Abstract
Extending the margins of economic rationality in an effective and ethical-critical sense through cordiality opens the door to the possibility of managing and promoting the intangible capital which, just like reciprocity, trust , affinity or reputation , is a condition of the possibility of economic progress. This is because, among other things, these allow the establishment and development of the relational processes, like cooperation, that allow it but with an underlying emotional and communicative dimension, which cannot be duly managed through merely strategic-technical and calculative-instrumental rationality. It is also because these assets are a both a means and an end for the economy as they are an essential element to deal with managing common good and are, at the same time, a special kind of common good. The aim of this chapter is to show the role, characteristics and cordial dimension that underlie the common goods that are so important for the economic domain, such as reciprocity, trust or reputation, through the works of Elinor Ostrom , Pierpaolo Donati , Amartya Sen or Domingo García-Marzá , among others.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
- 2.
The first-time common goods were considered “(…) in economic terms goes back to 1911, when the American economist Katharine Coman published her study ‘Some unsettled problems of irrigation’, in the American Economic Review ” (Zamagni 2014: 8).
- 3.
As Zamagni (2014: 8) points out, “William Lloyd was the first author to describe the phenomenon that would later become known as “the tragedy of commons”, in two lectures given at Oxford University in 1832”.
- 4.
All relational goods are common, but not all common goods are relational. As Donati argues (2014: 33), “Relational goods are the subset of common goods that can only be generated together: no one who takes part in them can be excluded from them; they cannot be subdivided and are not the sum of individual goods”.
- 5.
- 6.
- 7.
- 8.
- 9.
According to Becchetti et al. (2010: 102–104), the law on marginal utility indicates that the satisfaction that a certain good contributes to an individual tends to decrease when used over a long period. This means that, for instance, the experienced utility value when a meal begins starts to fall as the individual feels full, and can even enter a negative phase if eating goes on. So, the value of a given good is measured by its marginal utility rather than its objective utility. Yet this decreasing marginal utility is not applicable to relational goods , as they work in the opposite way to standard goods: the more they are used, the more satisfaction they provide.
- 10.
For further information about the notion of transaction costs, see North (1994: 359–368).
- 11.
For a comparison of the theoretical proposals put forward by Sen and García-Marzá , see Reyes (2008: 153–172).
- 12.
The term moral resource was coined by economist Albert O. Hirschman in “Against parsimony: three easy ways of complicating some categories of economic discourse” (1984: 11–84), and has been conceptually worked by Hirschman himself, by sociologists Claus Offe and Ulrich K. Preuss in “Democratic Institutions and Moral Resources” (1991), and mainly by philosopher García-Marzá in Ética emrpesarial: del diálogo a la confianza (2004).
- 13.
As Donati explains, “Saying that it is an emergent effect means that it requires a certain combination (not a simple aggregation) of factors, elements, or components as discussed above; its emergent character accents the fact that the relational good is a ‘third’ entity that exceeds the involved subjects’ contributions and that, in certain cases, may not have been foreseen or thought of as the initial intention” (2014: 31).
- 14.
Bibliography
Archer, Margaret. 1982. Morphogenesis versus structuration: On combining structure and action. The British Journal of Sociology 33 (4): 455–483.
———. 1987. Resisting the revival of relativism. International Sociology 2 (3): 235–250.
———. 1988. Culture and Agency: The Place of Culture in Social Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
———. 1995. Realist Social Theory: The Morphogenetic Approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Becchetti, Leonardo, Luigino Bruni, and Stefano Zamagni. 2010. Microeconomia. Scelte, Relazione, Economia Civile. Bologna: Il Mulino.
Bicchieri, Cristina, John Duffy, and Gil Tolle. 2004. Trust among Strangers. Philosophy of Science 71 (3): 286–319.
Bruni, Luigino. 2005. Felicità, Economia e Beni Relazionali. Nuova Umanità 27 (159–160): 543–565.
———. 2008 [2006]. Il Prezzo Della Gratuità. Madrid: Ciudad Nueva.
Bruni, Luigino, and Stefano Zamagni. 2007 [2004]. Civil Economy: Efficiency, Equity, Public Happiness. New York: Peter Lang.
Calvo, Patrici. 2013. Neuro-racionalidad: Heterogeneidad motivacional y comportamiento moral. Daimon. Revista Internacional de Filosofía 59: 157–170.
Calvo, Patrici, and Elsa González-Esteban. 2013. Neuroeconomía, ¿un saber práctico? In Ética y neurociencias: la aportación a la política, la economía y la educación, ed. Domingo García-Marzá and Ramón A. Feenstra, 93–116. Castellón de la Plana: Publicacions de la Universitat Jaume I.
Cárdenas, Juan-Camilo, and Elinor Ostrom. 2004. What do people bring into the game? Experiments in the field about cooperation in the commons. Agricultural Systems 82: 307–326.
