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 Sr.
Alessandra Smerilli, Daughter of Maria Ausiliatrice, teaches political
Economy in the Pontifical Faculty of Science of Education Auxilium, and
Economy of co-operation in the Catholic University, Rome. We have asked
her to help us understand better the meaning of the present financial
economy, which involves the whole world
We are living a not easy moment for the economy and the stock exchanges
of the whole world. To you, which are the causes of this crisis that
worries the families, the Banks and Multinationals, in the United States
and not only there?
“The
turbulent situation under our eyes these days, is by now an economic and
not just a financial crisis: what is of common interest is the real
economy, the families, the workers, all of us. The most evident causes
are of financial and political nature, but out of the remote causes we
cannot help mentioning those of ethical nature. In general, one cause of
this crisis –the first crisis of our globalised economy- is that it is
no longer possible to distinguish between real and financial economy:
the real economy is financial!
For
this reason, the crisis is not originated only by the Banks and by the
financial investors, which are becoming the scapegoat, but, as we shall
see, at the basis of all this there is also a “drugged” culture of
consumerism.
We
commonly start from the Banks. The most common words today are “mortgage
loan” and “immovable market”. Let us see the reason why. Once the banks
that emitted loans and “mortgage loans” were those that cashed. During
the past ten years some innovations have been introduces in the market
of the American credit. A Bank can distribute a mortgage loan and
receive in return the commitment of payment accompanied by a mortgage (a
good that is fixed in case a person is unable to return the loan). Then,
the Bank itself can sell the commitment of payment to the investors, who
practically buy the financial fluxes (the rates of the loans) which the
citizens must return. The Bank that sells the commitment of payment gets
more money to lend, and so long and so forth, in a card game which takes
us more and more away from the real economy. The investors compose the
diversified portfolios of titles (the payment commitments), also on the
base of quality: the securest ones produce less, the uncertain and risky
ones produce more because they incorporate a major risk. The so called
derived portfolios of titles are in turn sold and obviously the most
risky and profitable titles will attract the unscrupulous speculators.
Now,
if the bank that evaluates the trustfulness of a client, in order to
grant a loan, will not have then to cash it, it will have less incentive
to select trustful clients. If then we add the fact that the risky
titles are requested in the market, we soon understand how the quality
of the clients has somehow deteriorated. To all this we must add that
the Banks, in order to get the utmost profit from these opportunities,
have created ad hoc instruments outside the balance, the so called SIV,
so that they may turn about the norms that bind the institutes of credit
to a well defined relation between one’s own resources and the invested
ones. Let us think that, in the sector of the traditional loans to the
clients, the rules limit the risk that the Bank might have to 8%, while
in the market of the derived operations go on without any regulation.
The paradox is that the norms of Basilea II, the international agreement
with which they try to keep under control the risk of the Banks, allows
these products to go on unobserved and, at the same time, it decrees
that the social loans (for the non-profit and the ecclesiastical,
religious entities) are at high risk.
To
have just an idea of these things, we must know that the world PIL (Prodotto
Interno Lordo) amounts to about 58 trillion dollars, while the total
value of the derived products amounts to 1288 trillion dollars.
In
this financial picture, the facility of getting loaned money has
increased the demands of houses, thus prices, too, have increased
according to the increase of the demands: from 1997 up to 2006 the value
of houses in the USA has increased of 124%. All this is good for him
who is committed to a loan: if the costs of houses keep on increasing
and I become aware of being unable to pay the loan, I sell back the
house, extinguish the loan and have something left! Everything goes on
well until the prices keep on increasing. Instead, when the prices go
down (this is what has happened in the USA market starting fro 2006),
then the value of the loan is above that of the house, consequently the
families that cannot pay the loan lose everything. In the USA, the fall
in price of the houses has now reached the average rate of 10% per year.
Therefore, a vicious circle has started, the bubble has burst: many
families cannot pay and must declare bankruptcy, the houses are
auctioned and this contributes to a further fall of prices…the financial
institutions, which had turned this market into a battle-horse, undergo
a crisis together with all the institutions and organizations, as well
as the private citizens in possession of titles belonging to bankrupt
institutions. This means that economy suffers a slow-down and we enter a
phase of recession, in which inoccupation increases and trade
diminishes; in a few words: here is the crisis which, according to many
economists, will be (or perhaps it is already) the most serious one
after the recession of the 30s.
However, we cannot stop here, we cannot accuse only the Banks to
delineate the causes of the crisis. True, the crisis has got amplified
because of unscrupulous speculators, but also because of a culture of
consumerism, which has ‘dopato’ the consume: the illusion has so much
gone on growing through the years as it is not necessary to bind what is
consumed to one’s own income.
You call to cause the “dopata” culture of consumerism. Why?
