evident and direct problem of poverty. If this direct contact is missing, the EoC businesses don’t understand the meaning of what they do. Besides, it is no longer enough to gather money in Europe to use it in other parts of the world within our movement, because that link is too weak, at least as the years go by. 
Nairobi, January 26, 2011 – Yes, yesterday the 1st Pan African EoC School concluded in Mariapolis Piero, and today, on the 30th anniversary of the death of Piero Pasolini (one of the first focolarini to bring the charism of unity to Africa) here in Nairobi, we have begin the conference at Catholic University. 
Nunciature, we presented the four sheets with signatures on the altar. Genevieve Sanze should have been the one to bring them and say a prayer during the offertory, but she asked me to do it. I was caught off guard. I tried to open my mouth to pray, and said "Lord, welcome these signatures which are the sign that we have offered our lives so that an economy of communion may spread in Africa...". But then I couldn't continue. I wasn't able to speak anymore because the emotion was so strong.
There was much love and much hope in those signatures. And I was without words, making a "great" impression in front of the Nunciature (to whom I had been presented as responsible of the project!). Anyways, even those tears produced more fraternity and equality with everyone, maybe showing that we had not gone there to speak about theories but that we felt the joys, hopes and pains of those lands on our shoulders. 
is something immense to me. They outlined some concrete projects, starting with themselves. With one business in Burundi, the Bangco Kabayan will join as partner in a micro-credit program, starting the bank's first activity outside the Philippines. 
beautiful, and many of the guests contributed artistic pieces (John and his wife Julie, Giampietro, Leo and Anneke, Teresa and her husband Francis and daughter Alexandra).
ahead by professors from our group. We must invest in Africa - there's need and enthusiasm for it. These "younger" peoples (editor's note: even if we're close to the Rift Valley) have a hunger for life and future, which is the pre-condition to understanding the EoC and, even before that, Chiara Lubich's charism of unity. If this "hunger" lacks, there is no hope that someone will understand the charism. Here, people want to live. I was touched by how much the young people here love to study. For them, getting into college is the goal of their life, because it means future. You see people studying at night, below street lamps because they have no light at home (and I thought of our young people who are often listless because they have everything, and therefore their desire is snuffed out like a candle). Without this desire and hunger for future, our movement cannot grow. 
women, beautiful with a beauty that has been a lost in the West, I saw women of the Gospel and of the Bible, with their concrete love for Jesus, for the apostles and for the prophets. Africa speaks much of women (I understood why someone had proposed that the Nobel prize be given to the women of Africa!), because in them they carry the greatest wounds and the greatest blessings of these peoples (including our women focolarine). 
The first day of the Pan African EoC School at Mariapolis Piero has begun with much joy and with the atmosphere that grand occasions have, characterized by both seriousness and happiness at the same time. There are around 160 people present, including numerous youth, from 12 African countries. To have so many countries represented is truly an important fact in itself. You can feel the enthusiasm, and there are all the premises so that the time of the EoC in Africa may begin. After various non-formal greetings - here in African, the meeting with the other is always solemn - I gave a brief introduction. It was the result of months of preparation for this meeting, even those after I arrived in Nairobi on Saturday, with the help of a few colleagues who live their everyday lives here in Africa.
economics, which contains all the contradictions and wounds of these lands, which have been plundered of people and resources for centuries, without mercy, and which continue in this condition today. You can feel that the Africans have a great desire to "get Africa back in their own hands", and even if the Focolare Movement has behaved differently compared to others, with true efforts in inculturation and service to Africa, these wounds are even felt here in this context. 
The charism is like a map that helps us face the unknown, with the serious hope of being able to find a "new world" (perhaps by looking for the Indies). But Columbus wrote his real map when he returned home. In the same way, only the Africans can bring about the African Economy of Communion. Right now, what is needed is to start with the EoC that has arisen from a charism. Then, there will be need of seamen, ships and captains, but most of all, they will need to have "nostalgia of the sea" (of a united world!), the desire to suffer, to search for a new world. If this nostalgia is missing, the boat will never set sail. Therefore: a "map" and "nostalgia of the sea".
new horizons. The EoC, as we familiarly say, is alive and growing in today’s history, in the crises and hopes of our time. Chiara’s proposal to give life to business and business parks, and then (in May of 1998) to a cultural movement that would give “scientific dignity” to the praxis in place, did not fall on deaf ears. It was embraced by thousands of people, mostly within but more recently even outside of the Focolare Movement – a diverse people united by the desire to cultivate the earth so that the seed of the charism of unity, thrown on the terrain of modern economy, grows according to the laws written in its DNA and brings fruits typical of the charism given to Chiara, as a gift for humanity today and tomorrow.
statute last-resort lenders, that is, in the case of speculative attacks, in serious crisis of the state, they must intervene with reserves to avoid accumulative effects (just remember what happened in Italy in 1993 when Ciampi was governor of the Bank of Italy and had to resort to inflation of the Lira).
Do you see anything else underneath this crisis? 
economists have substantial moral responsibility because the error is in "theoretical planning". They supposed that in practice, financial risk was "exogenous" by nature, that is, that with an increase in transactions the risk would be nullified. But even a first-year economy student knows that risk is "endogenous" in nature: it increases with an increase in transactions! 