The role of the market in the fight against the mafia in Sicily. Libera terra's experience from a civil economics reading

From an analytical perspective that is open to a contemporary re-reading of the notion of ‘civil economy’, in the sense used by Genovesi and other economists of the Italian Enlightenment, this paper explores the recent experience of the Sicilian co-operative movement, Libera Terra. It belongs to an Italian tradition which rests on the idea that market relations can operate for the good, not just in the sense envisaged in traditional, economic theory, but for the common good. Libera Terra is a social enterprise trading in biological food products, cultivated on land confiscated from the Mafia. It provides real opportunities for social transformation, as the local populations find alternative pathways to lives of oppression. The paper argues that the specific interpretation of the operation of market forces, in the case of Libera Terra, though imposing severe conditions on co-op members, at the same time guarantees them the possibility for the establishment of more satisfying, autonomous forms of social organisation.