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Commentaries - the Evil that We, Too, Are Feeding
by Luigino Bruni
published in Avvenire on 17/11/2015

Wars have always been fought by many poor, young and innocent people who were sent to die by a few rich, powerful and guilty ones, who did not die in the wars that they themselves wanted and that were fed by their interests. This ancient and deep truth is less obvious but no less true today. We are really in a world war, which is different from the wars of the twentieth century but no less dramatic. A war about which no one knows when and where it started, when, where and how it will end. It is a liquid war in a liquid society. The interests at stake are (almost) invisible, we do not know who wants it, who benefits from it, who does not want it to end.
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This inability to understand, which is present in all complex wars, is particularly strongly felt in this war, which should, however, not prevent us from the effort of thinking, and then fighting especially against the spread of false and ideological theses flooding in the aftermath of the massacre of Paris.
A very popular thesis locates the main, if not the only, reason for this war in religion, and in the inherently violent nature of Islam in particular. This thesis is as widespread as it is wrong. The Quran has its own ambivalence about violence, as we know. There are passages where it calls for a holy war. But there is also a version of fratricide between Cain and Abel in it that even more than the Judeo-Christian Bible, powerfully speaks of nonviolence. In the Quranic account, the two brothers are talking to each other in the fields. Abel senses that Cain is about to raise his hand against him to kill him, and tells him, "Even if you extend your hand to kill me, I am not extending my hand to kill you." (the Holy Quran, al-Ma'idah: Sura 5,28). Abel is presented as the first non-violent person in history, who dies so as not to become himself a murderer. In the Quran there is also this. As in the Bible there are the Benjamites, the daughter of Jephthah, the pages where we praise God because he smashed the heads of the enemy's children on the rocks, and there is the Lord of hosts, or Jesus who said he came to bring "not peace, but a sword."(Matthew 10). The sacred texts of religions were written in times when war was ordinary part of life ("at the time when kings go forth to battle," 2 Samuel 11). At the same time, the great religions - and Islam is among these few - have developed a wisdom literature (think of the Sufi tradition) that offered symbolic and allegorical readings even for the toughest and most archaic pages. In some periods the brightest pages of the Quran (and there are quite some) exerted such a great light that would obscure the dark ones. At other times violent steps were taken by those who, in the name of religion, were simply seeking power and wealth. Today, Islam is going through a difficult phase. Fundamentalist sects use pieces of the Quran to brainwash young people, victims and perpetrators of a nightmarish, mad dream in which they have fallen. They are but prey, fallen into the trap of the hunters of 'martyrs' to be used for purposes where the Quran is simply the snare. To combat this disease that has now sunken into the heart of Islam and is undermining it from within, it is necessary to strengthen its immune system to support the body, which as a whole is healthy but is suffering. It is the same body that has to expel the virus that has entered it more decisively and resist against those maddened cells that are making it weaker, inflicting a lot of pain on it. But all lovers of life must help Islam to manage. In the era of globalization, it cannot do it alone.
At the same time, we should not be so naive as to forget that in this war the economic stakes are enormous. It is by no coincidence that the terrorists of Paris came from the poorest Belgian town of Belgium, where youth unemployment is at around 50%. It is not for certain that the first Gulf War of 1991 was originated for the prevention of the spread of fundamentalism.
In recent months there is much talk of the weapons fuelling this war. We must talk about it even more, because it is a decisive element. Just a few days ago a transport of missiles left from Cagliari to the war-stricken Middle East that was produced and sold by Italian companies. France along with Italy is among the largest exporters of weapons of war in the Arab regions, although there is a 1990 law in Italy that would ban the sale of weapons to countries at war. The politicians who shed tears, perhaps sincerely, and declare all-out struggle against terrorism, are the same people who do nothing to reduce the export of weapons, and defend national industries that move large shares of GDP and hundreds of thousands of jobs. A serious international moratorium that would impose a total ban on arms sales to countries at war would surely not mark the end of the Caliphate, ISIS and terrorism, but it would be a decisive move in the right direction. You cannot feed the evil that you want to fight. And this is what we are doing, and for many years now. We do not realize it until some splinter of those wars gets into our houses and kills our children. In fact we know that as long as the economy and profit will be the last words of political choices, such strong powers that no policy can hold in, we shall continue to cry for grief that we ourselves contribute to cause.
Hollande was wrong to speak of "revenge" in the aftermath of the massacre, and then perpetrate it by bombing Syria on Sunday, thereby responding to blood with more blood. This is only the law of Lamech, from before the same 'law of an eye for an eye'. Revenge should never be the reaction of civilized peoples, even after one of the darkest nights of the recent history of Europe. The largest defeat would be to bring back words like 'revenge' in the lexicon of our democracies, which have been eliminated after thousands of years of civilization, blood and pain.
Finally we have to give our serious and decisive support to those who are boldly seeking peace and dialogue in these difficult times. First of all Pope Francis, who cannot be the only one or the only voice to ask for peace and non-violence. If millions were to cry out that the only answer to death is life, and if we were saying this along with many Muslims wounded and torn like us, if we made it heard in the streets, in social media, before parliaments then our 'no' to the production and sale of our arms to those who use them to kill and to kill us would perhaps provide a stronger echo to the prophetic words of Pope Francis. They may have the strength to move even the lower economic interests, which increasingly control and dominate the world, religions and life.
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    [text] => 
Commentaries - the Evil that We, Too, Are Feeding
by Luigino Bruni
published in Avvenire on 17/11/2015

