On Morality in Economy and Scientific Research

The call to morals in economics and scientific research hasn’t been completely missing during the last two centuries. However, it was rather secondary to the Smithsonian “invisible hand”. The engine and, at the same time, the central concept of the economic activity since the dawn of the industrial age until today has been and still is “the greatness of profit” without which the contemporary economic thinking seems not to be able to evolve. Reflecting on the last two decades successive economic crises and, especially, on the powerful polarization in the global distribution of wealth, the discussion of this very inequality becomes topical again, making it hard for us to account for the “stubborness” with which the real economy fights the direction of this evolution. The main opponents of moral economics – which we are going to name “the economics of social welfare” – are the big end capital holders and their companies. The economic-financial crisis of 2008 made it clear – if still needed and for how many times yet – that in crisis situations it is still “the many and, sometimes, the needy” who are called to help “the few and the rich”. It is not even 15 years since the heads of the American economy and finance – H. M. Paulson şi B. Bernanke – asked for and saved with “the state’s money”, i.e. of the many, not only the American economy but also the great banks and credit institutions which “ultimately” had generated the crisis. These topics, and not only, framed within the principles of the humanist economy school of Barcelona that our Institute also joined, are the focus of our speech.