From ‘prudent man’ (Adam Smith) to ‘prudent global society’, we cannot be over-prudent at the level of individual (over-insurance in all domains of life), and under-prudent/or imprudent at the level of society, in particular global society. The principle of precaution, a pillar of the Social Doctrine of the Church, must become a basic principle of the global society and economy
The pandemic is, paradoxically, first and foremost a local phenomenon: we are infected in our own houses, workplaces, companies, communities, churches. We are all exposed to the virus, but the disease lives in our neighbourhood. We must learn how to ‘dwell’ in our milieu, our places (luoghi).
From the individual (the self in himself) to the person (the self in relation with others), the pandemic is a disease of relationships: it is a ‘relational bad’, it concerns the ‘art of relationships’. Paradoxically, the great success/fitness of Covid-19 is a great failure of our capacity to manage relationships in times of crisis.
This pandemic is also evidence of our ‘relational illiteracy’ in the global society. Twentieth century economic theory, in particular after the neo-classic revolution, was centred on private goods – in particular the relationship between the single individual to private goods.
Public goods or commons were confined to a few pages of the textbook, or to field specialists: Private goods were the rule, the commons the exception.
We need to reverse this and ground economics on commons as the rule of consumption, because in the 21st century, the era of commons, all goods are becoming commons. Look at the health of the individual: it is not a private but a public/common good, with implications for teaching economics today and tomorrow.
As Ugo di Digne liked to say, the only right the Franciscans have is the right to own nothing, to live sine proprio. The debate took the form of distinguishing between the ownership of goods and their use. Franciscan theologians and jurists tried to convince the Church that it was possible to use goods without possessing any, including the goods necessary to feed oneself. “Just as the horse has an actual use for, but not the ownership of, the oats that it eats, so religious man has simple factual use of bread, wine and clothes” (Bonagrazia da Bergamo). The great Franciscan attempt to distinguish the ownership of goods from their use was unsuccessful. In 1322 Pope John XXII corrected the thesis of his predecessor Nicholas III, and established the impossibility of the sole use of goods.
Going back to the prophecy of Joachim of Fiore, the first Franciscans (Peter John Olivi) believed that the seventh age would be that of the altissima povertà of Francis, who for them was the prophet of the seventh age. With the third millennium, we have now entered the era of commons: if we continue to think and act as if we were the owners and masters of the earth, of the environment, of the oceans, we will only end up destroying them. We must learn, and soon, to use goods without being their owners, we must quickly learn the art of using and making use of without ownership. This is Francis’ art.
What if the economy of sine proprio was the economy of the era of common goods? Will the oikonomia of Francis be the integral oeconomia that will eventually save both us and the earth?