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Cordial Goods: The Role of Intangibles in Economics

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Book cover The Cordial Economy - Ethics, Recognition and Reciprocity

Part of the book series: Ethical Economy ((SEEP,volume 55))

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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.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    For an in-depth study of the historical and conceptual development of common goods , see Álvaro Ramis (2017) and Zamagni (2007a, b, 2014, 2016).

  2. 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. 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. 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. 5.

    From the relational goods perspective, caring has been recently dealt with by economist Cristina Carrasco (2014). Her contributions help to understand necessary aspects to consider in “(…) preparing indicators of time as a measure of care as a relational good” (Carrasco 2014: 49).

  6. 6.

    The first works that collected and developed the concept were Relational Goods and “Participation . Incorporating Sociability into a Theory of Rational Action ” (Uhlaner 1989) and “La cultura della vita. Dalla società tradizionale a quella post-moderna” (Donati , 1989).

  7. 7.

    For further details of relational goods , see Donati (2013, 2015); Donati and Solci (2011) and Uhlaner (2014).

  8. 8.

    Bruni (2008: 93–95, 2005: 554–557); Bruni and Zamagni (2007: 237–242); Donati (1989, 1991, 2008, 2013, 2014); Gui (2000); Uhlaner (1989: 254, 2014); Zamagni (2006: 57–61, 2008: 480–485, 2009: 11–16, 2010a:72–73, 2010b: 87–89).

  9. 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. 10.

    For further information about the notion of transaction costs, see North (1994: 359–368).

  11. 11.

    For a comparison of the theoretical proposals put forward by Sen and García-Marzá , see Reyes (2008: 153–172).

  12. 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. 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. 14.

    To learn other perspectives of the value of such intangible resources in the economy, see Donati and Calvo (2014b) and Donati (2014).

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    Patrici Calvo

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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

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