Wars have always been fought by many poor, young and innocent people who were sent to die by a few rich, powerful and guilty ones, who did not die in the wars that they themselves wanted and that were fed by their interests. This ancient and deep truth is less obvious but no less true today. We are really in a world war, which is different from the wars of the twentieth century but no less dramatic. A war about which no one knows when and where it started, when, where and how it will end. It is a liquid war in a liquid society. The interests at stake are (almost) invisible, we do not know who wants it, who benefits from it, who does not want it to end.
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    [title] => Besides GDP, there exists a type of wealth that cannot be measured as "flow"
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"Bes" Report/26 - Relational wealth hiding by the side of GDP. In the era of the common goods it is the stocks (environmental, relational, spiritual and social) that must return to the centre of the stage
by Luigino Bruni
published in 


    

pdf


Avvenire

(49 KB)


 on 11/08/2015
The topic of welfare, well-being, public happiness or social well-being has been and still is at the centre of the Italian tradition of civil economy. In recent years there was a significant growth of the debate around the need to go beyond GDP or, according to some, to start using other indicators telling about the other dimensions of well-being as well.
However, in this coupling of GDP with other, non-economic indicators there is a serious risk. The emerging scenario is very similar to what happens in football.
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After the game, some statistical data are shown on the screen with a number of indicators: the percentage of ball possession of the two teams, the fouls made and sustained, the number of shots on goal etc. But, located on top of the statistics tables, the number of goals is the indicator that dominates: it is the only thing that really matters, and that no statistics on its side can change, not even remotely. Human development, ecological footprint, Bes (short for "benessere equo e sostenibile" - Equitable and Sustainable Well-Being; a category created by the Italian National Institute of Statistics) and other similar indicators today are very much like ball possession and the number of shots on goal, which act only as 'contours' for the number of goals scored (i.e. GDP). How to get people take other indicators of well-being really seriously and overcome the idea that GDP is the only important figure in the economic game of our society?
First, a bit of history. GDP, as we know it today, is a relatively new concept, since it is linked to the development of national accounting starting from the thirties of the twentieth century. Its actual founding fathers (or grandfathers) were the so-called Physiocrats, French scholars of the mid-eighteenth century who were convinced that the economic strength of a country is not measured by its capital (assets) or value stocks (as it had been thought until then, as the wealth of a nation had been largely based on the amount of gold owned by it). Instead, they said that what really mattered in terms of wealth was flow, i.e. income. Since then we have more or less all been thinking that a people is not made "rich" by its wealth of land, raw materials, coastline, museums, cathedrals, cultural or human capital, but by the ability to "turn over" those capitals in order to 'make them profitable' and generate new types of flow.
Today we know, and in Italy we see more and more, that if a people is not able to ensure that its funds are used in productive ways, it remains poor, even if its citizens are sitting on top of gold mines. The annual flow of new wealth is also a creation of the physiocrats: it serves to tell us how rich a national community is. So before doing away with GDP, let us treasure this value in its DNA: a person, a community, a region remains economically poor if it is not in the (institutional, cultural and political) conditions to transform its capital into income. But when a country - despite the capital - can no longer produce revenue, the income kills the profit, and societies start to decline. Other indicators or more sophisticated economic indicators are very useful in these cases, but let's not forget that without a flow indicator, we cannot measure our ability to value our capitals, to see if we are enhancing or depleting them over time.
For this reason, I believe that a major task in terms of more sophisticated measurements of the economic and social development of a country would be not to rely on GDP only but to consider some additional, but equally trusted and relevant indicators that year after year are capable of grasping the state of health of our capitals, especially that of our social, environmental, cultural, relational and spiritual capital. Despite the important lesson of the Physiocrats, it is still true that revenue (flow) is born by capital (stock), and if capital deteriorates or expires, revenue decreases and eventually disappears.
In the era of the common goods that we dramatically entered with the third millennium, stocks are expected to return to occupy centre stage in the economic, social and political world. The environmental issue, but also the relational and social (migration, social inclusion, terrorism...) ones, and other topics that have become central again in the era of the common goods, are all matters of stock, because they are linked to forms of capital, whether present or absent - we now know from many studies how much intolerance and racism are connected to the lack of cultural and artistic 'capital' in people. But there's more. Excessive emphasis on creating flows, including large financial flows that dominate by far among the flows of goods and real services, is producing many serious effects on the stocks of our economies and our planet. We must learn how to properly measure our assets, which, like non-renewable energy, are undergoing severe impoverishment precisely because of the great invasion of income flows (measured by GDP).
Finally, at the root of any development of new measurements, there is a more general cultural and political question that involves the business world directly. As long as the only indicators for the success of companies (especially large ones) are the profits achieved and the indicators consulted are purely economic, and as long as the "social reports" are glossy publications handed over to the stakeholders during corporate parties, without the 'social' data having any relevance in making important choices (the reconfirming or new appointment of managers, members of the board etc.), it will be impossible for our society to value other indicators apart from GDP.
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    [metadesc] => Quella ricchezza relazionale nascosta a fianco del Pil. Nell'era dei beni comuni sono gli stock (ambientali, relazionali, spirituli e sociali) che devono ritornare al centro della scena
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"Bes" Report/26 - Relational wealth hiding by the side of GDP. In the era of the common goods it is the stocks (environmental, relational, spiritual and social) that must return to the centre of the stage
by Luigino Bruni
published in 


