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Beyond the Market/State Binary Code: The Common Good as a Relational Good

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Free Markets and the Culture of Common Good

Part of the book series: Ethical Economy ((SEEP,volume 41))

Abstract

Donati is one of the best known Italian authors on social sciences. He is a professor at the University of Bologna and member of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences. He has written over 90 books, which have influenced parts of the encyclical Caritas in Veritate. His main theory is the ‘relational configuration of society’ which he here applies to economy. We are very proud of having won him for our project. In his essay he elaborates on the statement of Caritas in Veritate, that the exclusively binary model of State-market is corrosive of society (Benedict XVI. 2009. Encyclical Caritas in veritate. Vatican: Libreria Editrice Vaticana.). He shows that, in order to go beyond the present domination of the binomial market-State (lib-lab in Donati’s language), which destroys sociality, we need much more than good, honest and altruistic individuals: we need a societal configuration able to generate relational goods. Relational good is the name of the common good in a highly differentiated and globalised society. His theory is innovative and can be considered to be of great interest for the future.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    It is certainly remarkable that Catholic anthropology has been associated with the Islamic Ummah on the grounds that Islamic finance is reported to use money only as a means and not as a goal, which would explain why Islamic financial institutions were able to avoid being crashed by the world crisis of September 2008 (cf. Milano 2010).

  2. 2.

    As I have described and analysed the lib-lab set-up in many works, I simply have to refer to here: cf. Donati (2000, 2001, 2009).

  3. 3.

    For a more detailed analysis cf. Donati (2000, 229–260), Donati (2001, 202–227).

  4. 4.

    A champion of this approach, Ralph Dahrendorf (1994) sees citizenship as a gift granted (octroyée) by an enlightented political élite, including entitlements guaranteed by the State versus other provisions offered by the free market.

  5. 5.

    I am using the phrase ‘social integration’ here to distinguish it from ‘systemic integration’ (Lockwood 1992, 1999).

  6. 6.

    The well-known expression was first proposed by J. Habermas (1981), who deals with such pathologies in terms of communicative forms and not as a more complex problem. At the cultural level it has been employed by Charles Taylor.

  7. 7.

    The term ‘economic’ here is used in an analytical generalised sense: cf. Donati (1991, Chap. 4).

  8. 8.

    On the issue of finance ethics, see Gotti Tedeschi (2005, 2007).

  9. 9.

    In the AGIL terms, the Adaptation function prevails on the Latency function.

  10. 10.

    On a critique of the reflexive modernisation theory: cf. Archer (2007), Donati (2011).

  11. 11.

    I take it that modernity corresponds to a society spirit and model of a functional type (as has been clarified very well by Niklas Luhmann’s own theory). I see functionalism as the root of the ­scientific-technological approach typical of the West and of Western modernity, as Davis (1959) described it.

  12. 12.

    Cf. Diwan (2000) and Donati (2009).

  13. 13.

    As an indicator that a lib-lab configuration is prevailing in the USA too (and not only in Europe), it can be reminded that 97% of the private debt in the States passes through the State (Sinn 2010, Chap. 11).

  14. 14.

    I am referring to individual A, G, I, L sub-systems with the institutions thereof.

  15. 15.

    J. J. Rousseau’s works, for instance, provide a paradigmatic example of this position, which has justified an apolitical individualism and at the same time State dictatorships within modernity (cf. Spaemann 2009).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Università di Bologna, Bologna, Italy

    Pierpaolo Donati

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  1. Pierpaolo Donati
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Correspondence to Pierpaolo Donati .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. , Moral Theology, Pontificia Universita' della Santa Croce, Piazza Sant'Apollinare 49, Rome, 00186, Italy

    Martin Schlag

  2. , Philosophy, Pontificia Universita' della Santa Croce, Piazza Sant'Apollinare 49, Rome, 00186, Italy

    Juan Andrés Mercado

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Donati, P. (2012). Beyond the Market/State Binary Code: The Common Good as a Relational Good. In: Schlag, M., Mercado, J. (eds) Free Markets and the Culture of Common Good. Ethical Economy, vol 41. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-2990-2_4

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