The idea of the civil economy is based on a tradition of economic and philosophical thought that has its closest roots in fifteenth-century civic humanism and more remotely in Aristotle, Cicero, Thomas Aquinas and the Franciscan School. Its golden age took place during the Neapolitan Enlightenment. While Adam Smith and David Hume developed the principles of political economics in Scotland, during the same time, Antonio Genovesi, Gaetano Filangieri, Ferdinando Galiani and others developed the idea of the civil economy in Naples.

The Scottish and Italian-Neapolitan schools had much in common— they both placed the market above all as a solution to the feudal society, they praised luxury as a force for social change, they understood the cultural revolution that increased trade brings, they recognized the essential role of trust for the market economy and cultural progress. They were also united by the "modernity" of their vision for society and the world.

However, there is a crucial difference between the two schools. For Smith— and for the tradition that followed him and became official economics— the market facilitates and builds relationships that are genuinely social because it is free of vertical ties. According to Smith, the existence of market relations in public spheres (and only there) ensures that, in the private sphere, friendship is genuine and freely chosen regardless of status.

The tradition of civil economics dissents from these claims. Therein, the market, the business firm, and the economy are themselves places where friendship, reciprocity, gratuitousness, and fraternity can thrive. It rejects the contemporary notion that the market and economy radically differ from civil society and are governed by different principles. Instead, the economy is civil, the market involves shared space and they share the same fundamental law of mutual aid.

Market economics is a constant in many cultures, where it is seen as made up of patterns of behavior or, more generally, as organized value systems. In turn, the type and degree of consistency of market systems with cultures influence the system itself.  A culture of extreme individualism will predictably have different results than a culture in which individuals, although they may also be motivated by self-interest, embrace a sense of reciprocity. Similarly, a culture where peace and harmony flourish will certainly offer different results on the economic front than a culture of aggressive competition.

Contrary to what many economists still believe, the interpersonal dimension is of primary importance for economic phenomena. Individual behaviors are integrated into a pre-existing network of social relations that cannot be considered a mere restriction; rather, this network gives rise to individual achievements and motivations. People’s aspirations are deeply conditioned by conventional wisdom on what makes life worth living.

We urgently need a new anthropological direction within economics that offers a theoretical foundation that explains how cultural factors and economic options interact and how this interaction feeds back into social relationships. During the last century, prevailing economic theory has advocated for a separation between economic decisions and political and moral philosophy. This was supported by the idea that the economy should only concentrate on means and not ends.

It is obviously practically difficult to implement 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 cause conflict. It is not accidental that many people in contemporary society experience a certain anxiety about the future. Certain people and interest groups exploit this anxiety as a political weapon, which results in, depending on the circumstances, a Machiavellianism focused on the market or on the state. Those of us dedicated to the civil economy should fight this neo-Machiavellian culture and its underlying ethical relativism.