SOCIETY

The Common Good Cannot Be Shattered
Recent events have destroyed the myth of globalization. The political dimension has taken refuge in a Manichaean position. But the aim must come back to the good of the person
edited by Paola Bergamini

Enron, the Argentinean shares, the Cirio affair, and now the Parmalat case. We come to ask ourselves what is happening in the world, and not only at the economic level. The impression is that what really counts is only personal interest and that it is no longer possible to build a common good. We spoke to Massimo Borghesi, Professor of Theoretical Philosophy at the University of Perugia.

The world economy appears to be dominated by unscrupulous forces, whether they be banks, monetary organs, financiers or industries. Is it the end of the myth of globalization?
I would say that it is a further blow, after the Balkan wars, September 11th, Afghanistan, and Iraq, to the idea of a globalization that arose in the wake of 1989: the end of history that Fukuyama spoke of. Globalization, presented as a panacea for the world’s ills and socio-economic differences–the problem of hunger solved by the year 2000–gives way to more realistic evaluations. As John Paul II affirms in his letter Ecclesia in Europa, “The current process of globalization, rather than leading towards the greater unity of the human race, risks being dominated by an approach that would marginalize the less powerful and increase the number of poor in the world” (§ 8). In the European and particularly the Italian context, globalization has been the justification adopted for selling national industries, for re-dimensioning the social State, for an economic-financial praxis that put at the center the power of the banks and the offshore financial institutions, outside Europe, which Luigi Spaventa described as the true “rogue States” because of the looting and destruction of people’s savings. This picture, obvious to the most distracted observer, made obsolete the equating of globalization with common good, taken for granted until yesterday. In concrete terms, globalization worked as a model for strong economies, supported by political realities (USA, Europe, Japan) who internally practiced a clear protectionist position. The lesson to draw is that the weaker realities now need to be safeguarded more than ever.

The idea of the “common good,” which you referred to and that the current financial scandals bring dramatically into the foreground, seems to have been excluded from the dictionary a long time ago. What place is left for the “common good” in present-day politics?
At least for the smaller States, globalization means in some way loss of sovereignty and of control over economic processes. Politics can no longer control the “animal instincts,” the sum total of individual selfishness, which makes up society. After 1989, economic globalization has gone face to face with the loss of universality in politics. The democratic model, apparently with no enemies, turned in on itself in the celebration of the free market. It was Islamic fundamentalism, with its mixture of theology and politics, and September 11th, that forced the West to regain its political dimension. As in the years of the Cold War, of the division between East and West, the way leading back to politics is the presence of the enemy. In this perspective, the “common good” is determined by the common defense against the opponent. Currently, this means safeguarding and protection from terrorism. On a more global scale, though, the notion of the common good comes to include war against tyrants in order to export democracy in the world. In this way, the use of the word is set within a Manichaean vision that divides the world into areas populated by good people and bad people.

You seem not to agree with this perspective. Does the idea of “common good” have something to do with the notion of “compromise”? Doesn’t compromise mean an ideal or practical concession?
Politics lives of universality and compromise. Nowadays, politics is in crisis because it is neither one thing nor the other. It is rather cynical idealism, which tends to take advantage by stressing the differences, giving rise to heartless pragmatism. Compromise is negative when it means a pure sell-off, mafia-like bargaining or the dissipation of resources. On the contrary, it is positive when it is aimed at overcoming social and political hatred. The “historic compromise” between the Christian Democrats and the Italian Communist Party, in the heated environment of the seventies, represented a formula for government and social co-existence. Compromise is tolerant towards the lesser evil, as its aim is to reduce social and idealistic conflict that divide a nation. This category includes the theme of “imperfect laws” dealt with by Saint Augustine.

You present the art of compromise as a specific way to reach the common good. Nowadays, though, the political panorama is marked by endless conflict, a conflict that has characterized the State institutions for ten years now.
After 1989, right and left both thought they could get firm control through the bipolar system, a typically “Manichaean” system that foresaw the liquidation of the center. The conflict arises from there, where the magistrature [the public prosecution service] took the place of the politicians in this work of “liquidation.” Today, the problem is not the balance of power through which the modern State placed a limit on its own absolutist tendencies; just as in the economic field, over-centralization of the supervisory structures (Bank of Italy, Consob, Antitrust) has to be avoided. The problem is that each should do his own job and not step outside the role he is given. On the other hand, it is true that roles are exchanged where vacuums emerge. Thus, as a consequence of the de-politicization of politics we got the politicization of the magistrature, and the de-legitimization of the trade unions led to the springing up of fragmentary grass root unions. In politics, there can be no vacuum; when there is, it produces chaos. This is why a political stance that is aware of its primacy should not de-legitimize its adversary, but acknowledge it from the point of view of an overall good. Compromise takes on an ideal form in the point of view of an overall good. Nowadays, this requires particular attention towards the more vulnerable social strata: the millions who live on the verge of poverty; immigrants welcomed, given certain conditions, as guests worthy of respect.

Does the common good correspond to a social model?
In a certain sense, yes. This is what the Church’s Social Doctrine tried to set out. Its is an open model, which foresees, according to the historical circumstances, a whole range of possible options. In reality, however, everything depends on whether the person, understood according to a greater or lesser measure, is the aim of the political, economic or social action. When Giorgio La Pira asked for state intervention to prevent the closure of the firm Nuova Pignone in Florence, he was harshly criticized by the “liberal” Luigi Sturzo. La Pira, in fact, was not concerned about the purity of the model, but about the sacking of the workers and the hundreds of families left in misery. The common good is born of a “detail,” of the care for “someone,” then it develops, as an ideal tendency, towards the whole.

Can we say that the West is the locus of the person? Is this not the premise for an authentic notion of the “common good”?
The West is the locus of the person in so far as the Christian tradition, for which the person is the “real” par excellence, is still alive. On the contrary, the nuda persona (naked person) is, as Hegel understood very well, the abstract individual, the nothingness of the faceless beggar who crosses our path. Elsewhere exist peoples, ethnic groups, and tribes–not individuals. Europe, as it establishes itself, acknowledges this gift it has been given–the awareness of a precious good–but, as J. H. Weiler showed in his essay, “A Christian Europe” (Ed. Rizzoli 2003), not its giver. Nevertheless, what is essential is the acknowledgment of what Ecclesia in Europa calls the “three complementary elements”: the right of the Churches and religious communities to organize themselves freely; respect for the specific identities of the religious confessions; respect for the judicial status that these Churches and confessions already enjoy in virtue of legislation in the member states of the Union. In recognizing these three conditions, Europe acknowledges the terrain on which the notion of the person grew, the locus of its experience. The knotty question is how to harmonize this notion with that of the “common good” which presently has to take account of foreigners, those having different habits, customs and mentalities. Remi Brague, in a splendid book, Europe, la voie romaine [Europe, the Roman way], pointed out in the Roman-Christian tradition an unprecedented capacity for welcome and integration. The French shortcut, in which the lay State abolishes every public religious sign, has led to the recognition of Catholic schools on the part of the Islamic authorities, as places of openness and true tolerance. Once again, a strong ideological position becomes a source of division, of separation and collision. In this case, there is a failure in that necessary compromise between universal rights and particular customs–the veil is one thing, the burqa is quite another–where there is room for tolerance. This is a tolerance that, without fanaticism and religious wars, the West could gradually ask even of countries of Islamic tradition with whom there are more intense economic and diplomatic relationships.