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Every religious experience has a consumer dimension. People do not go to church, and did not go in past centuries, solely to fulfill a moral obligation, out of fear of hell, or to avoid discrimination by their fellow citizens.
by Luigino Bruni
 
published in Messaggero di Sant'Antonio on 02/05/2025
 
The language of economics can sometimes help us understand phenomena that have little to do with economics. Religion, and faith in general, are among those realities that reveal something about themselves when expressed in the language of economics. Every religious experience has a consumer dimension. People do not go to church, and did not go in past centuries, solely to fulfill a moral obligation, out of fear of hell, or to avoid discrimination from their fellow villagers. People also went to church because they enjoyed immersing themselves for an hour in a positive atmosphere, feasting their eyes on paintings of saints, the Virgin Mary, and Jesus, touching the statues of St. Anthony and St. Rita, and breathing in the smell of incense. And then we loved the processions, the singing, the canopies, the gunshots, the Via Crucis when we all cried and recognized ourselves in Jesus, crucified on our own crosses, and rose again with him. In a short, sad, and poor life, Masses and services were our luxury goods: we entered those beautiful places and felt, for a while, almost like the rich and the lords. We too consumed emotions, relational goods, comfort goods, music, art, songs, and the Eucharist.

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Even today, we do not understand religious practice without its consumer dimension. If we look at the places and communities that still attract young people, we certainly find many consumer goods that satisfy people's needs. Experiences of strong emotions, singing together, witnessing healings, entering into a sort of ecstatic trance with songs sung and repeated for a long time, all together. And we also find the consumption of relational goods: being together with others, feeling the same things, saying the same prayers, performing the same acts of service. Certainly, we are together doing something “for” others and “for” God, but also, and perhaps above all, to do something “with” others. There is no religious experience without this special kind of consumption, and if a community that was once flourishing and is now in crisis wants to attempt a new spring, it must ask itself what it can offer people in response to their new needs.
But, and here's the point, if common consumption and the collective comfort zone exceed a critical threshold, that consumption turns from a blessing into a curse. The day we attend Mass, meetings, and services solely or primarily to consume emotions, religion becomes a mere comfort and a form of spiritual consumerism. It is an experience that no longer asks anything important of us, but merely entertains us with emotional flows very similar to watching TV or a show. The wisdom of community leaders lies almost entirely in understanding when necessary consumption is crossing that invisible threshold, and stopping while there is still time. How? By leaving home, leaving churches and comfortable places to return poor and free along the road. Like Francis, like Christ.
 
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Every religious experience has a consumer dimension. People do not go to church, and did not go in past centuries, solely to fulfill a moral obligation, out of fear of hell, or to avoid discrimination by their fellow citizens.
by Luigino Bruni
 
published in Messaggero di Sant'Antonio on 02/05/2025
 
The language of economics can sometimes help us understand phenomena that have little to do with economics. Religion, and faith in general, are among those realities that reveal something about themselves when expressed in the language of economics. Every religious experience has a consumer dimension. People do not go to church, and did not go in past centuries, solely to fulfill a moral obligation, out of fear of hell, or to avoid discrimination from their fellow villagers. People also went to church because they enjoyed immersing themselves for an hour in a positive atmosphere, feasting their eyes on paintings of saints, the Virgin Mary, and Jesus, touching the statues of St. Anthony and St. Rita, and breathing in the smell of incense. And then we loved the processions, the singing, the canopies, the gunshots, the Via Crucis when we all cried and recognized ourselves in Jesus, crucified on our own crosses, and rose again with him. In a short, sad, and poor life, Masses and services were our luxury goods: we entered those beautiful places and felt, for a while, almost like the rich and the lords. We too consumed emotions, relational goods, comfort goods, music, art, songs, and the Eucharist.