“Once, to buy a lasting good (such as a car, a washing-machine, etc.)
first money would be saved, sacrifices would be made, and then the
good would be bought. Today the families, particularly in the Western
countries, do no longer save: the “buy today and start paying in the
year 2010” has become a normal style. This has contributed to increase
the crisis, because until everything functions, that is, until the
economy improves, this paper castle stands, but at the first problems
the domino effect bursts forth and drags everybody with itself.
The
DSC reminds us, instead, that saving is important, that it is a link
among the various components of society: among generations in time (the
savings of the parents become the “graduation” of their son); among the
families and today’s enterprisers (the families used to save and,
thanks to the bank system, the enterprisers could invest)”.
Who is at loss in this turbulent situation? The economy of developing
countries or also those of the west?
“In
our globalised world, in good or evil times, the effects of turbulences
have their repercussions everywhere and on all peoples. However, the
fact that the present crisis has its epicentre in the United States, a
centre of dense nets of international relations, it works in such a way
as the whole world will be affected by it directly or indirectly.
Surely, many emerging and developing countries have not yet been
directly overthrown by the crisis, owing to the fact that their
financial structures are scarcely internationalised. However, these
countries are the ones who will suffer most the effects of the crisis on
the real economy. According to the studies of the World Bank, first of
all in these countries, just as in the remaining parts of the world,
there will be a decrease in the rate of economic growth: before the
crisis, the estimated rate of the developing countries was of 6,4% for
the year 2009, now the revised estimated rate speaks of 4,5%%. Together
with this they estimate a reduction of the international trade and a
diminution of prices of the first means, therefore, there will be
problems for the exporters. Even the works of the emigrants will
diminish, and it will become more difficult to find work in the
developing countries, because they will be the ones to be more affected
by the crisis. At the same time, it will be more difficult also to
obtain loans and there will be lower rates of interest, however, this
will be positive. Effects of longer duration, which we should try to
avoid, could be an increase of malnutrition and the decrease of
schooling. In this delicate moment, the Church (See; the note on Iustitia
et Pax in the Assembly of the United Nations at Doha) is trying to
remind all of us that the initiatives are to be co-ordinated for the
solution of the crisis within a global perspective, without taking into
consideration only the urgent problems of the western countries. There
is a signal of hope in the fact that the developing countries, moved by
the effect of the crisis, could free themselves from their ‘dependence’
on the West, finding new ways and resources for new models of
development”.
What role pertains to the women religious, today, in the contemporary
world?
“I am
convinced that there is no good life in the private as well as in the
public sphere, without gratuity and that there is no gratuity without
charisma (both of them derive from “charis”). This is the reason for
which the indigence of a society, like ours, which marginalises the
charisma (from politics, from economy, from the mass-media….) is, above
all, an indigence of gratuity, a shortage of human touch to be end to
itself, a want of people that meet us and come close to us for our being
interesting to them as persons. That’s all. It is a “that’s all” that
the society of research and of profit, of efficiency and merit, knows no
longer. The market economy is the fruit of fifteen centuries of
civilisation and charisma (if we do not want to start already from the
Greek world: it is a tree with very deep roots. However, today, this
century tree is threatened by a crisis, above all by a moral and
anthropological crisis. The market functions well when it is watered by
the lymph of charisma, a so called lymph of gratuity. In fact, a market
economy that loses its contact with the charismatic dimension (which
today is very much expressed in the social economy of solidarity and
communion….), becomes diseconomy, a place of non-good life, because by
losing contact with gratuity, it loses its contact with what is human.
After recognising in Benedict a decisive role in the salvation of the
European crisis after the crisis of the Roman empire (the dark age), A.
McIntyre, comments, “If the tradition of virtues has been able to
survive the horrors of the last dark age, we are not completely deprived
of the foundation of hope. However, this time the barbarians are not
waiting beyond the frontier: they have already ruled us for quite a long
time. Part of our difficulties is just our not being aware of this. We
are waiting for: not for Godot, but for another St. Benedict”. I hope
that, as religious, we know how to catch the importance of this
historical moment: a favourable moment, because today, more than ever,
persons look for the lymph of gratuity; it is a moment of courageous
choices, a moment in which we are called to be “signs”, proving that the
most precious goods do not pass through the market, because they have an
inestimable value”.
They speak much of the moral question in politics and in society. To
you, does any ethically practicable recipe exist in this context?
