A capitalism from below is the recipe for restarting

Sustainability at risk also for the economist Luigino Bruni, who observes first of all the side effects of the paradigm shift compared to the past: before it was stocks, gold and land for example, that counted, while today it is flows that count, giving primacy to income over capital. Exploitation of stocks visible in environmental terms but not only, also looking at the values ​​at stake.

«Capitalism – he explains – has been good at safeguarding and enhancing certain values ​​such as efficiency, productivity, the enhancement of talent. More difficult instead in guarding other virtues. Those that lead to the creation of a straight wall, as Levi first observed in the story of the concentration camp, not so much because your torturers ask for it but because a job well done is a value in itself”. Among the problems – adds Bruni – there is the fact of thinking of the company as an all-encompassing place, capable of resolving any complexity: first with scientific management, if this is not enough with consultants.

«Instead – he clarifies – the company cannot do everything. And that’s why we have to “go back out”, rebuild this ethical capital, looking to the community as a place of fulfillment. Because if the company becomes “whole” the worker explodes. And the next pandemic will come in the form of depression.”

Expanding to the community is also the recipe of Maurizio Gardini, president of Concooperatives (17,000 companies, 3.1 million members), convinced of the need to find a new model of economy, which goes beyond the mere measurement of GDP. Necessary turning point looking at the increase in inequalities, the growing social fractures, the army of people who remain behind.

«Economic poverty that extends to housing, training and that risks widening. The antidote is the social economy, which is actually in Confcooperative’s DNA. An economy of the “we” to be opposed to that of the “I”, a participatory method that arises from below and responds to needs. I dream of a country where alongside the capitalist economy there is room for a widespread economy. In which, for example, speaking of energy transition, the model is not only the one imposed by large groups but also that of the energy communities”.