    

pdf


Avvenire

(49 KB)


 on 11/08/2015
The topic of welfare, well-being, public happiness or social well-being has been and still is at the centre of the Italian tradition of civil economy. In recent years there was a significant growth of the debate around the need to go beyond GDP or, according to some, to start using other indicators telling about the other dimensions of well-being as well.
However, in this coupling of GDP with other, non-economic indicators there is a serious risk. The emerging scenario is very similar to what happens in football.
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    [title] => Laudato Si' (Praise be to you)
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Laudato Si' (Praise be to you) - is far from being anti-business. But as we peruse it let us allow ourselves to be led gently through the metaphorical woodlands of the encyclical where the Holy Father Pope Francis’s spiritual economy is buoyant.
by Luigino Bruni
published in Avvenire on 24/06/2015
The cries of many victims, of many who have been 'discarded', raises a question of justice which weighs heavily upon our capitalist system;  a question that is all the more serious because it is no longer being seen or heard. Pope Francis is the only figure of authority on global moral issues, who due to his particular charism, is giving recognition and ear to today's pressing ethical question (corporate social responsibility), in the face of which he is not afraid to raise radical questions (generated by his fraternal concern and love -  agape ). 

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No other 'world organisation or body' exists that is as free as he is from powerful economic and political forces, a freedom that not even the United Nations or the European Commission can lay claim to, let alone politicians at national level, who continue on in their practice of "selling a poor person for a pair of sandals - (Book of Amos), as indeed Italy is at risk of doing with its introduction of new gambling laws.
A number of commentators, self-professed supporters of the free market economy, claim that the Encyclical Laudato si'  is opposed to it ; that not only is it a statement against modernism, but a reflection of the Pope's own Marxist views, going almost as far as predicting a global environmental catastrophe. But far from it. In fact, it does just the opposite.  Pope Francis focuses on reminding us that both markets and business enterprise are precious allies of the common good as long as they do not become the 'only rule'; or that the 'part' (the market) does not try to become the whole (life itself).  The global market is a necessary part of the life of society which contributes to the common good (there are many examples quoted of responsible business owners and technology being used at the serving of the economy and providing employment).   However, it is not the full story, nor the most important.
Pope Francis also seeks to remind all participants of the global economy of their vocation to reciprocity and "mutual benefit". It is on this basis that he criticises companies who exploit (all too often) people and land;  by doing so, they negate the very nature of what the global economy is supposed to be, increasing their wealth at the expense of impoverishing other weaker players.
 
