The civil Economics represents a tradition of economic and philosophical thought that has its roots closest to civic humanism (15th century) and more remote in Aristotle, Cicero, St. Thomas Aquinas and the Franciscan School. Its golden age took place during the Neapolitan Enlightenment. While in Scotland Adam Smith and David Hume were developing the principles of the political Economics , in those years, Antonio Genovesi, Gaetano Filangieri, Ferdinando Galiani and others were developing in Naples the civil Economics .

The Scottish and Italo-Napolitan schools had many aspects in common: the market seen above all else, as a way out of feudal society; the praise of luxury as a force for social change; the understanding of the cultural revolution brought about by the growth of commerce; the recognition of the essential role of trust for market Economics and for cultural progress; and the "modernity" of their vision of society and the world.

However, there is a crucial difference between the two schools. For Smith -and for the tradition that followed him and would become the official Economics -, the market is the means of building relationships that are genuinely social because it is free of vertical ties. According to Smith, the existence of market relations in the public sphere (and only there) ensures that in the private sphere friendship is genuine, freely chosen and disconnected from status.

The tradition of Economics civil dissents from these postulates. For it, the market, the business, the Economics are in themselves places where friendship, reciprocity, gratuitousness and fraternity can take place . She rejects the current notion that the market and Economics differ radically from civil society and are governed by different principles. Instead, the Economics is civil, the market is life in common and they share the same fundamental law: the mutual financial aid .

Market economies are a constant in many cultures; they are conceived as patterns of behavior or, more generally, as organized systems of values. In turn, the subject and Degree of consistency of market systems with cultures have effects on the systems themselves. A culture of extreme individualism can be expected to have different outcomes than a culture in which individuals, although they may also be motivated by self-interest, harbor a sense of reciprocity. Similarly, a culture of peace and harmony will undoubtedly have different results on the economic front than a culture of aggressive skill .

Contrary to what many economists still believe, economic phenomena have a primary interpersonal dimension. Individual behaviors are embedded in a pre-existing network of social relations that cannot be regarded as a mere constraint, but rather give rise to individual achievements and motivations. People's aspirations are deeply conditioned by conventional wisdom about what makes life worth living.

We urgently need a new anthropological orientation within Economics. A theoretical foundation is needed to explain how cultural factors and economic choices interact and how this interaction feeds back into social relations. During the last century, prevailing economic theory advocated a divorce between economic decisions and political and moral Philosophy . This was supported by the idea that Economics should only be concerned with means and not ends.

I do not intend to hide the difficulties that beset the implementation internship of a cultural project aimed at nothing less than a paradigm shift in economic analysis. As in all human endeavors, it would be naive to imagine that certain changes do not provoke conflict. It is no accident that a certain anxiety about the future is widespread in today's society. Certain individuals and pressure groups are exploiting it as a political weapon. Depending on the circumstances, this leads to market-centered Machiavellianism or state-centered Machiavellianism. Those who delve into the civil Economics should fight against this neo-Machiavellian culture and its underlying ethical relativism.