Bonaventure: The Real Sobriety
"Always prefer the necessary works to the less useful,
the best to the good, and the most excellent to the best"
Theologian and philosopher, man of action and contemplation, Bonaventure of Bagnoregio (1217ca. – 1274) melds the inquiring spirit of St. Augustine with the engaging affectivity and seraphic ardor of Saint Francis. A wise thinker, who was able to see, value, and promote a harmony, that can, in fact, be called reality, where "everything is connected".
The importance of his contribution at the economic level is recognized due to his having theorized the value of bonds, a concept that will be taken up again by the classical theory in its treatment on the values of use and exchange. Bonaventure’s teaching likewise touches directly upon the spirit of man in regard to his life in society. From the Canticle of the Creatures comes the idea that the world is a masterpiece, imagined and wanted by God, a manifestation of his gratuitous love.
The analysis of the term avarice (cupiditas) in the classic sense of 'greed' – the root of all evil – with the rise of new forms of wealth, allows Bonaventure to measure economic acts, depending upon whether they are intended for the acquisition of goods "necessary" for life, or rather "superfluous" to life. The "necessary" is correlative to the moral value of man, regenerated in baptism, whereas the "superfluous" relates to the non-value of the natural man, a slave to worldly things. Avarice thus becomes a paradigmatic concept with which every worldly act can be measured concretely, in order to judge its moral legitimacy. Hence the importance of this concept within the history of economic thought. Bonaventura links this principle to usury, profit, and merchandising. In De Superfluo he argues that there is a direct and intimate, unequivocal and functional relationship between "avarice" and "superfluous".
The theory of the "necessary", essential for the stability of the social order, cannot remain without consequences on the other aspects and institutions of economic life: private property, business, and credit. Paradoxically, it becomes the criterion of an economy of sobriety, which promotes the qualitative leap from monastic economics to a rational and relational use of resources for the well-being of the community in any given territory.