On a second level, Pope Francis raises an issue that has been systematically neglected:  the notion of "efficiency", globalization’s new "in-word", as being solely about technology and therefore ethically neutral, cannot be upheld (34).  The calculation of cost-benefits (cost justifications), which underpin every 'rational' decision by companies and public administration, depends precisely upon what we choose to include in the costs and perceive in the benefits.  For decades we have considered companies 'efficient' who neglected to include in their costs any damage done to the sea, rivers or atmosphere.  The Pope invites us to enlarge our calculations to all types of species, including them as part of our cosmic fraternity,   extending this reciprocity to all creatures, giving them a voice in our economic and political budgets.
But there is still a third level.  Even after acknowledging "mutual benefit " as the fundamental law of civil society, extending it to include our relationship with all living species and with the earth, it cannot and must not be regarded as the only law in respect of life.  Though important, it is not all there is.  Indian economist and philosopher Amartya Sen, refers also to “duties of power". We have a responsibility towards creation because technology is new form of power, the outcome of which can have unilaterally serious consequences for other living creatures to which we are all linked.  The universe is filled with living things and this calls for responsibility. Moreover, there are times when moral duties come before benefits; the concept of "mutual benefit" does not cover the full spectrum of responsibility and justice.  Even the best market, if it becomes the only criteria, may grow into a monster.  There is no economic logic that convinces us to leave forests intact for those to come in thousands of years’ time, and yet we have moral obligations towards the future generations who will inherit and inhabit our earth.
The question of 'ecological debt' (51), is one of the most significant and most prophetic passages of the whole Encyclical. The widespread indiscriminate accumulation of national debt can bring entire nations to their knees (as in the case of Greece), and hold many others to ransom.  Much aggression is used in the name of debt and credit.  Yet a great 'ecological debt' exists between North and South, between the 10% of humanity which has increased its wealth, whilst burdening everyone with the cost to the atmosphere, and continuing to contribute to "climate change".  
The term "climate change" is itself misleading, as it is ethically neutral. The Pope, instead, speaks of "pollution” and the deterioration of that common good which is our climate (23). Climate deterioration contributes to the desertification of entire regions, having a direct impact on poverty, causing deaths and the migration of peoples (25). It is this 'debt of ecology and justice’ that we fail to take into account when we close our borders to the many thousands who arrive because we have burned their houses as a result of our actions. This ecological debt seems to count for nothing in the political world order, there is no Troika to condemn one country for polluting or causing the desertification of another country and so the 'ecological debt' to which the great and the powerful are increasingly indifferent, continues to rise.
Lastly, a word of advice, to whoever has yet to read this wonderful encyclical, do not be tempted to read it sitting at your desk or relaxing on the sofa.  Go out into the middle of a field or into the woods, to begin your meditation on this canticle of Pope Francis. The earth he speaks of is real and tangible, filled with the sights, sounds and scents of an earth that is loved.  Then, go to a poor area on the margins of society, to conclude your reading, surrounded by poor people, and look at the world with its rich and greedy living, with poor beggars on its doorstep and embrace at least one of them, like Pope Francis.  It is from such places as these that we will learn once again to be 'in awe' (11) of the marvels of the earth and of fellow human beings. Perhaps then we will understand and pray the words "Praise be to you".
 
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Laudato Si' (Praise be to you) - is far from being anti-business. But as we peruse it let us allow ourselves to be led gently through the metaphorical woodlands of the encyclical where the Holy Father Pope Francis’s spiritual economy is buoyant.
by Luigino Bruni
published in Avvenire on 24/06/2015
The cries of many victims, of many who have been 'discarded', raises a question of justice which weighs heavily upon our capitalist system;  a question that is all the more serious because it is no longer being seen or heard. Pope Francis is the only figure of authority on global moral issues, who due to his particular charism, is giving recognition and ear to today's pressing ethical question (corporate social responsibility), in the face of which he is not afraid to raise radical questions (generated by his fraternal concern and love -  agape ). 