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    [title] => The resources of our South
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The civil talent or the ‘spirit’ of a country, its governing bodies and people lies in knowing how to create true civil pride and hope starting from real signs that are present in the past.
by Luigino Bruni
published in Messaggero di Sant'Antonio on 03/02/2025
Civil Economy, whose golden age was the Neapolitan 18th century and whose founder was the abbot Antonio Genovesi from Salerno, stands for the truest and deepest spirit of our economy and society. In Lezioni di Economia civile (Lessons of Civil Economy), published by Genovesi between 1765 and 1769, we read very important pages about Italy and its South, which seem to have been written not yesterday, but tomorrow: ‘The Greeks called Magna Graecia and many other provinces of this Kingdom the land of wine; but they could also call it the land of grain, and not only of wheat, but of every other kind. Sicily was the granary of Rome, and now it belongs to many peoples. Its wines are the nectar drunk at the best tables, not only those of the English, but also those of the French, who are so proud of their Burgundy. Silk countries, and today almost the only serious ones in Europe. A land of cotton wool, which, by everyone's admission, is the best in the world; a land of wool, linen, hemp, all kinds of animals; a land of cheese, manna etc. etc. etc., a land of great minds...’ (p. 325 - in the Italian edition)

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And so, after having sung the praises of his land, Genovesi asks himself, and we join him there: why is it that Southern Italy, despite all this wealth, does not go through an adequate economic development? Why is it that these lands do not generate sufficient ‘money’? ‘I,’ continues Genovesi, ‘will never believe that there is a lack of ingenuity. Who can be persuaded that temperate climates can generate greater brains than cold ones? Nor that there is a lack of willingness to work; there is no country in Europe where people work harder, and sometimes suffer more, than the two Sicilies. Therefore, we must conclude that there is a lack of courage, and that people are labouring badly there’. These are some very beautiful words about our South, especially if we consider that today the main problem in our southern lands is the lack of esteem shown by the rest of the country and its leaders, the perfect symbol of which is the proposal for ‘differentiated autonomy’.
For Genovesi, the reason for this lack of “courage” and good “labour” (work) is clear and twofold: inadequate schooling and the demoralisation of entrepreneurs, something that does not affect the South only. ‘The reason’, he writes, ‘can only be either the rudeness of the artisans or the pressure of the spirit; the former is a consequence of not having schools of design and the crafts among us; the latter of the wrong method of finance. The greatest burden of finance has fallen on the arts (forms of craftsmanship, trades - the tr.), and it should have been based on land; that is why the arts have been discouraged and humiliated”. True words. Yesterday, just as today, there is no future for a country when taxation continues to “discourage” and “depress” the trades, that is, artisans and businesses, and favours income. The privileges granted to income – financial, from consultants, real estate, etc. – are always the first indicator of economic and social systems being still feudal, or neo-feudal. Genovesi was aware that those qualities and those firsts in the Italian economy and ingenuity were undoubtedly real virtues, but they were mixed with vices that were no less real, as always, just like everywhere.
But a generous reading of his (work on the) Kingdom inspired the Neapolitan reforms and revolutions, it was brief but still brilliant, and it continues to feed the tradition of civil economy. The civil talent or the “spirit” of a country, its governing bodies and people lies in knowing how to create true civil pride and hope starting from real signs that are present in the past. Take away this ability from a people and all that will remain is the art of denigration, criticism, pessimism, abuse, mutual malevolence. We can no longer afford to have this happen to us.
Credit Foto: © Giuliano Dinon / Archivio MSA
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The civil talent or the ‘spirit’ of a country, its governing bodies and people lies in knowing how to create true civil pride and hope starting from real signs that are present in the past.
by Luigino Bruni
published in Messaggero di Sant'Antonio on 03/02/2025
Civil Economy, whose golden age was the Neapolitan 18th century and whose founder was the abbot Antonio Genovesi from Salerno, stands for the truest and deepest spirit of our economy and society. In Lezioni di Economia civile (Lessons of Civil Economy), published by Genovesi between 1765 and 1769, we read very important pages about Italy and its South, which seem to have been written not yesterday, but tomorrow: ‘The Greeks called Magna Graecia and many other provinces of this Kingdom the land of wine; but they could also call it the land of grain, and not only of wheat, but of every other kind. Sicily was the granary of Rome, and now it belongs to many peoples. Its wines are the nectar drunk at the best tables, not only those of the English, but also those of the French, who are so proud of their Burgundy. Silk countries, and today almost the only serious ones in Europe. A land of cotton wool, which, by everyone's admission, is the best in the world; a land of wool, linen, hemp, all kinds of animals; a land of cheese, manna etc. etc. etc., a land of great minds...’ (p. 325 - in the Italian edition)

