1. Another formulation of the same question would be What does the voice “economics” do?
2. Or what are we doing with that voice?
3. I start from the assumption that every time we open our mouths to articulate words, we have choices. We have freedom and responsibility because we can write or speak many different things at almost any opportunity to speak, or perhaps to remain silent. To speak is to act. Suddenly to be silent is to act. Both actions being actions, they are judged by the knowledge that deals with good and evil, i.e., morality and ethics. (Some authors consider morality and ethics to be synonymous. Others distinguish between them, for various reasons, the most common being that morality refers to customs, and ethics to the science or philosophy or theology that justifies or perhaps criticises and proposes to reform customs).
4. Words do not belong to us. In the great world sea of Spanish speakers where thousands of people say “economy” at any second or minute, our choice to use or not to use our voice is a small drop. Even smaller if we consider those who are not Spanish speakers but use an equivalent voice in another language.
5. What we want to say, or do, with a word may not be what we actually say or do. The effective meaning or the effective result depends on the listener(s), not just on what the speaker had in mind or wanted to achieve.
6. In terms of economics, the phrase “social and solidarity economy” should have some priority among those we identify with a historical project whose goal is to create a social and solidarity economy.
7. José Luis Coraggio is in favour of identifying this phrase not with a sector or sectors that already exists or exist, but with “a transitional proposal of economic practices of transformative action, conscious of the society of the currently existing society, in the direction of another economy, another economic system, organised by the principle of the extended reproduction of life, of all citizen-workers, as opposed to the principle of capital accumulation (which required and instituted as “natural” institutions such as private property and the commodification and commodification of labour power, land and money, processes that must at least be re-signified. )”[1]
8. Thus Coraggio does not participate in the tendency to opt for saying that there are three economies: the private, the public and the social solidarity economy; the third being composed of cooperatives, non-profit NGOs, self-managed enterprises by their own workers and many other forms of entrepreneurship that deserve both the two labels “social” and “solidarity”. Their option is to think of the SSE as a transformative project, and to think of the best practices of cooperatives as processes whose aim is to change the existing world into another possible world.
9. The words “re-signify” and “re-signified” that often appear in Coraggio’s thinking deserve attention. From reading the quoted passage alone, one might think that Coraggio imagines a world in which private property does not exist. This is not the case. Rather, he imagines property re-signified. Next to the question, “Who has property?” he places another of equal or greater importance, “What is property?” and already gives the beginning of an answer to the second question: It is an institution. The idea of re-signifying institutions as an integral part of transformative processes that organise, that is, reorganise, institutions guided by the principle (ethics) of the extended reproduction of life (that is, human life, starting from our harmony with other forms of life, thinking of our species as part of nature and not as its owner, dominator or exploiter), of all citizen-workers (Here we think of this new possible world now under construction and in recovery of lost wisdoms. It is a new world that is defined by being loving (caring) in terms of the relationships of citizen-workers with each other and sustainable in its relationship with mother earth. According to several other authors it is defined by several other linguistic choices as well). When speaking of citizen-workers Coraggio evokes a world of liberté, egalité, fraternité. There are no classes with opposing economic interests.
10. So citizens and workers are the same – which does not mean that capital ceases to exist, and with capital the work of organising its good use. This work of organising and choosing between different uses of the same capital is shared through participation and directed towards the service of the common good. Such aims are achieved to a large extent by re-signifying.
11. Regarding the word “economy” as such, leaving aside for the moment the identification of the good sought as “social solidarity economy”, I said, or at least I wanted to say, that the criterion in the deliberations on how to use a word should be the same as the criterion for choosing between the options presented in any action: serve, care, build and not destroy, be part of the solution and not part of the problem.
12. This criterion has the consequence that I do not always use the word “economy” with the same meaning. It depends on the context. This consequence has the disadvantage of generating a certain amount of confusion. All things considered, I think that putting up with confusion and trying to clarify it is better than a rigid Chinese shoe that uses the same meaning of the word whatever the context.
13. It is worth bearing in mind the orthodox definition of “economics” that students usually learn when they begin to study economics. …” economics is a science that studies human behaviour as a relationship between given ends and scarce means that have alternative applications “…”.
14. That definition was formulated by Lionel Robbins in England in the 1930’s.[2] Interpreted in the context of the thinking of its author and similar authors, it has a number of drawbacks for those dedicated to building a more loving and secure world. (To tell the truth, the world structured by the mental models advocated by Robbins and orthodox economics is not even possible in the medium and long term).
15. Although the text of Robbins’ definition can be interpreted to legitimise any criterion for prioritising the use of “scarce means,” it is understood that economic science already knows what the best criterion is. It is the relationship between means and ends established by the ideal markets that science postulates. More ethically oriented authors, such as Amartya Sen and Jean Dreze, on the other hand, do not start with any a priori prejudice either for or against markets. Sometimes they are and sometimes they are not the best institution for prioritising the use of scarce resources.[3] They also note that ideal markets do not exist.
