The Economy is not a mechanical and determinist science, but a human science in which the whole complex unitary and original wealth of intelligence, creativity, morality and human freedom intervene decisively.

However, the image of the "scientific" economy that tends to be placed outside of the reach of the "masse" is very widespread. An environment is created only reserved for experts that take refuge in complex specialized terminology, where econometric models, matrices, multiple abstractions or lineal equations and three-dimensional graphs become living beings. This type of economic thinking and rationing tries to disguise itself with the positivism of the scientific paradigm of inanimate nature, removing any inkling of ethical-philosophical consideration to show the possibility of a merely neutral and descriptive treatment.

But in real daily life, ethics is intimately and inseparably bound to the economy. Each one of the integral human beings of that "masse", rejected and manipulated, has a sixth common sense able to perceive, with more or less precision, but with an unequivocal olfaction, the just from the unjust; the good from the bad; the true from the false. One can say that a certain action is neutral or even completely legal, heeding the mere positive norm, but if, independently of the majority judgement or the legal expert's verdict, that action is unjust, the "masse" will perceive it as such, and as a reaction, will begin to question the goodness of the majority or the judgement of the expert verdict or, what is more serious, of the justice of justice.

An amply widespread example is price fixing of the different public or private goods and services. The distribution of advantages and disadvantages among buyers and sellers, through pricing, is an open question between two contracting parties and, therefore, a relevant matter from an ethical-economic perspective where fair play appears as an important factor. The establishment of prices, even in competition markets, is demonstrated as a socio-economic phenomenon and not only material and neutral. Peaceful and socially conventional exchange is, in definitive, an act of solidarity and social unity.

For those contracts to be fair, and be perceived this way by the "masse", it is necessary, according to Peter Koslowski (1987): 1) that the object of exchange good is authentic and not feigned, where those false illusions created by the salesperson's manipulation are not benefited from and without having created a real economic value; 2) that the revenue that is originated in the exchange is not a consequence of exploitation of buying or selling power situations. 3) Those forms of revenue that arise because it is believed for the buyer or for the salesperson to be a situation of emergency are ethically unacceptable. "The exploitation of monopolies without considerations unrelated to the price or the fact of causing and taking advantage of unavoidable situations through unjustified strikes, etc. create unjustified revenue." 4) Another type of apparent goods is the resultant of false illusions favouring the self-deceit of third parties and the exploitation of their inexperience. Excessively fomenting vanity, self deceit or the desire for prestige by the other contender can also constitute unjustified revenues. 5) A different group of ethically condemnable operations arise from the simulation of deceiving circumstances - falsification in definitive.

Although some of the aforementioned situations are partly prohibited and pursued by the law, the importance of economic ethics must not be forgotten that is generally captured by most and that heads towards the order of duty and love; when acting freely and conscious of the human being, advising not to attack acts that are located in the buffer area between that which is still permitted and that which is already prohibited by law.

Joseph John Franch Menéu
Expansion, Friday December 18th 1992