The economist Stefano Zamagni, professor at the University of Bologna and president of the Observatory of families constituted by the Presidency of the Council of the Italian Republic, who in recent days received the International Prize “Economy and Society” of the Foundation Centesimus Annus “Pro Pontifice” alongside the other experts who contributed to the redaction of Benedict XVI’s social encyclical “Caritas in Veritate” and consultant to the Pontifical Council for the Family, was interviewed by Emanuela Bambara exclusively for the Dicastery on the occasion of a meeting with the President, Msgr. Vincenzo Paglia.
Question: Discussions are being held among experts in different fields regarding the urgent need to find new economic models other than liberal capitalism, which, especially at this day and age, has evidenced its failure. For many years now, you have been committed to the economy of solidarity that involves family organization. How have you been involved?
Answer: It is true that no alternatives to the market economy currently exist at worldwide level –up until twenty years ago there were alternatives and we all know how they ended--, but what we forget is that the market economy contains different models within it. We have the neoliberal market economy, the social market economy and the civil market economy. My commitment is with this third stance. The original idea of civil market economy contains typically Christian roots, primarily catholic, while the social market economy, from the religious and philosophic point of view, has Calvinist or, in general, Protestant roots. Now then, the essential idea of the civil market economy is to value the intermediary bodies of society in society’s organization and economy; that is to say, those expressions of organized civil society that have different names but express the vitality of those forming them. Well, one of these expressions is that of the family, which is the first. The family and networks of family associations established around the family. The fact is that in different countries, Italy, for example, my country, the family has never been recognized as having political and above all economic subjectivity. The family has always been looked upon as a place of sentiment, spirituality, which is true, but the family is also a subject capable of expressing pro-positiveness for society as a whole. Thus, the civil market economy is based on these principals.
Question: How is the wellbeing of family relationships valued at the economic and social levels and what is the cost, on the other hand, of family disintegration?
Answer: Stating that the family deserves to and must receive economic and social subjectivity means recognizing the family as a body that is –not only but more than others—able to generate human capital, social capital and, above all, is capable of generating the social cement, social cohesion, the cement uniting society. To forget this is not recognizing the family for what it contributes and, therefore, in arguing to the contrary, where the family is absent, for one reason or another, we see the consequences; for example, at the human capital level of children, today it has been shown that children who grow up in a normal family have an academic and school curriculum that is higher than those who do not; at the health level, for example, the family is the first physician, the first small hospital; if the family doesn’t take action, those who are ill must obviously be sustained by strangers, by the so-called “welfare state”, with the consequent costs, but above all the family is the main social “buffer” (protector), because at the heart of the family we must think in terms of generations; that is to say, three generations live together in each family: the grandparents, the parents and the children; this means that the family is a social buffer because, during the adverse economic cycle, it transfers rents and wealth from one generation to another. In this crisis, for example, we see that the grandparents are supporting the children; in other historical phases, we see the children supporting the grandparents if they are old and not self-sufficient. Therefore, to deny the role of the family, aside from the cultural and spiritual considerations, means to burden costs that are currently prohibitive on the community as a whole. It is thus quite unintelligent to forget this role of the family.
Question: How can the income redistribution system in the family be a model for politics and what are the most urgent family assistance policies at the economic, financial, tax and fiscal levels?
Answer: It is a matter of differentiating between the different countries. For example, Italy is one of the worst, from this point of view, in Europe. I am referring to the fiscal aspect. The Italian fiscal system does not recognize the family as such. For the Italian revenue authorities, all that exists is the individual living in the family; therefore, neither the family quotient nor the family as a factor are taken into consideration in this country. I always mention the case of secularism of France given that as early as 1945 --we were still in times of war-- it introduced the family quotient and has not changed it to this date. In Italy it seems to be a taboo and is unattainable. I say this because serious injustices against the family are committed in Italy; since the number of family members, that is to say, the number of children, and the psychophysical conditions of the family members are not taken into account, it turns out that in terms of income equality, the family with the greatest number of children pays more than a family that has no children. This is unacceptable and unfair, but above all offensive because having children is implicitly acknowledged as a commodity; it is something like saying: you, partner, wanted to have children, you manage because they are like a dog to keep you company. Paternity as the sole source that ensures the continuity and flourishing of society throughout time, is something that they do not want to acknowledge.
Question: How should labor policies change in order to be on par with the needs of the family, also with regard to time management?
Answer: This is a critical aspect now a day, both at the European and at the general level in the Western world. If we don't solve or untie the knot existing between work and family life, all we can expect is for the situation to worsen. This is because the problem is linked to the matter of the woman within the family and society. While women, for one reason or another, accepted to be in the family, relinquishing the workforce and, above all, a career, the problems were nonexistent. Today problems, especially in the Western world, arise from women having reached, or even exceeded, the educational level of men –Italy is a typical example, where 56 percent of those with a university degree are women and only 44 percent are men; and, in general, the academic curriculum of women is superior to that of men—thus, in face of this data, it is obvious that it is not possible to ask a woman who has invested in her human capital for up to a certain age, to renounce to all of this. That is why in Italy, the fertility rate has decreased so much so as to be one of the lowest worldwide, at 1.3. Each woman has an average of 1.3. We must understand that which Benedict XVI and John Paul II wrote, in the famous letter regarding women, written in a truly admirable way. From the Christian perspective, the family is governed by the principle of complementarity and not by the principle of substitutability. This is the structural error that many, even those of good faith in the Catholic world, commit. Complementarity means that in the center of the family a father and a mother, a husband and a wife are necessary because children need both the maternal and the paternal charisma. When the paternal charisma disappears because all matters regarding education are entrusted to the mother, for example, one can see the consequences. When I was at the university I could immediately tell how the students had been educated. This implies violence against the natural situation because, I repeat, in the natural state, the Christian God, has wanted husband and wife to be in a situation of complementarity and, therefore, of harmony. Complementarity leads to harmony and this means that harmony is more demanding than conciliation. Those who are familiar with my writings know that I am opposed to the principle of conciliation, which is a disagreeable principle; obviously it can be used in current terms; conciliation implies conflict within the family and work, and we cannot accept conflicts because the family is a value and so is work. We cannot accept the existence of conflict between two high-level values and must therefore harmonize them. Just like in an orchestra, where the conductor knows how to harmonize different instruments. The matter is therefore the following: it is necessary to rethink how work is organized in our companies to make work family friendly. Today, it is not family friendly. The work place is opposed to the family. This is a current challenge affecting the way in which we organize our society.
Question: Has the production and consumption culture generated the expected benefits or has it been a social, ethical and economic failure? Is cultural change necessary?
Answer: Cultural change is evidently a pressing matter. We can find the answer to this in the latest response provided by Benedict XVI in “Caritas in veritate”. The subtitle of the encyclical, “towards an integral human development” is quite important. And the key word is the adjective “integral”. It means that there are three dimensions present in the notion of human development: the material dimension referring to the production of material goods, of consumption of all types; the socio-relational dimension; and the spiritual dimension. What occurred during the last decades in our countries is that these three dimensions, instead of progressing harmoniously in unison, have separated in such a way that the material dimension has led us to forget the other two dimensions. That is why neo-consumerism is a consequence of identifying human development with growth. Growth is good, but if it is achieved at the cost of the interpersonal relationship and spiritual dimensions, it makes us fall into a new materialism, that of neo-consumerism, which John Paul II never grew weary of fighting against.