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    [title] => Care: the Secret to Success
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    [introtext] => 
An Interview with Canadian Political Scientist Jennifer Nedelsky
by Luigino Bruni
published in Avvenire on 4/10/2014
Canadian political scientist Jennifer Nedelsky, professor at the University of Toronto, is one of the most innovative voices in the debate on the issues of care, rights and social relations. She is convinced that in our time there is a big priority that, however and unfortunately, remains much in the background of the life of democracies: the profound rethinking of the relationship between work and care, and thus between men and women, the young and the old, the rich and the poor. In fact, it is a critical issue in a world with more and more elderly people, and with elderly people who, thank God, live longer and longer. Without a collective and serious breakthrough in the culture of care in relation to the culture of work, democracy and equality among people are basically denied. I've known professor Nedelsky for a few years (and that explains the informal register of our interview); this time I met her in Italy at the Sophia University Institute of Loppiano (Florence). I asked her some questions on issues that I believe should be placed at the centre of the political and civil life of our country today.
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Why do you think there is something wrong with the purchasing of care services in the market, using money so that the richer people can “buy” assistance from poorer people? At the bottom of the market, after all, there is the encounter between different people with different “goods” that can be exchanged for a mutual benefit.
I'm not absolutely against the “care market”. In my kind of system it would be possible to buy a certain amount of care, because in my vision people, for example women, would have more free time for their children and also to work. My proposal is that each person should dedicate some time to care for themselves and for others. What differentiates my approach from others (I'm thinking of those who propose a salary for housewives) is that I wish that all adult citizens (men and women, from all walks of life and from all social classes) were engaged in activities of free (i.e. unpaid) care. I would want them to be able to provide for their own care instead of “buying” someone in the market to do it for them, and I wish they would also take up the care of their family, their parents, and even their communities. For at least 12 hours per week.
We should not forget, either, that behind the “care market” there is also a question of power between people and regions of the world, where whoever is richer can pass work that he does not like on to the poorer ones. Democracies have struggled for centuries to reduce or eliminate the possibility of a powerful few having poor people at their disposal. Today, however, we are reintroducing something like that in a “neo-feudalism” where money has taken the place of blue blood, having the same function of dominance over people. Let's go back to “your” hours of care: those weekly 12 hours would be spent in the family, but, as I understand, also away from home.
Yes, and I am thinking and talking about all types of care. If at a given moment of your life you have important responsibilities (towards your children or elderly parents...) maybe in those years, your care will be donated exclusively (or almost) inside the family. But when these obligations are over, you are free to take care of others within the larger circle of the community to which you belong.
Would you want this “care-for-all” to become mandatory?
Every norm is mandatory, although the forms of enforcement and application vary according to the type of norm. What I think is very important is that the norm that I propose (“part-time care for all and part-time work for all”) should not be imposed from above by the state and its laws, but become effective as a result of the powerful mechanisms of esteem and social judgement. Let me give you an example, and I am not choosing it randomly: because of the social norms about the man-woman relationship in force today, women do a tremendous amount of unpaid work at home, and this is only because of social norms that are very effective and fundamental in our lives. It shows that all the norms “oblige us” and not only the ones dictated by laws. Let me give you another example: in our days, if a man in his thirties attends a party and says he has never worked and does not intend to look for a job either, he admits something that generates a strong negative social judgement, while only one or two centuries ago such a social condition was a sign nobility and social esteem (and envy). I want a world where if you're a person (man or woman) and you show up at a party and introduce yourself saying “I've never done any care work for myself or for others”, you end up simply ashamed because you get strong disapproval from others. And the same should happen to you if you say, “I do not have time to cook, to iron or to take care of my parents or my community because I have a very important job that keeps me completely busy.” We should soon get to say that these lives of “all work and no care” are socially immature and as such they do not deserve our respect. And so we should overcome them the same way as we have surpassed the idea of ​​nobility associated with high income and no work.