“I
believe that today all, or at least the most sagacious men, have
understood that ethics and economy are not two distinct worlds: ethics
is a dimension of economy (and economy is a dimension of ethics). When
economy loses this dimension, besides causing damages, it destroys
itself. The present crisis proves it, as well as the growing ill-being
of the western societies, owing to a constant growth of comfortable
goods, which are, somehow, sweeping away the relational goods. The
ethical and cultural way is, first of all, that of taking man once again
to the centre of economy: the first people’s banks, let us not forget
it, were founded by the Franciscans to remove poverty (the piety
mountains and frumentarious mountains). We must not imagine a world
without finance, but it is necessary that even today there be the
flourishing of enterprisers animated by ideal purposes, greater than
only ideals of profit. It becomes clearer and clearer that the ethical
dimension must be within the productive and decisional processes of the
organisations and enterprises, instead of confining it to the
re-distribution made by the State, so much so as the States in a
globalised world are losing their power in the economic and fiscal
field. There are already consolidated experiences, which in this moment
can become models: for instance, let us think of the ethical bank, the
economy enterprises of communion, the just trade and in general all the
experiences of the civil economy. Secondly, the challenge is
anthropological and cultural: the present crisis can be an occasion for
a deep reflection on the western life-styles, which have become
unsustainable. Sobriety (which, in continuity with the tradition of
charisma, I –more than the institutional church- would courageously call
“poverty”, a beautiful Gospel word), communion and sharing of goods are
the ways to re-prime a virtuous circle: this is the time of commitment,
a favourable time for a return to what is essential”.
Among the priorities of Benedict XVI’s pontificate we find the emergency
of education. How do the FMA face this urgent problem in our today’s
society? How to educate the new generations to a life of right sense,
without allowing themselves to be tempted by excesses, which could prove
fatal in economy?
“We
need to show the beauty of a simple and poor life, to show that
happiness crosses also these dimensions of life. Francis was attracted
by “sister poverty” because his charism consented him to see a gift
within what others would call malediction, a curse. We must be attracted
by poverty because we see in it a way to more happiness
Two
ways seem to be important: first of all we must help the youths to open
their eyes on the unbalances at world level and on the “not chosen
poverty” of a milliard of persons. There is here the risk of thinking
about very far off persons, who after all do not even slightly touch us.
Thus, it is important to know the poverty existing behind the corner,
the precariousness, the aged who steal in the super-markets because they
do not know how to reach the end of the month; we must know the hidden
cities of persons who live under the bridges… Secondly, recent studies
made by well-known economists and noble prize show that in the western
societies a decrease of happiness and satisfaction of life accompanies
the constant growth of pro-capite income. These data are important,
because it is commonly believed that an increase in economic well-being
leads to an increased well-being of the persons. If this is not so in
reality, it means that something does not function well. Almost all the
economists agree in saying that the crucial knot is at relational level.
For instance, if the commitment to increase the income produces
systematically negative effects on the quality and quantity of our
relations (namely, if it lessens the happiness which we draw from
consuming the relational goods), owing to the fact that the hours we
dedicate to work are taken away from the family and relational life, the
total effect, on happiness, of an increased income could be negative,
because of the negative consequences that the increased income produces
indirectly on the quality of our relations, owing to the (excessive)
resources we use to increase the income and that we take away from our
human relations. By helping the youths to become aware of these
mechanisms, we shall help them to be set free from the “hunger” of
possession.
John Paul II spoke of “feminine genius”. The Polish Pope wrote a
touching Letter addressed to women in 1995, year of the International
Conference dedicated to the condition of women in Peking. In several
circumstances, Benedict XVI has recognised the value and the key-role of
women, and of women-religious in particular. Recently, also on the
occasion of the synod on the Bible, they discussed feminine themes,
suggesting an increased opening of the Lectorate to women. What is
today the space of the women and of the women-religious in the Church?
“Man
is born free, yet he is in chains everywhere”. This is
what Rousseau wrote in his social Contract. Now, if this is true of man,
it is true, above all, of women, who often are the first victims of
wrong social, political
and economic relations. I believe that today we must recognise the
co-essential role of women, not by just granting them only partially
some ministry that men possess fully: if it is so, the woman remains
always in a subaltern position. The woman will be herself in the Church,
and the Church even more herself, when the ecclesiastic institution will
go beyond this “concessionary” vision towards women and will recognise
in the charisma (there is a special relation between charism and
feminine genius) their co-essential role, in reciprocity with the
institutional profile, without forgetting the governance of the Church
and the questions of command and of power. The theology of
Von
Balthasar and of the Church’s “profiles” is still actual and in front of
us”.
What is the importance of communication in this context?
“Communication, in a moment when we feel to be hanging from a tread and
inter-dependent, is very important. First of all, the means of
communication are a powerful mediating resonance-box of what happens and
is profiled in the horizon, going somehow to orient the choice of the
consumers, of the savers, etc. A healthy communication could help also
in revising our life-styles. The problem of communication in this not
easy moment is that rarely it appears to be clear: we are daily put
before the opinions of experts, more than before concrete facts. I do
not know whether persons, through the news, are able to acquire a clear
idea of what happens or of what is happening to economy and society. We
stand in need of a clear communication, one that is not centred only on
a part of the world, that does not create alarms, but such as it may
help us to perceive the seriousness of the moment we are living, which
requires the commitment of each and everyone”.
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