Political economy of virtue: civil economy, happiness and public trust in the thought of Antonio Genovesi

Abstract

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Is Relationality Always Other-Oriented? Adam Smith, Catholic Social Teaching, and Civil Economy

“…Alongside the similarities, being both modern school of economic thought rooted in different forms of Enlightenment traditions (Scottish and Italian), scholars have stressed the differences. Many studies have been dedicated to the civil economy tradition (Bellamy 1987;Bruni and Porta 2003;Bruni 2018a;Bruni and Zamagni 2016;Dal Degan 2018;Pabst 2018;Pabst and Scazzieri 2019;Porta 2018;Robertson 2005). Here I want to highlight two specific kinds of contribution: the ones which consider the civil economy within the broader discourse of spirits of capitalism (Bruni 2018b;Bruni and Milbank 2019;Milbank and Pabst 2016;Zamagni 2010b); and the ones which investigate civil economy's anthropology (Bruni 2018a;Bruni and Sugden 2008;Santori 2020).…”

What Mutual Assistance Is, and What It Could Be in the Contemporary World

“…Genovesi’s contribution to the economic debate of his time has been the object of growing interest in the history of ideas, starting from the seminal works of Bruni and Sugden ( 2000 ), Bruni ( 2006 ) and Bruni and Zamagni ( 2007 ). Recent contributions have inquired about the intellectual and philosophical foundations of his thought (Bruni & Santori, 2018 ; Pabst, 2018 ), highlighting its interconnections with an international debate (Porta, 2018 ) or stressing its similarities and common inheritance with Smith’s ( 1759 ) theory of relationships (Dal Degan, 2018 ). Different authors have offered various interpretations and highlighted diverse elements, and the resulting picture is complex and rich.…”

“…The CE is an economic approach rooted in the Italian Enlightenment tradition, particularly in the thought of Antonio Genovesi (1713–1769) and further developed by the Italian economists Luigino Bruni and Stefano Zamagni (Bruni, 2006 ; Bruni & Zamagni, 2007 ; Zamagni, 2008 ). This approach has given rise to a promising strand of studies in the fields of economic philosophy (Bruni & Sugden, 2008 , 2013 ), history of economic thought (Zamagni, 2010 ; Bruni & Zamagni, 2016 ; Bruni, 2018a ; Bruni, 2018b ; Bruni & Santori, 2018 ; Dal Degan, 2018 ; Pabst, 2018 ; Porta, 2018 ; Pabst & Scazzieri, 2019 ; Santori, 2020 ) and business ethics (Martino, 2020 ; Sferrazzo, 2019 ; Zamagni, 2020 ). Martino ( 2020 ) particularly stresses the potentialities of CE ethics to foster trust in the absence of a regulatory framework, given the importance that CE assigns to virtue-based behaviour.…”

Who Is Afraid of Population Aging? Myths, Challenges and an Open Question from the Civil Economy Perspective

“…[ 41 ] The cornerstone of the Neapolitan school of civil economics is the belief that human beings develop reciprocity, an aspect rooted in human nature [ 42 , 43 ]. In fact, civil economy can be understood as a "political economy of virtue" [ 44 ] (p. 582).…”

“…From the perspective of the civil economy, the "hands" of the public administration and active citizenship drive these reforms, since the sustainability of the pension and public health systems is a recurrent demand of organized civil society, and the measures to make this possible have been devised and implemented by public administrations. Furthermore, all these efforts aim to update and preserve systems that are essential to the common good, an objective that is in line with the ultimate goal of the analytical framework of the civil economy [ 38 , 44 ].…”