Can An Ethical Economy Exist?

Economy, directly translated means the study of scarcity. That is in essence what economies do; distribute resources in a manner in which the most people can benefit within the constraints of a scarcity of resources. The two most commonly understood economic systems are communism and capitalism, neither of which is perfect by any means, but both of which attempt to meet the needs of the people in an ethical manner. Communism attempts to give everyone an equal footing, where the government is supposed to distribute the wealth and resources equally. The problem with communism however is that it eliminates competition, which is a deeply rooted aspect of human nature, and so those who have a greater ability to compete are more limited and in a way repressed. On the other end of the spectrum is capitalism which is based on that deep rooted tendency to compete. In capitalism everyone must compete to provide for the needs of others to profit enough to provide for their own needs. The problem here comes when competition becomes unfair, dirty or corrupt; the people who succeed may do so by oppressing others, in a sense cheating. Both repression of human nature, and allowing others to benefit from the misfortune of others are in theory unethical, and so it would seem from the very beginning that the most dominant or well known economies are not morally sound.
So if modern economies are not ethical, what could be a solution? Well I suggest that the developments of economies were ethical in the beginning, when there was a true scarcity, and by scarcity I mean a limited amount of resources available to all people. Long ago, when mankind was still developing agriculture there was no real means to feed people on a large scale, and so means of distribution were needed. Now however the means to feed all people on a large scale, but the problem now lies with distribution. In America for example, the average person eats around 20 times as much per week as a person from the developing world. The people in the developing world still survive at their much lower level of consumption, leading more active lifestyles, while Americans live for the most part much more sedentary lifestyles. Americans in fact do not need to consume as much as we do and in a sense we are hoarding our resources. The top economists say we are a trillion or more dollars in debt; however we have more natural resources than any other country in the world. Our debt is why we justify the theoretical hoarding of our resources, suggesting that we can not afford to distribute our resources more fairly globally because we are in debt ourselves. However this stems from a mistaken assumption that currency is a resource. It makes sense because it takes money to acquire any other resource and for the person receiving the money to provide that resource, they must use money to gain other resources and so on.
If you step back and look at economies today, keeping the idea of meeting the needs of the people in mind, most fail miserably in performing that primary function. In capitalism, the money is not equally distributed and therefore the resources are not equally distributed. In communism, the equal distribution depends on the purity of the government, and with communist governments having such extreme centralized authority corruption, megalomania, or other disruptive human traits easily entangle themselves and so that system fails as well. So what can be done? If resources are not being distributed fairly, and current systems are not working what can be done?
The answer is simple, yet drastic, any child has thought about it when feeling a need. The child may be hungry in a store, and want a candy bar; not knowing it must be paid for. To the child, there are plenty of candy bars, they’re available, he wants one, and he should just be able to have one. Adults of course know that the candy bar company can’t afford to allow that, since they must make money to be able to make the candy bars. The child’s idea though, is actually brilliant if looked at with an open mind. If money were removed, and the resources which all people needed were available to people without penalty there wouldn’t be economic chaos, a rapture, or whatever most faithful financiers would suggest. Those who provide goods and services could continue to do so because all goods would be available, profit would not be necessary to allow a person to provide for themselves. Instead people would work to provide for themselves and everyone else using the technology which allows few people to produce large quantities of supplies. Yes Bankers, insurance agents, accountants, and all jobs associated with the handling of currency would be lost, however in the scheme of things these jobs are for the most part trivial in contributing to the wellbeing of society. They do take care of people’s money, but currency really isn’t a natural need of a human being. Those people however wouldn’t need to make money anyway so it wouldn’t really be that great of a loss. The problem of course with this more ethical system is that it depends on the good will of all people. Goods and services would not be done for personal gain, but based on the simple understanding that it must be done to provide for others. People would still be able to choose their work of course, but they would have to be rewarded by understanding that their actions are helping others and that their good acts are rewarded by others performing good acts. The most successful people would not be the most financially savvy, but the people who can help and contribute to the lives of others the best because others will wish to do the same for them. This ideal economy I fear however could only exist in an ideal world, there could be no jealousy, no envy, and no hatred between other people that would divide, and shift the distribution of resources. Maybe education could be the answer to this, and in a world like that education would be free, therefore available to everyone, and so reason, logic, and understanding could intervene and allow all people to understand the futility of negative behavior. It is just a dream I suppose, but then again, isn’t that how most great revolutions and advancements begin?