It seems clear that such a cultural change should begin not only from the family but also from school.
Yes, I think a lot about schools. I am convinced, for example, that before graduating, every young person should be able to plan their weekly menu, know its costs, know where to go shopping and how to cook the goods they buy. Every adult should be able to do these things, and not only entrust them entirely to the market or to women, because no one has the right to think that there are others who can do these things in their place.
In your books you propose some major changes in the workplace.
Certainly. I think there are two main aspects that are deeply intertwined. The first concerns equality between the sexes. We are living in a time of great stress for families. But there is something that is not emphasised enough: the policy makers are, in general, people who have not done, and are not currently doing any jobs of care. Generally they have no idea about it...
...one would say it is because they are rich or because they are male, or both.
... They know nothing of these fundamental dimensions of human life. So they make policies of care and welfare without having a daily experience of it. So we have to eliminate or reduce the “gap” between those who actually engage in care and those who legislate on it, and then readjust both the workplace and the norms around care. As for work, I wish that no one worked for more than thirty hours per week. And as for care, no adult should do less than 12 hours of care per week. Everyone must provide care, and no one should stay at home unemployed, and everyone must have a paid job that, even if it is part-time work, has to be seen as a “good” job (with full rights, proper wages, etc..). For this reason, the term “part-time” should be revised and it should not be understood as it is understood today, but as a new way to experience work, a new “full time job” for all, along with care. But, I repeat, I believe in a culture change. If you say to someone, ‘My work as a doctor or engineer is really important and I have to work 80 hours a week,’ people should say, ‘You are not a good doctor’ or ‘you are not a good engineer.’ Too much work (and no care) should change from being considered an element of estimation to be seen as a factor of blame..
It's like saying that we would need to change the idea of ​​“social esteem”, which should become a much broader concept than mere professional respect. We should respect workers who are also people with a capability to do anything else besides work, and especially to take care of themselves and others. I fully agree. But don't you think there are jobs that by their nature require much effort and many hours of work to achieve excellence (medicine, science, politics, priesthood, sport...)?
My system would allow you to reach excellence, absolutely. If you are a scientist and you are conducting a complex experiment, you can and you have to work even 12 hours a day and 90 hours a week. There are many jobs that require very intensive periods. But then you have to catch up and take some days off. My thirty hours are an indicative average for the long term. But no one should be able to say, ‘My work is very important, and someone else has to wash my socks.’
So what you say is actually a criticism of the current form of capitalism, isn't it?
Yes and no. I wish that my system was applied immediately, not only in a hypothetical different company. I am certainly concerned about our financial capitalism, especially because of its inequality. Think of the growing gap between wages in our major businesses, which is an economic failure, but also a political and moral one. It was not always so. Capitalism has experienced much lower wages for top managers, and there used to be more democracy. So introducing 12 hours off a week for all would also be an effective way of increasing democracy and true equality between people.
But we must realise that our capitalism today is going in the opposite direction: in the USA the weekly hours of work are now 47-48 on average. I would like a cultural change in the family, in business and in politics. But I would like it to happen immediately, by starting right now to educate ourselves to a different notion of excellence, where excellence is being extended to our ability to love, to care for others. Instead of saying, ‘You're an excellent doctor,’ we should start saying: ‘You are an excellent person, because in addition to your work you also take care of yourself and your community.’ Excellence should be interpreted within the framework of life, and not only at work.
It's as if you were to invite us to look for a new, “relational” flourishing of humanity.
Yes, it is a new idea of​​ “success” or “flourishing of humanity” that we need, where work and money are resized, and the criteria for success are many. But I will not give up on work: I myself love my job, and I hope that more and more people will be able to work following their own vocation, and that, together, they will have time to do many other things that they like doing."
 
