Blog Marcos L. Mucheroni Filosofia, Noosfera e cibercultura

Those who imagine that the word is only linked to religious, socialist views or natural goods (air, water and social well-being) are mistaken.

In fact, many economic theories have focused on the topic, from moral philosophers to public economists, in a list that includes Thomas Aquinas, Niccolò Machiavelli, John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Adam Smith, Karl Marx, although opposed Marx reread Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill in a utilitarian vision until John Maynard Keynes, in a vision of state interventionist in the economy.

Thomas Aquinas considered “the common good” (bonum commune, written in Latin) to be the goal of law and government; John Locke declared that “the peace, safety, and public good of the people” are the aims of political society, and further argued that “the welfare of the people shall be the supreme law”; David Hume argued that “social conventions” are adopted and receive moral support due to the fact that they serve the “public” or “common” interest, this in the social theory that structured the modern state.

The most advanced vision, within the framework of contractualism, was the vision defended by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, his theory does not do without two legitimizing components: the idea that everyone’s participation in the sovereignty of the social body (political equality) must be accompanied by a certain level of substantial equality, and second, a rational principle of political morality, which maintains the general will of the interests of those who are different from the true common interest.

If this vision were pursued: freedom, equality and fraternity would be composed in such a way as to adjust to the interest of the common good, however, recalls Edgar Morin in his book “Fraternity: to resist the cruelty of the world” (in Brazil published by Editora Palas Athena ) that the motto of the French revolution are not complementary, but need an effort, a practical and reflective human action to integrate and interact with each other.

There is also a modern discussion about the idea that the common good is never well managed except in private hands, the so-called Tragedy of the Commons, which was contested by economist Elinor Ostrom, the first female Nobel Prize winner in economics.

It does not mean that everything will pass into the hands of the state, or as Keynesian theory says the state should intervene in the economy, this does cause great tragedies and in Brazil good economists have goosebumps remembering the historical facts of these interventions: Collor plan, price freeze , etc. all caused great losses to the popular economy.

Tragedy of Communs was an initially successful text by Garrett Hardin, but he used environmental themes to justify this type of “tragedy”: the increase in consumption of natural resources, and on the other hand the way in which human beings organize themselves to extract these same resources, and this is part of the justification for the misuse of environmental resources.

The learning that Elinor Ostrom’s studies brought us is that the sustainable use of common good resources are alternative solutions to Hardin’s fatalism, for her both state ownership and privatization are subject to failure depending on the circumstances (Ostrom et al . 1999).

Ostrom et al (1999): Revisiting the Commons: Local Lessons, Global Challenges, Science, Vol. 284. no. 5412, pp. 278 – 28