Wednesday, 01 April 2009 14:21
Written by Bruni Luigino
Bruni, Luigino
Editorial
What the Economic Crisis Teaches Us
in Nuova Umanità n.182, vol.XXXI, 2009/02
Translation by N. Michael Brennen, michael@michaelbrennen.com, revised August 2009
“Even apart from the instability due to speculation, there is the instability due to the characteristic of human nature that a large proportion of our positive activities depend on spontaneous optimism rather than on a mathematical expectation … [our activities] can only be taken as a result of 'animal spirits'....”
(J. M. Keynes. General Theory, 1936)
They had gone almost half way when the Fox, halting suddenly, said to the puppet:
"Would you like to double your money?"
"In what way?"
"Would you like to make out of your five miserable sovereigns, a hundred, a thousand, two thousand?"
"I should think so! but in what way?"
"The way is easy enough. Instead of returning home you must go with us."
"And where do you wish to take me?"
"To the land of the Owls."
(Collodi, Carlo. The Adventures of Pinocchio. ch. XII)
The desire to possess money and to accumulate wealth is a strong passion in human beings, analogous to the sexual drive and to the desire for fame or power. For this reason civilizations have always thought that such passions require education and social institutions to regulate them, and, just perhaps, to transform and reorient these deep passions into some sort of common good.