Carrasco, Cristina. 2014. El cuidado como bien relacional: hacia posibles indicadores. Papeles de relaciones ecosociales y cambio global 128: 49–60.
Cortina, Adela. 2000. Ética empresarial en el contexto de una ética cívica. In La ética de la empresa. Claves para una nueva ética empresarial, ed. Adela Cortina, 35–50. Madrid: Trotta.
———. 2007a. Ethica cordis. Isegoría. Revista de Filosofía Moral y Política 37: 113–126.
———. 2007b. Ética de la razón cordial. Educar en la ciudadanía en el siglo XXI. Oviedo: Nobel.
———. 2010. Justicia cordial. Madrid: Trotta.
———. 2011. Neuroética y Neuropolítica. Sugerencias para la Educación Moral. Madrid: Tecnos.
———. 2012. Neuroética, presente y futuro. In Neurofilosofía práctica, ed. Adela Cortina, 9–38. Comares: Granada.
———. 2013a. Ética del discurso: ¿un marco filosófico para la neuroética? Isegoría. Revista de Filosofía Moral y Política 48: 127–148.
———. 2013b. ¿Para qué sirve realmente… la ética? Barcelona: Paidós Ibérica.
———. 2017. Aporofobia, el rechazo al pobre. Un desafío para la democracia. Barcelona: Paidós Ibérica.
del Estado, Jefatura. 2007. Ley 14/2007, de 3 de julio, de Investigación bi- omédica [Biomedical Research Act 14/2007, of 3 July]. Boletín Oficial del Estado 159: 28826-28846. http://www.isciii.es/ISCIII/es/contenidos/fdinvestigacion/Ley_In-vestigacion_Biomedica.pdf. Accessed 25 Sept 2017.
Deloitte. 2016. Global Human Capital Trends 2016. The New Organization: Different by Design. Deloitte University Press.
Donati, Pierpaolo. 1986. Introduzione alla sociologia relazionale. Milan: Francine.
———. 1989. La cultura della vita. Dalla società tradizionale a quella postmoderna. Milan: FrancoAngeli.
———. 1991. Teoria relazionale della società. Milan: FrancoAngeli.
———. 2008. Discovering the relational character of the common good. In Pursuing the Common Good: How Solidarity and Subsidiarity Can Work Together, ed. Margaret Archer and Pierpaolo Donati, 659–683. Vatican City: The Pontifical Academy Social Sciences.
———. 2011. Modernization and relational reflexivity. International Review of Sociology. Revue Internationale de Sociologie 21 (1): 21–39.
———. 2013. Sociologia relazionale. Come cambia la società. Brescia: Editrice La Scuola.
———. 2014. Relational goods and their subjects: The ferment of a new civil society and civil democracy. Recerca. Revista de Pensament i Anàlisi 14: 19–46.
———. 2015. L’enigma della relazione. Milan: Mimesis.
Donati, Pierpaolo, and Patrici Calvo. 2014a. New insight into relational goods. In New Insight into Relational Goods, ed. Pierpaolo Donati and Patrici Calvo, 7–17. Castellón: Publicacions de la Universitat Jaume I.
———. 2014b. New Insight into Relational Goods. Castellón de la Plana: Publicacions de la Universitat Jaume I.
Donati, Pierpaolo, and Riccardo Solci. 2011. I beni relazionali. Che cosa sono e quali effetti producono. Turin: Bollati Boringhieri.
Edelman Berland. 2003–2016. Edelman Trust Barometer Executive Summary. Annual Global Study. Edelman Berland.
Fehr, Ernst, Urs Fischbacher, and Simon Gächter. 2002. Strong reciprocity, human cooperation and the enforcement of social norms. Human Nature 13 (1): 1–25.
Fehr, Ernst, Holger Herz, and Tom Wilkening. 2013. The lure of authority: Motivation and incentive effects of power. American Economic Review 103 (4): 1325–1359.
Gallup. 2013. State of the Global Workplace: Employee Engagement Insights for Business Leaders Worldwide. Washington, DC: Gallup Inc.
García-Marzá, Domingo. 2004. Ética empresarial: del diálogo a la confianza. Madrid: Trotta.
———. 2005. Diálogo y responsabilidad: bases éticas de la confianza en la empresa. Revista Icade 64: 91–108.
———. 2007. Responsabilidad social de la empresa: una aproximación desde la ética empresarial. Veritas 2 (17): 183–204.
Gui, Benedetto. 2000. Behind transaction: On interpersonal dimension of economic reality. Annals of Public and Cooperative Economics 71 (1): 139–169.
Hardin, Garrett. 1968. The tragedy of the commons. Science 162 (1): 1243–1248.
Hirschman, Albert O. 1984. Against parsimony: Three easy ways of complicating some categories of economic discourse. Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences 37 (8): 11–84.