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    [title] => The deceptions of leader-cracy
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The more the fashion of leadership grows, the more our democracy weakens into a leader-cracy. Perhaps, then, we should all care about it more.
by Luigino Bruni
published in Messaggero di Sant'Antonio on 03/12/2024
Leadership has become one of the dogmas of the new capitalism. We have already discussed it on these pages, and now we return to it again to reflect on its other dimensions. By now there is no university that does not have entire courses on leadership, and not only in the faculties of economics or management; there are also many in philosophy, engineering, and increasingly in the theological and pontifical faculties, where the accompanying adjectives – inclusive, gentle, Trinitarian, Benedictine, Franciscan leadership... – are multiplying. It is not easy to understand whether the demand (of the public) has driven the supply (of the universities) or vice versa; or whether this fashion has reached its peak or we are only at the beginning of what is destined to become a real and new worldwide popular cult, where we will all be called upon to become leaders (and where will we find enough followers?).

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Here I want to focus on two aspects. The first has to do with a somewhat paradoxical fact. As the fashion for leadership explodes, companies are beginning to experience a shortage of candidates for roles of responsibility. Despite the high salaries and the prestige of the role, fewer and fewer people are willing to accept proposals for positions of governance and leadership of work groups, institutions or communities. This has already been evident for some time in the administration of municipalities, where it is increasingly difficult to find people willing to run for mayor or councillor. But for some time now this trend has also been reaching businesses and organisations. The great complexity of the new workers and their new frailties, the growth of conflicts and new forms of complaints in the workplace, mean that people are settling for lower salaries and a less anxious life – ‘why should I take on more responsibility and unpredictable risks every day, just for “a few extra dollars”?’ Thus, a new, unprecedented season of famine of responsibility is in sight, which will lead to new, perhaps very deep, crises. At the same time, and as a natural consequence, those who instead offer themselves for leadership roles are the people least suited to the role itself. They may have done a lot of training to become a good leader: because, in general, those who self-candidate for government roles are almost always the wrong people (it is a phenomenon studied in economics as ‘adverse selection’).
The second aspect concerns the damage that the fashion for leaders is already doing in political life. What we are now observing in many countries in recent years is a shift in democratic life towards new forms of government centred on the charismatic leader, which is the other name for populism. We have known for at least a century and a half that democracy is not the government of the majority but the government of the elites, which, as Pareto recalled, are almost always made up of the same people despite the movements of different parties. But today the phenomenon is changing forms, and the political game – from the USA to Italy, passing through many European and South American countries – is increasingly played on the personal and charismatic characteristics of a single person, of the leader. Programmes, parties, parliaments count less and less: what is really important is the direct ‘pact’ between the leader and the people, bypassing all intermediate bodies and counterweights. The more the fashion of leadership grows, the more our democracy weakens into a leader-cracy. Perhaps, then, we should all care about it more.
Credit Foto: © Giuliano Dinon / Archivio MSA
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    [text] => 
The more the fashion of leadership grows, the more our democracy weakens into a leader-cracy. Perhaps, then, we should all care about it more.
by Luigino Bruni
published in Messaggero di Sant'Antonio on 03/12/2024
Leadership has become one of the dogmas of the new capitalism. We have already discussed it on these pages, and now we return to it again to reflect on its other dimensions. By now there is no university that does not have entire courses on leadership, and not only in the faculties of economics or management; there are also many in philosophy, engineering, and increasingly in the theological and pontifical faculties, where the accompanying adjectives – inclusive, gentle, Trinitarian, Benedictine, Franciscan leadership... – are multiplying. It is not easy to understand whether the demand (of the public) has driven the supply (of the universities) or vice versa; or whether this fashion has reached its peak or we are only at the beginning of what is destined to become a real and new worldwide popular cult, where we will all be called upon to become leaders (and where will we find enough followers?).

