Towards a new economy from the economy of the franciscan school to the civil economy to the circular economy

The thesis proposed in this Document, which is the result of reflection by the Naples MEIC Workshop during 2019/2020, is that the circular economy model finds its origins in the principles of the Franciscan School of Economics and later in Antonio Genovesi's Neapolitan School of Civil Economy. Cooperation, reciprocity and trust are the pre-conditions of economic development that the Franciscan and Neapolitan schools had already identified with extreme clarity ("trust binds, unites, creates bonds in society: it is what is the force of cohesion and mutual attraction in natural bodies... without which there can be no firm and lasting mass, but everything becomes dust and sand that dissolves at the first impact" - (ch. X, Lezioni di Economia Civile). This new/old economy is therefore capable of promoting a 'human-centred' development, i.e. an integral and sustainable human development (as Laudato Si' states), characterised not only by competition but also by participation, relationality, inclusion, reciprocity, symbiosis, community.