None of us is satisfied with the economic panorama that surrounds us: even if we put aside the obvious inequalities between the north and south of the world – which at this point ceases to be a geographic place and takes the form of an area appraisable in terms of dollars per inhabitant – we find ourselves faced with the strange spectacle of immense amounts of money invested in consumer services (often absolutely commonplace); in stratospheric fees for professional figures in sport, TV, or politics; in addition to the sums spent by commercial giants to fight planetary wars around practically useless objects such as children’s’ book bags, sandwiches, telephone rates, clothing and so much more.

All this, while unemployment rises, the concentration of capital multiplies, the quality of life worsens.

We could wonder, then: what is the discipline of economics doing? What does it deal with today? Are there still professional economists, or are there just sciencefiction writers and statistical reports of what’s happening in the various areas of the market?

None of those who should, seriously doubt the foundations of the present system any more. Only the radicals, the activists, the alternatives try to understand what’s wrong and to remedy it: governments follow the opinions of economists who refer back to those of governments, and when they want to change things, they use the same instruments that have created the problems, like depreciable currency, tariffs, protectionism, taxes and duties.

When the situations explode and the foreseen consequences come to be, it is necessary to take a fresh look at the schemes of thought and action. It is necessary to change, not to activate compromise solutions that do nothing more, now, than make things worse. It is necessary to put hands precisely where no one intends to put them: to adjust the monetary convention, to revise the concept of working participation, change consumer attitudes, reward virtuous behavior for all, not just for the single person or the single business.

This alone would be sufficient to create a political party more interesting than any other at the moment. But we must add another element: to assure access to credit to whoever intends to do something important for society. This is quite different from giving away money, a little money, insufficient for change; it means rebuilding the exchange system so that the market can acknowledge best practices and good performances directly in terms of human values and not of profit that takes from the grandchildren and gives the grandparents. For all these things, a Human Values Bank is needed.

Francesco Bernabei