Civil Economy. Efficiency, Equity, Public Happiness

Citation

Bruni, L. and Zamagni, S. (2008), "Civil Economy. Efficiency, Equity, Public Happiness", Society and Business Review, Vol. 3 No. 3, pp. 258-259. https://doi.org/10.1108/17465680810907323

Bruni & Zamagni are two solid scholars that have worked on civil economy for years. Luigino Bruni is Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Milan‐Bicocca. He is the author of Civil Happiness (2006), also published by Routledge. Stephano Zamagni is Professor of Economics at the University of Bologna and Adjunct Professor at Johns Hopkins University. His is the author of numerous books including: “A Civil Economic Theory of Cooperative Firm” (2006), Peter Lang Verlagsgruppe.

In prelude, let's recall that the International Society for Third Sector Research, at its Dublin Conference (2000), unified the expressions: “non profit organizations”, “third sector”, “non governmental organizations, “foundations”, and other similar organizations under the rubric of “civil society organizations”. This book is about the types of economies and enterprises that are neither “profit” nor “public” oriented.

According Bruni and Zamagni, there is a disproportion between the continuously evolving reality of the civil society organizations and the theoretical economic reflection upon it. Hence this book has a double purpose. Firstly, it dusts off an Italian tradition of economic thought that began in the 15th and 16th centuries as Civic Humanism and continued up until the Italian Enlightenment. Its main contribution to the history of economic thought is its conception of market as a place centered on the principle of reciprocity and civil virtues. The two authors explain why this tradition progressively disappeared in the 18th century due to the reductive conception of economics that emerged with the Industrial Revolution. Secondly, the book draws attention to a new theoretical reading of non profit organizations and, largely, of the whole economic reality. The two author's main thesis is that the civil organizations are neither a mere “accidens” neither an exception to the normal evolution of capitalism economy. The civil society is a cultural perspective from witch it is possible to interpret the entire economic discourse. If a theory is considered as substantially a point of view on reality, then this cultural perspective can also set the basis for a diverse economic theory. What are the main characteristics of the Civil Economy? It is an attempt to integrate within the economy system the three basic regulating principles of any social order (according Bruni and Zamagni): the principle of exchange of equivalents (that is related to the efficiency principle); the principle of redistribution (or reciprocity); and the principle of reciprocity. If those principles are active and well combined, then the society develops in a harmonious way and can be qualified as “decent” (or human). The authors consider that the economy – as things – is not something to detach from this other domains of (collective and individual) life. They also argue that economy vocation – as scientific discipline – is: “the wealth of nations”.

The book is made of nine chapters. The first one is more a claim of intention than an introductive one. It exposes the origins and the intentions of the book. Chapter 2 is dedicated to the Middle Age roots of Civil Economy. Chapters 2‐6 can be considered as the historitical part of the book in which Bruni and Zamagni do a kind of conceptual archaeology of Civil Economy. So Chapters 3 is about Civic Humanism that emerged at the Renaissance. Chapter 4 is centered on “the science of good social living” as it was theorised during the Italian Enlightenment especially by the Neapolitan and the Milanese Schools. Chapter 5 brings us to the English tradition embodied by Adam Smith. Chapter 6 discusses about the decline and the rebirth of the civil economic tradition. It contests the individualist paradigm and the state or market model of the standard economy. It explains why the civil economy is now more and more tacking into account partly thanks to the NPOs organizations. This Chapter 6 is therefore a transition to the following three chapters (7, 8 and 9). They constitute the second part of the book centered on contemporary debates within the field of civil economy. Chapter 7 “About the identity of the subjects of civil economy” leads to distinguish social enterprise vs civil enterprises. Chapter 8 is dedicated to employment and welfare society from civil economy perspective. Chapter 9 is about the question of happiness as an economic and political major question. Roughly, rejoining the Aristotelician tradition, the main idea is that no one can be happy if others are not. The tenth and last chapter answers to the question: what is, in actuality, the civil economy? The answer is threefold. In first, it is the rediscover of an alternative economic tradition that does not abstract economy from society. In second, “civil economy” is an economy that emphasis the adjective “civil” that is to say economy is for human and not the inverse. It recalls that the original vocation of economics as discipline was the “Wealth of Nations”. The homo economics should not be, in theory and in practice, an autistic being. At third, the main ambition of this book is to propose a general theoretical framework for “properly understanding “enterprises or organizations acting in the so‐called third sector.

This is a precious book for those who are searching historical elements and conceptual framework to analyse non standard (or profit) organizations and to defend a plural economy in which profit, non profit and public organizations or enterprises can co‐exist for the wealth of the people. This book will certainly help to see economy as a diverse and social phenomenon and to theorise an economics that should not be reduced to profit organizations and the wealth of shareholders.

Hervé Mesure

Groupe ESC Rouen, France