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There are types of happiness that can be bought – the joy of living cannot, it is pure gratuitousness, and it is the most beautiful one. It comes often, almost every day. We are the ones who have to learn to recognise it and to make room for it
by Luigino Bruni
published in Messaggero di Sant'Antonio on 02/10/2024
Happiness is the great promise of the new market economy. Yesterday its promise was prosperity, today it is happiness. It promises it to us in many ways, most recently with artificial intelligence that will finally give us perfect happiness – by doing everything we do not like better than us and by doing the new things we do not yet do. A happiness that has to do with possession, with comfort, with the freedom of choice, with growth, with ‘more’, and that often borders on fun and pleasure. Some of these commercial types of happiness are also good, we like them and maybe they even do us some good.

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But after these happinesses and pleasures, there is something else, something different and much more important. It is the joy of living. I rediscovered it this summer, when I accompanied my mother and aunt to the seaside for a few days. The slow breakfasts in their company, the short walks, those few moments on the beach, the amazement at a rose blooming out of season, and above all, their words made me rediscover the joy of living. We all know it or at least used to know it, past generations knew it, and it was the true consolation of the poor amidst life's great hardships.
It is not linked with ‘more’ but with ‘less’, more with the little than with the great, it has nothing to do with comfort, even less with wealth. It is that joy that comes to us all of a sudden, without us having sought it or expected it. It just comes, it happens, simply. While you are looking at the sea, a child, or a seagull lining up perfectly with the others on the horizon line past the rocks and my mother says, ‘How can they do it? They don't even know how to measure distances!’
It lights up while during dinner in the small pensioners' hotel in September an accordion player shows up to intone old songs, and everyone starts singing together, clapping their hands, and someone strikes up a dance step. A joy of living that comes from merely being alive, that draws only from being alive, that needs nothing but life. And then one goes to bed happy to be in the world, with the joy of one who knows, hopes, to get up tomorrow just to continue life. That joy that enters the homes of the elderly who are left alone but know how to set the table with the same care as when the lunches were full of people and life; and while they eat, that well-cared-for meal, alone, a different sweetness emerges in their hearts, one that has something of the good nostalgia of yesterday and yet is all present and future.
Providence has placed this resource among those essential to living. It has hidden it, however, among the little, tiny things, almost invisible if we run too fast. And perhaps for this reason the poor and the pure in heart are able to grasp it, perhaps only them. It is part of the landscape of that Kingdom of Heaven where all the poor and the pure in heart dwell, sometimes without knowing it. Sometimes it comes after great sorrows, depression, mourning, and its arrival is the sentinel announcing the approaching dawn. As in the last scene of Fellini's Cabiria, where that final smile is the end of the desperate nights. It is grace, grace only, all gifted. There are types of happiness that can be bought - the joy of living cannot, it is pure gratuitousness, and it is the most beautiful one. Sometimes it comes during a different prayer, and blooms from tears of sorrow that turn into tears of joy. It comes often, almost every day. We are the ones who must learn to recognise it, make room for it, and let it enter the wine cellar of the heart. And there celebrate, clap our hands and, if we can, even strike up a dance step.
Credit Foto: © Giuliano Dinon / Archivio MSA
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There are types of happiness that can be bought – the joy of living cannot, it is pure gratuitousness, and it is the most beautiful one. It comes often, almost every day. We are the ones who have to learn to recognise it and to make room for it
by Luigino Bruni
published in Messaggero di Sant'Antonio on 02/10/2024
Happiness is the great promise of the new market economy. Yesterday its promise was prosperity, today it is happiness. It promises it to us in many ways, most recently with artificial intelligence that will finally give us perfect happiness – by doing everything we do not like better than us and by doing the new things we do not yet do. A happiness that has to do with possession, with comfort, with the freedom of choice, with growth, with ‘more’, and that often borders on fun and pleasure. Some of these commercial types of happiness are also good, we like them and maybe they even do us some good.

