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The current economic system can measure its success with broader criteria than just quantity and efficiency. It is also necessary to evaluate the quality of life when measuring well-being, which cannot be limited only to material aspects. The quantitative growth of economic exchanges should not continue to be the only legitimation of the system, but rather the ability to produce prosperity for all people. Well-being and development demand and support each other with a sustainable perspective beyond the short term.*
The current real economy plagiarized radicalized egoism, dialectical materialism, proud narcissism and alienated individualism that seeks above all individual benefit and is defined by particular interests. This logic, aged like wine, has led to substantial progress, but at the cost of a vicious circle that has disastrous consequences for all of humanity. When the goal is mere growth, not achieving it can blind those who pursue it, and the destruction of the planet is not an impediment to achieving it. This constant longing for quantity inflates passions creating speculative bubbles that eventually always burst. The selfish economy is hygienic, aesthetic, always fashionable, but behind the masquerade there is an unhealthy smoker, alcoholic, addicted to drugs, sedentary and stressed, nervous and anxious entity that only yearns for wealth growth.
Economic actors behave impulsively, irascible and unpredictably, like the gods of Olympus. The real economy is incapable of regulating itself. The foundations of its operation, like the mythical deities, are based on division, self-sufficiency and regulation, and this asymmetrical concentration of power caused the destruction of the Greek divinities. Capacity, greed and selfishness have ruin as their only goal, and that is where the markets march with suicidal madness with mere mortals as puppets of their ravings.
Logic aged as wine is delicious, truly pleasant, but it is incalculably far from new wine. This novel drink needs to have social cohesion, honesty, trust, security and laws that correct inequalities, asymmetries, environmental degradation, social insecurity and fraud to work. Clean up the old economy, perfume it with social responsibilities or ESG or environmentalism is to make up the Frankenstein that has been built. Doing lip service to an enraged lion doesn’t sound like the best idea, but until recently it was the only one that prominent moral gnomes imagined.
Of those who once ruled the universe with fear and devotion, now only anecdotes and characters from children’s stories remain. The lofty luminaries who concentrated, divided and monopolized finances like gods will die and with them probably their centuries-old legacy. Postmoderns Shutruk Nahunte’s motivated by great ambitions and conquests that contributed only to enrich themselves.
Abusers of morally fraudulent positions, insincere players of false teams, builders of informative dikes and false news, violators of due human relational honesty, such are these serial offenders of the most basic ethics. Manufacturers of complex labyrinths of financial products that make the economic system intrinsically inaccessible to enthusiasts with an amateur spirit. The complex structuring of the financial offer remains in the hands of a few autocrats, absolutist kings of the economy.
What had been sadly predicted more than a century ago, unfortunately, has now come true: the return on capital looms close and threatens to supplant labor income, often confined to the margins of the main interests of the economic system. Consequently, work itself, with its dignity, not only becomes a reality that is increasingly in danger, but also loses its status as a “good” for man, becoming a simple means of exchange within asymmetric social relations.*
The new virtual economy, essentially altruistic and pursuing the common good, bases its motivations on profit and gift (contribution) working simultaneously to produce a virtuous circle. It is even more inclined to be a means of development, not an end for the chosen few. It seeks to illuminate and build, expanding and bearing fruit in the Metaverse, in Web3 with technologies such as Blockchain, DAO or new systems such as DeFi. The altruistic economy is healthy, even if it is not pretty on the surface and follows the golden rule of cooperation and added value. Quality, multiplication, openness to novelty, simplification of processes invites people to participate and be a part, where everyone matters and relationships are essential.
OECONOMICAE ET PECUNIARIAE QUAESTIONES