16. The “given ends” are given by the purchases of the sovereign consumer. Value is subjective. It is created by the juridical act of making the purchase, and measured by the price paid. A moral realism, on the contrary, considers the wisdom of the ages, the facts established by natural science, health, the needs of those people who buy little or nothing for lack of money, and other elements of judgement that are relatively objective. The desire of the realist who wants to serve the common good on the basis of real facts is compatible with continuing the millennia-old unfinished conversations conducted in the various human cultures on moral issues, and compatible with considering any scientific findings as provisional and subject to revision in the light of new research and new theoretical reflections.
17. Robbins’s definition underestimates the fact that scarce resources include, first and foremost, capital. High returns on investment are justified as a necessity to encourage savings and the use of savings in investment, and a series of public subsidies and guarantees are justified to minimise the risk of private investment. It hardly fits the current situation (2021) when already accumulated capital is frustrated by the scarcity of profitable investments in the real economy producing goods and services. Today, capital is largely devoted to non-productive speculation. An example is the speculative investment in real estate that raises the price of land and real estate, making life difficult for ordinary people by raising rents and increasing the cost of home ownership.[4] The capitalist system is also being used for speculation in real estate.
18. Coraggio offers another definition of “economy”: “The economy, in its deepest and most comprehensive expression, is the system of institutions and practices that a community or a society of communities and individuals uses to define, mobilise or generate combinations of resources (relatively scarce or not), in order to produce, exchange and use useful resources to satisfy in the best possible way and across generations the needs that are established as legitimate for all its members.”[5] 19.
19. It is striking that according to Coraggio’s definition, there must first be community. Community is given to the economy. The economy in turn serves the individual members of the community.
20. It is also noteworthy, as Coraggio observes following the quoted passage, that the construction of an economy is a historical process.
21. I would add to Coraggio’s point. History teaches us that those who in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries laid the legal foundations of today’s economy, with some honourable exceptions, had not the slightest intention of satisfying in the best possible way and through the generations the needs of all the members of a community or society of communities. On the contrary, the birth of modern individualistic doctrines has been the decline of traditional communitarian wisdoms, in the colonies conquered by Europeans and in Europe itself.[6]Therefore, Coraggio’s definition does not explain the economic boom that exists. It defines what the rise of a new economy that is being born must be. On the other hand, history advises us to be nuanced in our criticism of our contemporaries. As much as there may be consensus today, or near consensus, that the economy should serve everyone in harmony with nature, the legal framework built in the past for other purposes screws the other way around.[7] The legal framework of the past is not the same as the legal framework of the present day.
22. In certain contexts, I define the economy as the absence of community. Strictly scientifically, and in common everyday language, “the economy” denotes the economy that exists in its dominant form – which is the form most studied and most talked about in the press. As a strategy to begin to understand something so vast and complicated, I suggest as an ideal type [8] to say that what is community is not economics; and what is economics is not community. Community is caring and sharing. [9] Economy is selfishness and accumulation.
23. In other contexts I do not use my definition of the current economy as the absence of community. I cannot be a proponent of dialogue and consensus building; and at the same time say that we can talk as long as you accept my definitions of words.
24. I recognise that we do not now have a sufficient spirit and ethic of community to be able to say that there are communities capable of giving themselves an “economy” in the solidary sense of that voice that Coraggio proposes. We come up against what Gastón Soublette calls the “groundswell.” [10] The groundswell is a majority population that has lost the wisdom and moderation of its traditional culture. It does not live a truly human life. I understand, reading Soublette, that the groundswell that is blocking us is the mechanical life, oriented outwards and not inwards. It is typical of homo economicus and patriarchy, despising the feminine. It is both a product and a producer of the current economy. Until further notice, achieving the experience of another possible world is a project of minorities. But non-conformity is general. All over the world the majorities feel that their way of life is unbearable. That is why there are outbursts.
25. On the other hand, I am convinced by those psychologists dedicated to the study of people’s moral development, who find that adults, for the most part and in various cultural contexts, (1) want to be accepted in their environments as good people with good intentions, and (2) abide by and defend the conventional norms that regulate coexistence and give it stability. Such findings show that normal majorities in normal times are neither lacking in good will nor in rationality.[11] The findings of this study show that the majority of normal people in normal times are not lacking in good will and rationality.
26. There are, however, mass and sometimes majority movements whose driving forces are unhealthy emotions, and whose thinking is a slave to the rationalisation of those emotions.[12] Attention must be paid to the follies of individuals. Becoming massive because of the consequences of the inhumanity of the prevailing economy, violent collective madnesses overwhelm the rule of law, mutual respect, and civilisation. That is why movements for mass therapy, such as biodanza, serve to build a better future and to prevent a worse future.[13]
27. The current mega-crisis requires concerted action in the face of existential threats in at least three dimensions
1. The agony of the biosphere, which is a threat of physical extinction.
2. The agony of human institutions, due to violence, corruption, unpayable debts, the collapse of investor confidence, and finally the inability to solve the basic problems of people: food, health, drinking water, security, employment, dignity, love….
3. The crisis of the groundswell is the low human quality of most of the human actors on the stage of history. The political and economic leadership, like the population at large, tends to dismiss or not know, virtue, wisdom, ethics and moderation, damaging any effort to overcome challenges (1) and (2).[14] 28.
