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The economical thought at Caritas in veritate
with Stefano Zamagni
RECIPROCITY AND EXCHANGE OF EQUIVALENTS
Reciprocity is a principle
which has to be kept distinct
from the exchange of equivalents.
The exchange of equivalents
works like this:
I give you something,
or I do something for you,
for example a job,
and you give back the equivalent value.
This equivalence of value
is generally called price.
What is price?
When I buy a newspaper,
I ask for a newspaper,
and what do I have to give in exchange?
I have to give one Euro if one Euro
is the price of the newspaper.
So, the exchange of equivalents
postulates the equivalence of value
between what you give
and what you get.
Secondly,
a characteristic of the exchange of equivalents,
is the simultaneity.
I give you the newspaper,
but you have to give me the money.
And if you don't give me the money,
I bring you in front of the judge.
This means,
I will turn to some authority
which will force you
to honour your commitment.
Is it clear?
But in the relationship of reciprocity,
things go like this.
I see that you are
in a situation of need,
material, spiritual,
you're desolate, you're sad,
you're sick, broadly speaking,
you are in need.
And, starting
not from an interest of mine,
but from the principle,
as we said before,
of unsolicited offer of a gift,
I come to you,
to help you.
And I do it on the basis
of an expectation
of reciprocity from you.
That means,
I do it on the basis
of an expectation that tomorrow
you will do the same for me
if I should find myself
in a situation of need.
Is it clear?
Either to me or also to somebody else.
So, in the relationship of reciprocity,
there is no equivalence,
but there is proportionality.
Because if I see that you are in need,
and I give you a value of 100,
tomorrow you will not necessarily
reciprocate me with 100.
You could reciprocate me
with a value of 50 or 150
proportionally to your capacities.
The second characteristic is that
there is no obligation in the reciprocity.
If I help you today and tomorrow
you turn a deaf ear,
I can not bring you
in front of the judge and say:
" look judge, condemn her because she
has not reciprocated",
because the offence of lack
of reciprocity does not exist.
So, let's understand where
the big difference between these two principles is.
Where do we find in practice
the principle of the exchange
of equivalents?
In the daily market transactions.
Every one of us every day
makes at least 200 transactions.
To get the newspaper,
to get a coffee, to buy food,
we go here and we go there.
But in the meantime
every one of us lives in places
which are called families,
which are called groups,
which are called Caritas, etc,
where the relationship
that is established
is that of reciprocity.
Let's try to think about
the relationship between father and son,
wife and husband,
brothers and sisters,
what kind of relationships are they?
Of exchange of equivalents?
Unfortunately many families do like this,
and those are ruined families.
Instead, they are relationships of reciprocity.
If I see that my sister is in difficulty,
I don't start to bargain and say:
"I help you, but how much are you going to give me later?"
I help you and don't ask,
then obviously I will expect that you,
tomorrow, if you see that
I am the one in difficulty,
will do the same.
In the normal families it happens like this.
Is it true or is it not true?
The same happens among the members of a group,
among the members of a club,
among the members of an association,
among the members of a cooperative.
In the cooperative companies,
the associates
don't have a debit-credit accounting.
They help each other reciprocally and mutually.
So the point is this:
in our Western society
during the past two centuries it has happened,
for reasons which I don't have
the time here to explain,
but, for a whole series of reasons,
reciprocity has been erased.
Because somebody,
maybe in good faith,
but being very wrong,
one of the intellectuals,
has told us that there is no need for reciprocity,
that the exchange of equivalents
and the government
that imposes with taxes.
So reciprocity is something of other times.
Let's let it do to the primitive tribes.
Now I said it in a coloured way,
but I could bring important books
where this is stated.
And the people today are like this.
So we see that reciprocity
is disappearing from inside the families.
When Mum tells her son or daughter:
"Listen,
go to tidy your room!
Go to clean the kitchen!"
And the daughter says:
"How much do you give me?"
That means that reciprocity has disappeared.
Second.
We need to educate to reciprocity.
Because, pay attention,
reciprocity does not exist in nature.
Animals don't understand reciprocity,
but animals do understand
the exchange of equivalents.
The ants, the animals
which live in societies,
they understand,
but they don't understand reciprocity,
because it is typical of humans.
But we need to educate.
It is not spontaneous.
In fact the children, young,
younger than three or four years of age,
they don't understand reciprocity.
We need their parents to teach them.
But unfortunately the parents don't do it.
I have now four grandsons,
I have fun with them,
and I scold my daughters
when I see that they don't teach
reciprocity to their children etc.
Why? Because if I come to you
today and tomorrow,
when I need,
you don't reciprocate, what happens?
That the bond breaks.
That is what happens in the families.
There are brothers and sisters
who don't talk to each other anymore.
Since years.
Wives and husbands who...
why do people separate and divorce?
Because the bond of reciprocity has gone lost.
Let's try to go and see all the causes
which have determined the breaking
of the family ties.
Let's try to go and see.
All these causes are connected to this fact:
the loss of reciprocity.
Because then what happens,
to be practical,
I help you, tomorrow you don't help me,
o I will start to criticize you,
and say: "Ah, you villain,
you are ungrateful, you have not ...".
The other will say:
"No, it is not true that I am ungrateful, it is you that.."
and the dispute is for sure.
That's why, today,
the most important thing
is to teach reciprocity.
To my students,
at the University,
I spend 30%
of the teaching time
to explain how the exchange of equivalents
works from the scientific point of view,
and I spend 70% of the time explaining
how the principle of reciprocity works.
And they are thankful.
Years later they write to me and say:
"Fortunately you made us understand..."
Because it is difficult to teach reciprocity.
Because to educate to the exchange
of equivalents is almost animal.
I give you something and you say:
"What do you give me back?"
instead, to educate to reciprocity
means to establish an interpersonal bond.
One of the great merits of this encyclical letter
is to remind us
how we have remained back on this subject.
Even the Centesimus Annus
didn't talk about reciprocity.