"At least since the 18th century, and especially since Adam Smith, the influence of rules (laws and institutions in Smith's terminology) on social results has been understood, and this relationship has provided the basis for one of the central topics of economic analysis or the political economy, just as it is derived especially from its classic foundations.

If the rules influence the results and some results are better than others, it follows that to the extent that the rules can be chosen, the study and analysis of rules and comparative institutions become the characteristic objectives of our reflection."

From the beginning I have wanted to quote those words that inspired me to write this text. They are the words of the Nobel Prize for Economy, James Buchanan, who visited Spain recently, and that are picked up in The Reason For Rules: Constitutional Political Economy. The book was translated to Spanish and published some years ago by Unión Editorial but its content is of the violent present times and it has a magnificent foreword by José Antonio Aguirre. Continuing, my reflection is the following one:

In the great game of life we participate simultaneously and continually in other numerous games, each one of them structured by a more or less systematic group of implicit or explicit rules. Although we are forced participants, most of the time we ignore the origin of those rules; how they have become obligatory; how they can be changed; and, what is more important, how they can be valued normatively to elucidate whether they are convenient or not, and whether they are the most suitable or not.

For the fact of being born and growing up in a family we obey the behaviour rules that prevail there. Living in a certain place we play according to the rules established by the community of proprietors, the municipal government, the autonomous community, the parliament and the government of a nation, or the constitution. To be a citizen of the European Union we have to have a common normative. Moreover, to be a citizen of the world, we have to have international agreements that are made bilaterally or in the headquarters of the United Nations Organisation.

In order to live we need to produce many material goods, the great majority by others, and we need rules that allow us to acquire them civilly, to conserve, transport and exchange them: to economize them. Having to live close to many other people we are immersed in the game of coexistence, with its rules of courtesy, politeness, and education in general. Having the necessity to perpetuate the human species and perpetuate ourselves in our children, we are immersed in the game of reproduction and sexuality with their particular implicit rules. Being living organisms, rather fragile that deteriorate with the passing of time or by accident, we try to comply with the basic norms to maintain health and avoid or cure illnesses. When we use a typewriter or a computer with any one of their possible multiple more or less sophisticated programmes, we manage an entire manual of rules instinctively; another when we build a house and another when we move from one place to another by car, train or plane.

Rules and general principles applied equally to everyone according to their different circumstances, are necessary. We cannot fall into an extravagant radical anarchy because it would be like escaping to an unreal world that would destroy us. A few simple, flexible rules are necessary to put into order that apparent anarchy that is also present in our world and to introduce a certain dose of harmony in the chaos that surrounds us. The natural economic and monetary rules, a few, simple, flexible and proportionate, also introduce harmony into that economic chaos and order in the monetary anarchy.

Principles are necessary for coexistence because otherwise we would end up brutally confronting each other because one or several of us would fancy the same thing that another or others also tried to obtain." Rules define the private spaces inside which each one of us can carry out our own activities." A select group of rules is needed that, although they self restrict us in the social and private environment, impede certain behaviours that when all is said and done, and without rules, harm everyone and nobody in fact wants. Good rules harmonize behaviours that could be diverse; they reconcile different interests and generate results that are beneficial and tolerable for all participants. A certain design of rules in social conventions provides each actor with the possibility of predicting the behaviour of others to a certain extent and acting consequently. It generates information facilitating the coordination of behaviours and gives rise to the attainment of an important profit for each of the participants that respect those rules, and therefore it can be interesting for all the potential participants in that great game of life. "The rules that constrain socio-political interactions - economic and political relationships between individuals - have to be valued, in the long run, in function of their capacity to promote the different purposes of all the people of the " polis ". The choice of the most suitable rules becomes the fundamental task for the attainment of some excellent results, also economic.

Joseph John Franch Menéu
NEGOCIOS, Friday December 6th 1996