28. I end with positive suggestions. I argue that the “resignification” recommended by Coraggio may save us where other methodologies leave us still running towards the collective suicide of our species homo sapiens. I rely on a slogan typical of some of the psychologists who study human motivation: “Identity is motivation”. If I change my concept of who I am, and with whom I identify myself, maybe I will change my behaviour as well.[15] I am not a person, but I am a person who is motivated.
Resignify work as a vocation of service, or, as Rotarians say, “giving of oneself.”[16] Resignify community as the framework of the community.
Resignify community as the framework of human life, within which the economy is framed as one way among others that the community uses to take care of each other.
Resignify human communities as humble members and not overbearing masters of the larger community of mother earth.
Resignify the global economy as a human family living in its world home.[17] Resignify the human person as a human family living in its world home.
To re-signify the human person as soul. This is the meaning of the Hindu gesture “namaste”.
To re-signify small enterprises and self-employed technicians as a popular economy, dedicated to the maintenance of a household and in many cases to paying the mortgage on a house, and not to the accumulation of capital.
Resignifying capital accumulation (profitability), be it in large enterprises, be it in state enterprises, be it in self-managed enterprises, be it in cooperatives that manage to achieve blue numbers, be it in organisations with another legal form, as the creation of social surplus.[18] Social surplus is available for many purposes – among others the purpose of financing green technologies, the purpose of financing pensions, and the purpose of financing dignified lives for every person who needs a dignified (not humiliating) life and cannot find it.
In interpreting “resignifying accumulation” to finance dignified lives for all, it is worth demystifying labour markets, education, and economic growth. These are three impassable routes to dignity for all. They may serve other purposes, but they will never lead to dignity for all.[19] There is a need to share e.g., corporate profits, inheritances and astronomical salaries, and rents from natural resources, transferring what is left over (the surplus) to where there is need. As Evita Perón said, “where there is a need, there is a right”.
Resignify one’s own individual and family budget, however modest, in accordance with the principle of dedicating the surplus (if there is a surplus) to the common good.
[1] José Luis Coraggio, Economía social, acción pública, y política. Buenos Aires: Ediciones Ciccus, 2nd edition 2008. P. 37.
[2] Lionel Robbins, Essay on the Nature and Significance of Economic Science. https://www.uv.es/atortosa/definicion%20economia%20robbins.html. First edition 1932.
[3] Amartya Sen and Jean Dreze, Hunger and Public Action. Delhi: Oxford University Press, first edition 1991. Amartya Sen, The Idea of Justice. (The Idea of Justice.) Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 2009.
[4] Michael Hudson, Killing the Host. (Killing the Host.) Petrolia CA: Counterpunch Books, 2015,
[5] Coraggio, op. cit. p 71.
[6] Andres Monarea, Reformation and Enlightenment. Los Teólogos que Construyeron la Modernidad. Santiago: Editorial Ayun, Second edition 2012. Gastón Soublette, Manifiesto. Santiago: Ediciones de la Universidad Católica, 2019.
[7] Thomas Piketty, Capital and Ideology. Buenos Aires, Paidos, 2019.
[8] See the article “ideal type” in Wikipedia.
[9] Carol Gilligan, Ethics of Care http://www.secpal.com/%5CDocumentos%5CBlog%5Ccuaderno30.pdf
[10] Soublette, op. cit., p. 39.
[11] See Wikipedia article “Stages of Moral Development”; and John Gibbs, Moral Development and Reality. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014.
[12] Erich Fromm’s 1941 psychological analysis of the relationship between the loneliness of modern ‘free’ people and the majority support of the German people for Adolf Hitler’s extreme, anti-rational collectivism is topical. Erich Fromm, El Miedo a la Libertad. Buenos Aires: Paidos, 2005 (1941).
[13] Rolando Toro, Biodanza. Santiago: Editorial Cuarto Propio, 2008.
[14] In point three I interpret Soublette. I alone, while basically agreeing with Soublette, would not have dared to make such strong assertions. See also Douglas Porpora et al, Post Ethical Society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013.
[15] Richard Rorty anticipated Coraggio with his concept of edification. Richard Rorty, Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979. PP. 357-394. On page 579 he refers to changes in behaviour produced by changes in a person’s self-description.
[16] Alberto Hurtado, S.J. Social Humanism. Santiago: Editorial del Pacifico, 1947.
[17] Martin Luther King Jr. Where Are We Going: Chaos or Community? La Palma, Spain: Editorial Ayma, 1968.
[18] Paul Baran, On the Evolution of Economic Surplus. El Trimestre Económico Vol. 25 (1958), pp. 735-748. Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Económica. See also Alfonso Swett et al, ¿Y Si NosPonemos de Acuerdo? Santiago: Catalonia, 2016. PP. 216-221.
[19]There is abundant detail on the impossibility of overcoming poverty without surplus transfer in my book Economic Theory and Community Development. Lake Oswego OR: Dignity Press, 2021. Here is a link to a translation of the fourth chapter. http://chileufu.cl/dos-hechos-asombrosos-que-lo-cambian-todo/.
