Breaking Down the Walls (of Consumerism)

This year we celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Economy of Communion (EoC) in Freedom, a project launched by Chiara Lubich on May 29, 1991. To understand the full significance of that event, let us recall a particular incident. On a trip to the United States in 1990, just after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Chiara had been struck by that center of capitalism and consumerism. She felt a strong inner urge to pray and even offer her own life to God so that, after the fall of the walls of communism, the walls of consumerism would also crumble, and real fraternity and equality would be realized in this world. Then she visited Brazil in 1991 and founded the EoC.

Economist and EoC advocate Luigino Bruni describes consumerism as a “religion” that goes much deeper than communism or fascism, because it gets into us by emptying our being and even taking away our need for inner life. The “culture of giving” lived by an EoC enterprise is essential for this task of breaking down the walls of consumerism. Many EoC businesses have already invested in the young, so that a new culture and a new economic model of communion may be formed in them. They have also promoted new businesses as well as new entrepreneurs, and created business parks and institutions of communion which are spread out in different parts of the world.

Bruni highlights the value of communion and fraternity in economics: “We believe that communion, even in economy, is a sign of the times; it is already present in today’s great hopes. After two centuries of capitalism focused on individual freedom, we see that freedom alone is no longer enough. Freedom, without fraternity, does not even guarantee equality…”

Today, the market is fostering inequality. Affirming the importance of fraternity in economics is also a practical way of loving and bringing about equality. If there is no fraternity, neither will there be equality. When one gives life to an EoC business, it is an act of trust in life. It shows people how beautiful it is to wake up to life in the morning, and go to work. It affirms that there will be a better and more just world for our children today, and in the future.

Another very important element, Bruni points out, which helped several EoC businesses succeed, is “gratuitousness.” In one of the articles in this issue, Bruni expounds more on this element which is “the attitude of freely giving our services without expecting anything in return” (an act of disinterested love). He writes that economics should not ignore this element because the best things in life, like friendship, love, and prayer are given gratuitously.

EoC is now 20 years old! Putting into practice gratuitousness in times of crisis, breaks down the walls of apathy built by a consumerist world, and announces the dawn of a free, equal and united world.

By New City, Philippines