According to Michel Camdessus, former president of the International Monetary Fund, "an economic system that rejects ethics and giving freely, drowns". On his hand, Cornelio Sommaruga, President of the International Committee of the Red Cross, speaks about "market fundamentalism". The economic issues are at the core of the debate in the twenty-fifth International Meeting for Peace "Living together in a time of crisis" organized in Barcelona by the Community of Sant'Egidio.

"The big misunderstanding - said the bishop of Terni, Vincenzo Paglia - is to consider giving freely and market as two opposite terms, as if giving freely could not live with the logic of interest. But giving freely is not a waste: it has a return that is not material, but at a higher level, which is the universal brotherhood".

According to Vincenzo Scotti, Deputy Foreign Minister of the Italian Government, "the problem is that instead of solving the issue at its root, we are satisfied with few correctives: we should ask ourselves how to switch from the logic of competition to that of cooperation".