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    [title] => There is no price for salvation
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If we want to bring the modern spirit closer to Jesus' message of life, we need to purify theological language, starting with the economic and commercial language.
by Luigino Bruni
published in Messaggero di Sant'Antonio on 12/07/2024
The first to use the economic metaphor in the New Testament was St Paul who, in his First Letter to the Corinthians, even uses the word price: «You were bought at a high price» (7:23). Since Paul is a giant of Christian theology, many theologians from then on thought that one could not talk about theology without using the metaphor of the ‘price of salvation’. Saint Paul, however, uses some other metaphors in his letters, too, including the sporting one (cf. 1 Cor 9:24-26). Yet no theologian of the past or present has ever thought that such a metaphor was necessary to explain Christian theology. Instead, a real and actual “economy of salvation” was derived from the economic metaphor, which would justify the existence of a kind of contract with prices to be paid and collected, and which would see Jesus as a “divine merchant”. Forgetting that biblical metaphors are always the daybreak of debate, points of departure. The other half of the argument has to remain unsaid: only partial metaphors leave a gap between the mystery of God and our theological ideas about Him.

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I am convinced that the use of economic language by theology has hurt both theology and economics. It has not helped us understand what economics is, nor has it helped us understand the heart of the Christian mystery, which is all about gratuitousness - charis. The use of economic language to explain the Christian faith has, in fact, led to the theology of prosperity (and thus to the theological legitimisation of meritocracy that is generating the blaming of the poor). It has also created an exaltation of sacrifice, which has become very deeply rooted in the Catholic culture. As a reaction to Luther, who waged a pitched battle against the idea of the Mass as a sacrifice (‘The Mass is the opposite of a sacrifice’: Luther, Complete Works), sacrifice became, in fact, a pillar of Catholic theology, liturgy and piety. The cross of Christ became a praise and a sacralisation of our crosses: ‘Crosses come from God. Crosses are necessary because God has ordained so. True penitents are always crucified’. (D. Gaspero Olmi, Quaresimale per le monache - ‘Lenten /reflections/ for Nuns’, 1885). Thus, in the age of the Counter-Reformation the offering of our sufferings to God became the most flourishing economy in the Latin countries - while trade and businesses were developing in the North - fuelled by a proliferation of penances, especially in women's monasteries, where sufferings sought as a form of love for Christ became the currency of a new trade between earth and purgatory.
But if we do a serene reading of the Gospel, a question immediately arises: how were we able to believe that the loving God of Jesus was a “consumer of human pain”, that the first fruits he most liked were our sufferings? Not least because the Bible had taught us well that deities who love the blood of their children are called idols. The biblical God, the God of Jesus, is not an idol, because he does not want to increase the pain of his sons and daughters, but to reduce it: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice,’ Hosea and Jesus repeat to us. The biblical God does not love sacrifice, because he loves us and does everything to remove us from our crosses. Sacrifice is an ambivalent word even in human relationships - it is dangerous to read love as a willingness to sacrifice oneself for another - and it is even more dangerous when it is used to understand the relationship between us and God. If we want to bring the modern spirit closer to Jesus' message of life, we need to purify theological language, starting with the economic and commercial language.
Photo credits: © Giuliano Dinon / MSA Archive
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    [text] => 
If we want to bring the modern spirit closer to Jesus' message of life, we need to purify theological language, starting with the economic and commercial language.
by Luigino Bruni
published in Messaggero di Sant'Antonio on 12/07/2024
The first to use the economic metaphor in the New Testament was St Paul who, in his First Letter to the Corinthians, even uses the word price: «You were bought at a high price» (7:23). Since Paul is a giant of Christian theology, many theologians from then on thought that one could not talk about theology without using the metaphor of the ‘price of salvation’. Saint Paul, however, uses some other metaphors in his letters, too, including the sporting one (cf. 1 Cor 9:24-26). Yet no theologian of the past or present has ever thought that such a metaphor was necessary to explain Christian theology. Instead, a real and actual “economy of salvation” was derived from the economic metaphor, which would justify the existence of a kind of contract with prices to be paid and collected, and which would see Jesus as a “divine merchant”. Forgetting that biblical metaphors are always the daybreak of debate, points of departure. The other half of the argument has to remain unsaid: only partial metaphors leave a gap between the mystery of God and our theological ideas about Him.

