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Economy for the Common Good

Updated: Dec 26, 2021



Economy for the Common Good, a model proposed by the Austrian economist Martin Felber, aspires to be an alternative to predatory capitalism. For Felber, it is urgent to develop a framework that not only considers economic profit for its owners as the objective of business activity, but also, and primarily, the common good, i.e. the impact on society as a whole.


For Felber, ethics must be the foundation of economic activity, and values such as trust, honesty, responsibility, cooperation, solidarity, generosity, as well as ecological sustainability are essential. His philosophy can be summarised as follows:

All it takes is a little more time for ourselves, a little cleaner environment and strengthened social relations to have a much better life.


But how can Felber's values be quantified? According to the economist,


it is more difficult to go to the moon than to measure the increase of the common good. In today's economy we confuse the end with the means. All the Constitutions of democratic countries say that money should be the means to the proper functioning of the economy and not its end; the end should be the common good. And our proposal is to measure the scope of that end: when we measure the success of the economy, of a company, of an investment, we have to measure the scope of the end and not the disposition of the means. That is why we propose the product of the common good instead of the monetary flow and a balance sheet of the common good instead of or next to the financial balance sheet. We can measure the degree to which these criteria are met and award points within this balance sheet. Companies with more points will have more advantages and will be more publicised, have better credit conditions, more public contracts or pay less tax.


Perhaps the most innovative of Felber's ideas is a matrix, or balance sheet of the common good, which allows for the evaluation and self-assessment of the contribution towards the common good of the different economic actors.


This matrix connects four core values, human dignity, solidarity and justice, environmental sustainability, and transparency and democratic participation with the main actors in society.


We consider Felber's effort to translate abstract values into measurable elements to be laudable. We add some comments that may help to reflect on this influential economic model with a view to the common good:


1. The model suggests a "network" of intertwined actors and forces, rather than the simplistic classical economic vision in which anonymity ("anonymous" societies) and the strange "Hobbesian" notion that the sum of egoisms (each economic actor acting with a view to his own benefit) governed by "the invisible hand", gives us the best ofall possible worlds.


2. This implies a paradigm shift from a Darwinian view of the survival of the fittest "sharks" to a much more modern view of evolution as a product of solidarity rather than competition.


3. Perhaps the main practical limitation of the model proposed by Felber is that it seems more suitable, considering the monopolistic behaviour of today's large economic actors, for more limited economic spaces where "neighbours" know each other and help each other, at least in disaster situations.


And as the world seems to be fragmenting, perhaps going back to local communities, and considering them as key actors, is a very good idea.


We end by thanking Martin Felber and his bold followers for their stimulating contributions to the philosophy for the common good.


Dr. Harry Costin


Sources:

https://economiadelbiencomun.org/ Accessed: 5 July 2021


 
 
 

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