The Economy of Communion: Toward a Multi-Dimensional Economic Culture

by Luigino Bruni (Editor), Lorna Gold (Translator)

The eight articles convey the principles at the root of the Economy of Communion and explain its unique characteristics. Pope Benedict XVIs new encyclical letter, Caritas in Veritate , in paragraph 46 speaks of an economy of communion. As John Allen remarked in a July 7, 2009 interview with Mundell & Associates, an Indiana-based Economy of Communion business, The Economy of communion was cited by Benedict XVI as a promising form of intermediate activity between for-profit business and classic non-profit institutions, rupturing what the pope called an exclusively binary model of market-plus-state which is corrosive of society. When I proposed the Economy of Communion, I certainly did not have a theory in mind. Nonetheless, I can see that it draws the attention of economists, sociologists, philosophers and scholars from other disciplines (Chiara Lubich). Over the years the Economy of Communion has come a long way. Within a year of its beginning in 1991 a dozen pioneering businesses already existed. Now the Economy of Communion involves over seven hundred businesses throughout the world. Using the language of economics, the articles in this volume convey the principles at the root of the Economy of Communion and explain its unique characteristics within the context of current and historical economic thought and practice at both the micro and macro levels.

144 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

About the author

Prof. Dr. Luigino Bruni was born in Ascoli Piceno in 1966.

He is an Associate Professor at the University of Milan-Bicocca, Economics Department and at the Sophia University of Loppiano in Florence.

In 1989, he graduated with a degree in Economics from the University of Ancona in Italy. From 1996 to 1998, Luigino pursued further studies in the UK. He attended the London School of Economics on the first year and the University of East Anglia the following year.

In 1998, he completed his first PhD in the History of Economics at the University of Florence in Italy.

In 2004 Luigino returned to the U.K. where he earned his second PhD in Economics at the University of East Anglia.

For the last 15 years his research has covered many areas ranging from Microeconomics, Ethics and Economics, History of Economic Thought, Methodology of Economics, Sociality and Happiness in Economics. Recently, he has demonstrated great interest on the Civil Economy and economic-related categories, such as Reciprocity and Gratuitousness.

Luigino has written many books on these topics, many of them in Italian though some have been published in English (e.g. Reciprocity, altruism and civil society, Routledge, London, 2008; A Handbook on The Economics of Happiness, edited with P. Porta, Elgar, 2007; Civil Economy, with S. Zamagni, Peter Lang, Oxford, 2007; Civil Happiness, Routledge, London, 2006).

In 2008, he won the Silver Prize at the “Templeton Enterprise Awards” for Civil Happiness.

Luigino’s current research focuses on the role of intrinsic motivation in economic and civil life.