Economics without ethics is a caricature. Ethics without economics is a fairy tale.

In 1759, Adam Smith wrote 'The Theory of Moral Sentiments' and 15 years later he came up with one of his best works, the Magnum Opus of economics — 'The wealth of nations'. Not many people know this but it was 'the theory of moral sentiments' that provided the ethical, philosophical , psychological and methodological underpinnings to Smith's later works.

They may seem like two distant words but economy and ethics are interdependent.

Economics without ethics: Gospel of selfishness          According to Oxfam International report, 73% of the wealth generated in 2017 worldwide was possessed by richest 1% making up for 900 million poor people. An economy without ethics further deepens the cracks of inequality by creating more poverty , crime and injustice.

Similarly the covid-19 vaccine crisis has revealed the inadequacy of capitalism to fulfill societal needs. It led to the clash between needs of humanity and principles of economy. Countries are arguing that most of the costs involved in coming up with vaccines are incurred in research and development, the obvious objection is to not lift such patents as it can erode the revenue and data innovation. This all just comes down to money even in the global pandemic scenario, where milions have lost lives.

This is an ongoing justification that businesses owning land and forests and water resources give. They convert natural capital into financial capital and use it for generating profits and more capital for themselves , doing over exploitation of earth's resources to produce profits has contributed to the crisis of environmental sustainability and climate change.

History is evident that the concept of ownership of assets for creating wealth had gone too far when slaves without human rights were used in enterprises as their economic assets until moralists objected. One cannot just brush ethics under the carpet for profits as it is not force fitted but an integral part of economics. There is a reason why this field comes under the likes of economists like Amartya Sen and Abhijit Banerjee who are recognised for an ethic based economic approach in their works.

Ethics without economics: A fairy-tale                                No matter how righteous, it may sound, to put ethics first. One may still find it difficult to be ethical and moral If their basic survival needs of food and shelter are not fulfilled.                                                                        Imagine working hard for years to build an eatery brand and suddenly someone tampers with one of your products in citywide outlets, leading to deaths of people. Your immediate strategy would be either pulling out the product from all stores worldwide which will ensure maximum safety or the other way of only stopping the supply in those cities where tampering have occurred. First one will give you a massive loss and blowout to your employees but the latter may not be the most appropriate choice ethically but it can save you and your employees from coming on roads. In the modern world, the decline of public sector because of traditional and ethical approach has led to it's fall infront of counterpart private companies who are making money at any and every cost.

Leading financial countries and institutions have their effect on millions of people in developing countries, in the field of environment degradation but because these countries are poor and still in their developing phases, they don't have the capacity to take mitigation measures against big powers.

The Balance                                                                      Economics is a social science . tautolougical, economics have a human dimension and hence ethics and economics should go hand in hand .

Social entrepreneurship is one such example. It is a method by which entrepreneurs provide solution for social cultural and environmental issues through their start ups. This idea comes up with the realisation of ethical responsibility.

Values and business can coexist and this message has been consistent throughout the history from Chanakya's Arthshastra to Nobel laureate Abhijit Banerjee's work 'poor economics' where he says — "we have to abandon the habit of reducing the poor to cartoon characters and take time to really understand their lives in all the complexity and richness." An economy without ethics is a body without soul and ethics without economy is next to impossible. Balancing both is the modern need because 'Means are also Ends in making.'

                                                               —Anshika