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    [title] => If leadership enters the school
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If schools begin to differentiate students as leaders and followers, they undermine one of the pillars of education: the reduction of natural and social inequalities in the classroom to create the common citizenship essential to any social pact.
by Luigino Bruni
published in Messaggero di Sant'Antonio on 04/05/2024
Leadership has become a sacred word in the new religion of capitalism. It is invoked everywhere. Even church environments are captivated by it, where one encounters courses on the leadership of Jesus, St Benedict and even St Francis. Despite the fact that the founder of Christianity said: ‘Neither be ye called masters [that is, leaders], for one is your master, the Christ’ (Mt 23:10), and then built the whole of Christian humanism around the concept of following, which is the exact opposite of leadership. And yet, although the adjectives have been multiplying (inclusive, kind, communitarian...), the noun, leadership, is never questioned.

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The reasons for the emergence of this new dogma are many, but at its root there is a new great relational and emotional fragility of workers and managers, in a world that has “unlearned” how to work together. And so, on the one hand, we criticise patriarchy and all the humanism of that hierarchical world, but on the other, we are building a culture of leadership that, in many respects, is more patriarchal than patriarchy itself (it is striking how the feminist movement has not yet realised how much machismo is embedded in the idea of leadership).
Furthermore, there is a worrying recent phenomenon suggesting that the direction this new business humanism is taking has to do with the world of education. I was struck by the stories of two female colleagues about their conversations with their sons' and daughters' teachers. The teachers repeated, in similar words, the same type of concept: ‘your daughter, your son, has all the character traits to become a leader in the class, but we are not sure if they will make it, because there are others with whom they are competing – you have to help them at home to strengthen their leadership skills’.
This kind of argument, I thought, was limited to the university environment, but instead the reported talks refer to secondary school (and so children aged 11-13 - the tr.), where corporate mentality is entering heavily (perhaps it will soon arrive in primary schools as well). The unfortunate change in the name of the Ministry of Education (which has also become “of merit”) had already signalled a change in educational culture in the country, because meritocracy and leadership are two sides of the same coin: a leader is different from the old “manager” or “head of office”, also because they deserve the following of their “employees” (translating to “dipendenti” as in “dependents” in Italian - the tr.), who have become “followers” (watch out for the language of social media on this).
But if schools begin to distinguish and separate students into leaders and followers, they undermine one of the pillars of the education of children and young people at its foundations: the reduction of natural and social inequalities in the classroom to create the common citizenship essential to any social pact. At school, young people should learn to be the companions of all the others, because civil fraternity begins in the classroom. Some mechanisms already exist to differentiate scholastic “merits”; these are called evaluations and grades, and everyone in the classroom knows who are the best students and those who are not so good or who are better at other subjects. If, on the other hand, to these inevitable inequalities of talents and opportunities we start adding the leadership skills that only a few would have, inequalities will grow more and more until they destroy civil coexistence.
The most deleterious aspect of this business ideology-religion is its presenting itself as harmless, and therefore being accepted without any resistance by teachers and families. A renewed focus/attention should be paid by all on what is happening in the world of schools.
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If schools begin to differentiate students as leaders and followers, they undermine one of the pillars of education: the reduction of natural and social inequalities in the classroom to create the common citizenship essential to any social pact.
by Luigino Bruni
published in Messaggero di Sant'Antonio on 04/05/2024
Leadership has become a sacred word in the new religion of capitalism. It is invoked everywhere. Even church environments are captivated by it, where one encounters courses on the leadership of Jesus, St Benedict and even St Francis. Despite the fact that the founder of Christianity said: ‘Neither be ye called masters [that is, leaders], for one is your master, the Christ’ (Mt 23:10), and then built the whole of Christian humanism around the concept of following, which is the exact opposite of leadership. And yet, although the adjectives have been multiplying (inclusive, kind, communitarian...), the noun, leadership, is never questioned.