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    [text] => 
An Interview with Canadian Political Scientist Jennifer Nedelsky
by Luigino Bruni
published in Avvenire on 4/10/2014
Canadian political scientist Jennifer Nedelsky, professor at the University of Toronto, is one of the most innovative voices in the debate on the issues of care, rights and social relations. She is convinced that in our time there is a big priority that, however and unfortunately, remains much in the background of the life of democracies: the profound rethinking of the relationship between work and care, and thus between men and women, the young and the old, the rich and the poor. In fact, it is a critical issue in a world with more and more elderly people, and with elderly people who, thank God, live longer and longer. Without a collective and serious breakthrough in the culture of care in relation to the culture of work, democracy and equality among people are basically denied. I've known professor Nedelsky for a few years (and that explains the informal register of our interview); this time I met her in Italy at the Sophia University Institute of Loppiano (Florence). I asked her some questions on issues that I believe should be placed at the centre of the political and civil life of our country today.
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Commentaries - The Choice that Denies the Goal of Economy
by Luigino Bruni
published in Avvenire on 29/05/2014
We always knew that the Gross Domestic Product does not measure much and that many of the things that it measures it measures badly - and we often and willingly say this on these pages. But no one has ever thought of eliminating GDP to let other indicators of well-being take its place, because although democracy has a growing need for more economic and social indicators, it is still important to have an indicator of the production of goods and services of a country. The GDP is full of data that say little about our well-being or express exactly the opposite (e.g. gambling).
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But so far all this huge amount of data - of a discordant ethical sign - moved (or we wanted it to move) within the boundaries marked by the rule of law. According to the announcement made last week, if we really continue in the direction indicated by Eurostat, in addition to the usual ambivalence of the data we will see a change in their nature: the GDP will not have any more connection with civil life and the ethical sphere.
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Statistics, a noble art of living a good social life, has always had a very rich humanist tradition in Italy because it was considered an integral part of civilization, to use the expression of one of the founders of modern statistics, the Milanese Melchiorre Gioia. Therefore, it is to be hoped strongly that the ISTAT (the Italian National Institute for Statistics) is going to take action in promoting protest and action at the European level, relying on its roots and history as a point of departure. Statistics is the mirror of the culture of a country because we measure something we already know and want to "see", doing this on the basis of civilization and an idea of the common good. He who today wants to introduce this change in the GDP is saying that in terms of nature there is no difference any more between an entrepreneur who produces and pays taxes and the mafioso entrepreneur, between those who hire workforce and those who make people work illegally, between those who respect the law and those who deny it. Actually, this news denies centuries of tradition and humanist statistics and offends those who work and live within the law. This way we continue to humiliate honesty and virtue, and to serve the evil and the dishonest, giving them even civil and economic dignity. Till when and how far do we want to go in this direction?
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    [text] => 
Commentaries - The Choice that Denies the Goal of Economy
by Luigino Bruni
published in Avvenire on 29/05/2014
We always knew that the Gross Domestic Product does not measure much and that many of the things that it measures it measures badly - and we often and willingly say this on these pages. But no one has ever thought of eliminating GDP to let other indicators of well-being take its place, because although democracy has a growing need for more economic and social indicators, it is still important to have an indicator of the production of goods and services of a country. The GDP is full of data that say little about our well-being or express exactly the opposite (e.g. gambling).
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Church and Economics - Pope Francis says it's not enough to ease poverty by the crumbs of "non-intentional" effects of individual actions: he calls the entire banquet into question
by Luigino Bruni
Published inAvvenire on January 30, 2014

