Franciscan Wealth: From Voluntary Poverty to Market Society

Preface

PREFACE Between 1974 and 1977 i wrote and published my first essays on Franciscans and the economy, but this matter seemed eccentric to many. in 1980, four years after its completion, my edition of the treatise on contracts of the Franciscan, Peter John Olivi, was printed, and it was considered to be a strange thing or, in other words, an excessive attention to the “minor work” of the most spiritual of Franciscans of the late 1200s. the entire discourse sounded paradoxical. the idea that professionals of poverty had analyzed the market and the formation of prices seemed to be a quite extravagant fantasy since it was not customary for either catholics or Marxists to mix the sacred with the profane. then, little by little, the more and more diffused desire to be good and the necessity of facing the crisis of the market society promoted a growth of attention to economic ethics and, as a consequence, also to medieval economic thinking, especially that of the Franciscans. at this point, and in the last few years, there has been a somewhat amusing reversal of the trend. it was discovered not only that Franciscans were experts of economy, but it was also established that they had “invented capitalism.” Poor Max Weber. Personally, i do not think, and i never have, that Franciscans discovered the “laws of the market,” inaugurating the modern economy as “predecessors ” of adam smith. instead, i think that their conception of poverty (that is, their interpretation of christian perfection) has been an intrinsically economic language that developed independently from their desire. therefore, it has formed some basic categories in the economic way of thinking of western civilization, starting from those of western Protestants. so it was not the invention of the “spirit” of capitalism in a catholic key, or the anticipation of the date of birth of economic science. Perhaps it was something more disconcerting. in fact, it seems to me the Franciscans’ approach to the market reveals that it was the most rigorous christian religiosity that formed a large part of the vocabulary in western economics, that the christian world was never extraneous from the market, as fantasized between the 1800s and 1900s, nor was there a clear FRANCISCAN WEALTH 8 separation between morality and business. Franciscanism, in the very heart of roman catholicity, identified in deprivation and renunciation the decisive elements for understanding the value of trade. however, this was the logical, everyday conclusion of a theological journey founded on metaphysics and on the politics of the Divine incarnation (the sacred exchange), as the christian tradition had progressively extolled them over the centuries. as a consequence, Franciscans were not the “first economists,” but rather those who made the appearance of economists in the christian West of the following centuries possible. But in order to accept this formulation , it is necessary to admit that the religion of the heart and that of business have a lot in common. My gratitude goes first of all to Giovanna Movia, who, by encouraging me to write this book in this form, allowed me to express things i have wanted to say for a long time. i thank Giovanni ceccarelli and Paolo evangelisti who read the following pages, punctually advising and correcting me when they did not find them clear. Ovidio capitani has been and is at the origin of this discourse. i am still grateful to him for this. i have often discussed this book with Marina Foscanelli, and i dedicate it to her. editor’s note: Grateful acknowledgment is also due to Donatella Melucci for her translation of this text. Generous donors made the task of bringing Giacomo todeschini’s work to the english-speaking world possible, as well as the many proofreaders who helped in the preparation of the manuscript. ...