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We, together, must find a new relationship with the land. We have been using it to extract our resources, without realising that it needed reciprocity from us. Let us listen to the cry of the farmers, and let us all change our lifestyles rapidly.
by Luigino Bruni
published in Messaggero di Sant'Antonio on 06/03/2024
Farmers’ protests with their tractors can tell us many things, not all of which are always emphasised in the public debate. We have underestimated the conflictual dimension of the ecological transition. Also, the many damages we have done towards the planet and the earth over the last century do not disappear by themselves. They require a lot of work, commitment, cost and they sometimes generate new conflicts. New ‘class struggles’ are emerging that are different from those of yesterday, no less important and worrying. Land has always been underrated by economics and politics. Ever since modern economics began to think of itself as a science around the 17th and 18th centuries, it has never thought that the plant world or the biological world could offer it tools and categories to think about economic interactions. Then, at the end of the nineteenth century, the earth went completely off the scene, generating an eclipse of the earth in economic science that lasted until a few years ago, when the explosion of the global environmental crisis brought it to a traumatic end. Thus we have created an economic theory and practice that are incapable of seeing the earth and its needs, and we have deteriorated it.
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Therefore, the general distraction of economics and politics towards the earth has ancient and deep roots. The Catholic Church, on the other hand, showed great concern for the land and farmers in past centuries. Benedict XIII, Vincenzo Maria Orsini (1649-1730), from Gravina di Puglia, was called ‘God's farmer’ because of his tireless work in promoting the so-called ‘monti frumentari’, that were actual grain banks where the “currency” was wheat: loans were taken and later returned in wheat. In 1861, in southern Italy and the Islands alone, there were more than a thousand ‘monti frumentari’ (over three hundred of them in Sardinia), founded first by the Capuchin friars and then by many bishops. It was a true civil and economic heritage that, however, was also dispersed by the wrong choices of the new unitary government. In those difficult centuries of the Counter-Reformation, the Church was able to understand where the real needs of the country people lay, and it did some innovative works.
It is striking that in our age, this recent conflict of the farmers has emerged between the needs of a wounded land and those who live off the fruits of the same land. The land has been deteriorated and impoverished by our predatory relationship with it. This impoverishment has made life harder for peasants and farmers who had only contributed a small part to the damage, which was mainly caused by industry and mass consumption. But today it is precisely the farmers who cultivate this ruined land who are called upon to change their production techniques (at their own expense) so as not to continue impoverishing the already exhausted land. And here is a paradoxical conflict between yesterday's victims and tomorrow's potential perpetrators, the custodians of the earth who feel they are being treated like its murderers. And they won't take it. And we understand them. We, all of us together, must find a new relationship with the earth. We have been using it to extract our resources, without realising that it needed reciprocity from us. We have not been custodians, we have been predators. Let us listen to the cry of the farmers, and let us all change our lifestyles quickly.

Credits foto: © Giuliano Dinon / Archivio MSA
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We, together, must find a new relationship with the land. We have been using it to extract our resources, without realising that it needed reciprocity from us. Let us listen to the cry of the farmers, and let us all change our lifestyles rapidly.
by Luigino Bruni
published in Messaggero di Sant'Antonio on 06/03/2024
Farmers’ protests with their tractors can tell us many things, not all of which are always emphasised in the public debate. We have underestimated the conflictual dimension of the ecological transition. Also, the many damages we have done towards the planet and the earth over the last century do not disappear by themselves. They require a lot of work, commitment, cost and they sometimes generate new conflicts. New ‘class struggles’ are emerging that are different from those of yesterday, no less important and worrying. Land has always been underrated by economics and politics. Ever since modern economics began to think of itself as a science around the 17th and 18th centuries, it has never thought that the plant world or the biological world could offer it tools and categories to think about economic interactions. Then, at the end of the nineteenth century, the earth went completely off the scene, generating an eclipse of the earth in economic science that lasted until a few years ago, when the explosion of the global environmental crisis brought it to a traumatic end. Thus we have created an economic theory and practice that are incapable of seeing the earth and its needs, and we have deteriorated it.
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