There is no better definition for Pope Francis' Evangelii Gaudium than “apostolic exhortation”. Exhortation comes from the Latin verb ex-hortari which has the double meaning of “induce, in cite to do something”, and “console, raise again” (the root is the same as that of comfort). Evangelii Gaudium is in fact a document that strongly encourages us to chaned to their Churches (let’s just think of Paul): they, too, used strong words and harsh registers when necessary. At the same time, and still imitating the apostolic attitude, while this exhortation incites and pushes us to get back on the right track, it also comforts us and helps us in the act of rising to our feet again.
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Pope Francis gave us a reading that is powerful and comforting at the same time, it strongly encourages us to change, but in between the powerful words you can smell the good shepherd whose first, heartfelt concern is the welfare of the flock, especially when - like now - it seems dangerously close to a ravine, which is very dangerous because it is preceded by green pastures, but there are steep and deadly cliffs hiding behind the leaves. It follows then that the first serious mistake not to commit while reading this exhortation is to reduce its message to false consolation that's pleasing to all, thereby cutting off the strongest argument by normalising and reducing its prophetic message encouraging us to change course.
Taking an illustrious and influential example, if we say that Evangelii Gaudium should be read “through the eyes of the professor-bishop-pope who was born and raised in Argentina” (Michael Novak, “Corriere della Sera”, 12 December 2013), it means that we want to disempower the universal cultural and general significance of the exhortation, and classify it as actually irrelevant. I am, however, convinced that the only way to honour the exhortation and receive it as a gift for the common good is if we do not dampen its severe criticism (comforting for those who understand it) of the current phase of the capitalist system. Which capitalism does the Pope criticise? We all know that there have been many different capitalisms in the past, but we also know that the current phase of development of the world economy, the capitalism labelled as individualist that placed finance as its helmsman is becoming the only capitalism: it makes us forget all the cultural and economic biodiversity of the twentieth century, when there were many forms of capitalism that could be ascribed to many different anthropologies and worldviews.
So the criticism that Pope Bergoglio issues on the current version of individualistic and financial capitalism is a critique of general relevance that touches a key idea of the ideology which is the basis of our model of development. It is articulated in two points: the excluding nature of our economic system (no. 53), and the idea that he calls "trickle-down theories" (no. 54). Market economy has achieved an ethical statute for itself, and was therefore morally accepted by the mediaeval Franciscans and (with some major reserves) by the Dominicans and the Christian community (albeit with different variations and accents in passing from the Catholic to the Protestant world), exactly for its capability to include the excluded, and not only for the creation of wealth. In fact, if we contrast the origins of market economy with feudalism, that is, the only historically available alternative, it is undeniable that the historical development of the market economy has brought with it the productive inclusion of millions of soil-bound servants first, then farmers and even women a few decades ago, who - forced to stay on the margins of civilized life for millennia - have become citizens and free, working and consuming people, too.
The development of the free market was the other side of the coin, inseparable from the development of democracy, human rights and all kinds of freedom. This is history. And today? Let's not forget that the Pope writes in 2013, in a historical period in which market economy (if we wish we can call it capitalism as well, although it is not necessary: it's enough to say market economy) is struck by a serious illness, which has two major symptoms: the drift of individuals towards loneliness, unhappiness and consumerism (“The great danger in today’s world, pervaded as it is by consumerism, is the desolation and anguish born of a complacent yet covetous heart, the feverish pursuit of frivolous pleasures, and a blunted conscience.” no. 2), and the financialisation of the economy.
We cannot forget that when speculative finance takes ownership and control of banks, businesses and therefore jobs and families, there are at least two serious civilian pathologies: income dominates the profits of employers and workers, and relationships between agents become increasingly similar to the so-called “zero-sum games”. An increasing number of financial transactions (not all) are configured just like gamble where the winnings of one party correspond exactly to the loss of the other (as in every betting game). When the economy takes this "slot-machine" turn - a turn that's very visible today, and hopefully not irreversible - the market betrays its inclusive nature and is no longer based on the golden rule of "mutual benefit" (of Smith or Genovesi). And so it should be criticized. The “trickle-down theories” are, beyond exegesis and linguistic translations, a pillar of the capitalist ideology, according to which when the tide comes and raises all boats, even the smallest will be lifted up: the wealth of the rich is good for poor, too, as they collect the crumbs that accidentally fall from the table of the powerful.
This is a version of capitalism that might be called that of the "rich man" (of the Biblical parable of “The Rich Man and Lazarus”, cf: Lk 16:19-31, the translator) who, while eating plentifully lets random crumbs fall to the dogs under the table - unintentionally. For Pope Francis it is not enough to leave justice and the care for poverty and exclusions to the effects of "unintentional" actions that are only intentional when it comes to individual interests. The crumbs will not do; he wants to call the entire banquet into question: who gets to eat and how, who is left outside and away from the table and the tables, as well as social relations that are hidden behind the people. His is a legitimate and necessary criticism of the idea of market solidarity and the common good being mainly entrusted to indirect effects.
The social virtues (and justice is always the queen of the social virtues) arise from the individual virtues, which are very intentional, the virtues of those who can see the new embodiments of the poor Lazarus and do not leave them under the tables where they are not even accompanied by the dogs any more (as dogs are finally treated with increasing respect and dignity). So the Evangelii Gaudium is a document that should be read within the great classical, humanist and Christian tradition of the common good - as in Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas and the Franciscans up till Genovesi or Toniolo. In fact they never thought of the common good as a matter of unintended positive effects of actions towards their own respective interests, but associated it with the private and public virtues. This tradition considers the common good as the result of public actions and civil remedies, designed to mitigate the passions, especially through the appropriate institutions, and does not see it as an indirect effect of “natural” and spontaneous actions of individuals - so would say Amyntor Fanfani or Federico Caffé. Not all forms of the search for personal interests are good, fair and equitable. 
The idea of the market that is born of this tradition - of which Francis is an interpreter and creative pursuer - is in fact a great undertaking of intentional cooperation and the exercising of the social virtues, a community and personal affair: “We can no longer trust in the unseen forces and the invisible hand of the market.” (no. 204). Let's take it seriously, and give birth to a new era of economic thought, worthy of Pope Francis' exhortation.
 Translated by Eszter Kató
 Further commentaries by Luigino Bruni in Avvenire are available through the Avvenire Editorial
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    [text] => 
Church and Economics - Pope Francis says it's not enough to ease poverty by the crumbs of "non-intentional" effects of individual actions: he calls the entire banquet into question
by Luigino Bruni
Published inAvvenire on January 30, 2014

There is no better definition for Pope Francis' Evangelii Gaudium than “apostolic exhortation”. Exhortation comes from the Latin verb ex-hortari which has the double meaning of “induce, in cite to do something”, and “console, raise again” (the root is the same as that of comfort). Evangelii Gaudium is in fact a document that strongly encourages us to chaned to their Churches (let’s just think of Paul): they, too, used strong words and harsh registers when necessary. At the same time, and still imitating the apostolic attitude, while this exhortation incites and pushes us to get back on the right track, it also comforts us and helps us in the act of rising to our feet again.
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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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