There are things we can buy: raw materials, services, technology. We can pay for professional advice or invest in a new business. Yet every economy also depends on something we cannot purchase: trust, reliability, a sense of responsibility, the ability to keep a promise, and a willingness to cooperate. Without this invisible foundation, even economic exchanges could not function.
When we entrust our savings to a bank, sign a contract, hire someone, or purchase something that will be delivered tomorrow, we are constantly performing small acts of trust. Of course, laws, controls, guarantees, and sanctions exist. They are necessary. But no society could function if every relationship were built on the assumption that the other person would inevitably try to deceive us.
The market is one of the great achievements of human history. It has enabled people living far apart to exchange goods, develop skills, establish businesses, innovate, and improve their living conditions. It would be simplistic to regard the market as an enemy of human dignity.
But it would be equally simplistic to believe that the market, left to itself, can determine which goals a society should pursue.
The market can assign a price. It cannot necessarily recognize a value.
This is where human responsibility comes into play. The rules governing work, competition, property, investment, and production do more than determine economic outcomes. Over time, they also help shape the kind of society in which we live.
The economy does not operate in a sphere separate from everyday life. It enters our families, influences opportunities for young people, transforms communities, affects our relationship with the environment, and can either expand or restrict people's freedom.
THE FIRST WORKPLACE DOES MORE THAN TEACH A TRADE. IT ALSO TEACHES WHAT IT MEANS TO TAKE RESPONSIBILITY, HONOUR A COMMITMENT, COOPERATE WITH PEOPLE WE HAVE NOT CHOSEN, ACCEPT CRITICISM, AND RESPECT AUTHORITY. BUT IT CAN ALSO TEACH THE OPPOSITE: THAT THE STRONG CAN HUMILIATE THE WEAK, THAT PROMISES DO NOT MATTER, AND THAT A PERSON HAS VALUE ONLY AS LONG AS THEY ARE USEFUL
For this reason, before seeing someone as a consumer, worker, entrepreneur, or investor, perhaps we should return to seeing them simply as a person.
This may seem obvious. In practice, it is far less so. People bring more than skills to the workplace. They bring their personal history, relationships, aspirations, vulnerabilities, family responsibilities, desire for recognition, and need to build a future.
Likewise, a business does more than produce goods and services. Whether consciously or not, it also produces relationships, behaviours, and culture.
Mose Durst*, reflecting on what he calls Principled Economics, emphasizes the importance of not separating economic activity from personal development. This is a perspective worth considering: an economic system should not be judged solely by the amount of wealth it generates, but also by the kind of people and communities it helps to develop.
This perspective significantly broadens our understanding. Consider education, for example. Schools have a cost, and in public budgets education appears as an expense. But what happens if we reverse the question?
What is the cost of failing to educate a child?
The consequences may emerge twenty years later: fewer skills, poverty, economic dependence, exclusion, weaker institutions, and greater vulnerability to crime or radicalization.
Education, therefore, is not merely a social policy. It is certainly an economic investment, but it is also an invisible foundation of the common good.
A school prepares people who will one day work, establish businesses, manage institutions, vote, raise children, and make decisions affecting the lives of others.
The same applies to work. We are accustomed to asking how much a person produces. It is a legitimate question: without productivity, a business cannot survive, and a business that cannot survive cannot provide employment.
But perhaps we should add another question:
What kind of person does someone become through their work?
This question is particularly important when we think about young people. A first job does more than teach a trade. It also teaches what it means to take responsibility, honour a commitment, cooperate with people we have not chosen, accept criticism, and respect authority.
But it can also teach the opposite: that the strong can humiliate the weak, that promises do not matter, and that a person has value only as long as they are useful.
From this perspective, every business also has an educational responsibility.
Andrea Valgoi illustrates this well in his contribution, describing work as a possible school of civic responsibility and observing that even a workplace can help build peace or undermine it.
This is where the economy begins to encounter peace directly. Not because a good employment contract can stop a war. It would be naive to suggest that.
But a peaceful society does not emerge solely from major international agreements. It also grows out of the quality of everyday relationships, the possibility of planning for the future, the perception that institutions are trustworthy, and the belief that commitment can produce meaningful results.
When these conditions disappear, something very dangerous begins to grow: the conviction that the system is always designed to benefit someone else.
Trust then begins to erode. For this reason, prosperity cannot be merely individual.
The interdependence that characterizes today's economy constantly reminds us that no one truly prospers alone. Businesses, workers, families, institutions, and communities are connected.
Economic growth that leaves behind impoverished communities, young people without prospects, or individuals who can no longer imagine their future may generate wealth while simultaneously weakening social cohesion.
The challenge, therefore, is not to choose between the market and the common good, or between individual initiative and collective responsibility.
The task is more difficult, but also more interesting: to create conditions in which economic freedom and responsibility can reinforce each other.
Perhaps this is precisely where we can recognize one of the essential tasks of the economy today: to build trust.
Trust does not appear on balance sheets. We cannot easily include it in statistics.
Yet we recognize a society in which trust is declining: fear, suspicion, withdrawal, and the need to protect ourselves from others all increase.
Conversely, when people can make plans for their future, when work retains its dignity, when those who take risks and pursue new initiatives can rely on trustworthy institutions, and when young people feel that there is a place for them in the future, something grows that no economic indicator can fully capture.
The willingness to build something together grows. An economy that builds trust does not reject efficiency, freedom, or initiative. Rather, it asks these forces to serve something greater: human dignity, the common good, and ultimately, peace.
* Mose Durst – American educator and author. In Essays Toward a Principled Economics, he proposes an economic vision centred on the human person and ethical values, in which wealth creation is also expected to contribute to the well-being of families, communities, and the common good.
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