The essential virtues for human relations are: justice, prudence, strength, temperance, faith, hope and charity.
In the past, Spain has endured Civil War and ETA’s terrorism. Today, Catalan separatists and ETA inheritors blackmail a lying government; Spanish is not learned in 30% of the country; private property is seriously affected; division of powers is inexistent; the adolescent suicide rate rapidly rises; there are very few, but need more ethics than the ordinary Spaniard. Citizens from prosperous western nations practice ethical values. Their institutions encourage a free market: social equality; economic freedom and justice; modest governments help the poor. In Spain, public schooling eliminates ethical contents, families are busy urgently surviving, nobody occupies the ethical vacuum. Moral ignorant people walk around crushed in the propaganda-media forest. They vote governments that ruin us and use budgets as political currency: In 18 years, Zapatero, Rajoy and Sánchez have increased public debt by €1 billion, show off their management experience and call anyone critical populist, extremist. This year, 120,000 million euros are budgeted to subsidise pensions with €112.000. Patronage organisations’ subsidies financed to maintain power. No-one teaches virtues: a good behaviour habit that hurts nobody. There is no virtue with confrontation and without lack of cooperation. Excellence is the habit of doing things well. What is excellent is virtuous because it serves others. Commerce, that is the win-win relation, offering services, meeting needs, reaching pacts by buyer-seller parties, the core of private activity, productive economy, promotes prosperity. Innovation seeks new assets and services to better meet needs and more people. Egalitarianism has destroyed private economy by generating misery because of excess public spending. There are more civil servants and politicians than self-employed workers. Is that sustainable? Commerce encourages innovation, but governors pillaging with taxes discourages entrepreneurship. Prosperous countries encourage economic activity, benefit firms and commerce; misery comes to nations with excess public spending. High taxes put an end to private initiatives. Good education should teach people to earn a living with good habits to cooperate with others freely by making the effort. If instead of teaching the virtues of commerce (wealth must be created; low taxes in a small State; benefits for savings, etc.) socialist dogmas are accepted (taxes are good; businesspeople exploit; what is public is beneficial; what is private is suspicious; wealth must be distributed, etc.), very few people will be entrepreneurs. Under the moral umbrella of not wishing anything we dislike for others, the essential virtues for human relationships and social order are: justice, prudence, strength, temperance, faith, hope and charity. The virtue of justice consists in giving everyone their own by respecting freedom and others’ property by keeping one’s word, repairing harm done, fighting privileges, and recognising everyone as subjects with equal rights regardless of religion, gender, race or economic position. Prudence consists in behaving with moderation, thinking maturely, performing honestly and without harming others. Prudence means controlling risk, critically reflecting on our decisions, and weighing up possible pros and cons truthfully and in a balanced way. Strength allows us to act fearlessly and rashly, it is necessary to attempt new goals, and implies patience to be enterprising, overcome hurdles, resist and persevere. Temperance consists in controlling our passions to not act and cause social disorder. It involves keeping calm, being humble and containing ourselves. It is essential to listen to customers; we should avoid compulsive shopping and not become self-complacent to save; we should emulate achievements without jealousy. Faith is required to trust tradition, what we do not completely understand, because we might not understand some good things to trust institutions, rules and laws. Hope allows us to trust a future we do not know, but one we move towards. Charity helps us to conciliate our good with others, avoid opportunism and be aware of cooperation other than contracts. Without all these virtues, people are not prepared to live, are disoriented, do not know what they want. They do not distinguish truths and lies, good and bad, rights and desires. Tyrants and traitors, who are voted by the moral illiterate, take advantage. The first stone of Spanish resurgence is ethics.
Post published in Las Provincias