Economy of the Common Good, Between Research and Teaching

 

When you meet him, you immediately feel that you are faced with a profound civil passion, also testified by the commitment he has been carrying out towards young people for 40 years.

His is a life dedicated to research and teaching: courses and conferences in prestigious university institutions in Italy and abroad, without neglecting meetings with young high school students.

Former President of the Agency for the Third Sector, currently Adjunct Professor of International Political Economy at Johns Hopkins University, Zamagni teaches Civil Economics tuition in Singapore and Ethics and Financial Markets at the University of Bologna.

Furthermore, since 2019, Pope Francis has chosen him to preside over the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences. Among the principles that inspire his work, we have chosen to start from a fundamental concept: financial education can be a tool for social inclusion and the fight against inequalities.

Even according to the OECD definition of financial literacy, there is a correlation between having financial skills and being able to guide one's future and economic well-being.

His studies on the civil economy give us a further element of reflection. What is it about?

The civil economy was historically born in 1753 when The University of Naples established, first in the world, a university chair of economics and gave it this name. Then from Naples this paradigm moves to Milan and from there to the rest of Europe.

Parallel to the development of the civil economy in Scotland, where the prominent figure was that of Adam Smith, the paradigm of political economy was born.

Civil economy and political economy are the two main economic paradigms that today return sometimes to dialogue and sometimes to controversy.

Are there any points of contact between the political and the civil model?

There are many things in common. The most important is the defense of the market economy as a model of social order. So what are the main differences?

An immediate way to understand the differences is to refer to the etymological sense of the words political and civil.

•             Politics comes from the Greek Polis

•             Civil instead is a word from the Latin Civitas

The model of the Greek Polis tended to exclude: no more than 25-30% of citizens could participate in the agora, the square in Athens where political life took place.

In the First Place, Women Were Excluded, But Also The Poor, Foreigners.

The model of the Roman Civitas, on the other hand, is an inclusive model, a civil model that is increasingly appreciated today, especially abroad, precisely because it tended to include everyone.

We then come to the three main differences between the civil economy and the political economy.

For the civil paradigm, the goal of the economy is the inclusive prosperity of all.

This is not the case for political economy, for which prosperity is reserved only for those with a greater degree of productivity, creativity, etc.

The inequalities in Europe and the rest of the world have increased in recent decades precisely because of this assumption of political the economy became dominant from the end of 700.

The other big difference has to do with the final perspective. More Visits: Besteconstuition.com Thanks.