Henrich, Josep, Robert Boyd, Samuel Bowles, Colin Camerer, Ernst Fehr, Herbert Gintis, and Richard McElreath. 2001. In search of Homo Economicus: Behavioral experiments in 15 small-scale societies. American Economic Review 91 (2): 73–78.
Kosfeld, Michael, Markus Heinrichs, Paul J. Zak, Urs Fischbacher, and Ernst Fehr. 2005. Oxytocin increases trust in humans. Nature 435 (1): 637–677.
Medina-Vicent, Maria. 2016. Neurociencia y teoría política feminista. La inestabilidad sexo-género-sexualidad a través de la obra de Paul B. Preciado. Pensamiento. Revista de Investigación e Información Filosófica 72 (273): 981–996.
North, Douglass C. 1994. Performance through time. The American Economic Review 84 (3): 359–368.
Nussbaum, Martha. 1986. The Fragility of Goodness: Luck and Ethics in Greek Tragedy and Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Offe, Claus, and Ulrich K. Preuss. 1991. Democratic institutions and moral resources. In Political Theory Today, ed. David Held, 143–171. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Ostrom, Elinor. 1990. Governing the Commons. The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
———. 1999. Design Principles and Threats to Sustainable Organizations that Manage Commons [Workshop on Political Theory and Policy Analysis]. Indianapolis: Center for the Study of Institutions, Population, and Environmental Change, Indiana University. http://beyondostrom.blog.rosalux.de/files/2013/05/Design-Principles-and-Threats-to-Sustainable-Organizations-That-Manage-Commons.pdf. Accessed 25 Sept 2017.
———. 2003. Toward a behavioral theory linking trust, reciprocity, and reputation. In Trust & Reciprocity. Interdisciplinary Lessons from Experimental Research, ed. Elinor Ostrom and James Walker, 19–79. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
Ostrom, Elinor, and Harini Nagendra. 2010. Governing the commons in the new millennium: A diversity of institutions for natural resource management. In Re-inventing construction, ed. Ilca Rudy and Andreas Ruby, 380–387. Rudy Press: Berlin.
Pallarés-Domínguez, Daniel. 2016. Neuroeducación en diálogo: neuromitos en el proceso de enseñanza-aprendizaje y en la educación moral. Pensamiento. Revista de Investigación e Información Filosófica 72 (273): 941–958.
Ramis, Álvaro. 2017. Bienes comunes y democracia. Crítica del individualismo posesivo. Santiagio de Chile: LOM ediciones.
Reyes, Agustín. 2008. El Enfoque de las Capacidades, la Agencia Cognitiva y los Recursos Morales. Recerca. Revista de Pensament i Anàlisi 8: 153–172.
Sen, Amartya. 1977. Rational fools. A critique of the behavioral foundations of economic theory. In Philosophy and Public Affairs, ed. Frank Hahn and Martin Hollis, 317–344. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.
———. 1987. On Ethics and Economy. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.
———. 2000. Development as Freedom. New York: Anchor.
———. 2003. Ética de la empresa y desarrollo económico. In Construir confianza, ed. Adela Cortina, 39–54. Madrid: Trotta.
Uhlaner, Carole. 1989. Participation. Incorporating sociability into a theory of rational action. Public Choice 62 (3): 253–285.
———. 2014. Relational goods and resolving the paradox of political participation. Recerca. Revista de Pensament i Anàlisi 14: 47–72.
Zamagni, Stefano. 2006. Heterogeneidad motivacional y comportamiento económico. La perspectiva de la economía civil. Madrid: Unión Editorial.
———. 2007a. El bien común en la sociedad posmoderna: propuestas para la acción político-económica. Revista Cultural Económica 25 (79): 23–43.
———. 2007b. L’economia del bene comune. Rome: Città Nuova.
———. 2008. La Economía civil y los bienes relacionales. In Las nuevas economías. De la economía evolucionista a la economía cognitivista: más allá de las fallas de la teoría neoclásica, ed. Riccardo Viale, 169–186. Flacso México: Mexico.
———. 2009. Fraternity, gifts and reciprocity in Cáritas in Veritate. Revista Cultural Económica 27 (75–76): 11–29.
———. 2010a. Catholic social thought, civil economy, and the spirit of capitalism. In The True Wealth of Nations, ed. Daniel K. Finn, 63–93. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
———. 2010b. Globalization: Guidance from Franciscan economic thought and caritas in veritate. Faith & Economics 56: 81–109.
———. 2014. Bienes communes y economía civil. Revista Cultura Económica XXXII 87: 8–25.
———. 2016. Il bene comune come berillo intellettuale in economia. Archivio di filosofía 84 (1–2): 161–176.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Calvo, P. (2018). Cordial Goods: The Role of Intangibles in Economics. In: The Cordial Economy - Ethics, Recognition and Reciprocity. Ethical Economy, vol 55. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90784-0_8
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90784-0_8
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-90783-3
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-90784-0
eBook Packages: Religion and PhilosophyPhilosophy and Religion (R0)