The Economy of Communion

Pope Benedict XVIs new encyclical letter, Caritas in Veritate, in paragraph 46 speaks of an economy of communion. As John Allen remarked in a July 7 interview with Mundell & Associates, an Indiana-based Economy of Communion business, The Economy of communion was cited by Benedict XVI as a promising form of intermediate activity between for-profit business and classic non-profit institutions, rupturing what the pope called an exclusively binary model of market-plus-state which is corrosive of society. Using the language of economics, the articles in this volume convey the principles at the root of the Economy of Communion and explain its unique characteristics within the context of current and historical economic thought and practice at both the micro and macro levels. When I proposed the Economy of Communion, I certainly did not have a theory in mind. Nonetheless, I can see that it draws the attention of economists, sociologists, philosophers and scholars from other disciplines (Chiara Lubich). Over the years the Economy of Communion has come a long way. Within a year of its beginning in 1991 a dozen pioneering businesses already existed. Now the Economy of Communion involves over seven hundred businesses throughout the world.