Would civilization benefit if we did not allow economic factors to override ethical ones?

You would really have to define morality and whose version of it that economics is presently overriding.
But notwithstanding that; sure, anytime you eliminate greed from any equation you will always arrive at a more equitable solution.

How are you going to prevent it?

Economic factors have ALWAYS – for 100000 years – been the governing factor in human activity. NOT morality. To some degree morality is a luxury that is followed when survival has been assured.

(By economic factors, I mean – will my tribe survive? will my tribe have enough land to grow crops? will by tribe have enough weapons to defend against the other tribe?).

So you’re not going to separate the two, even in the year 2014. Human nature is that economic factors – survival and safety for the species – is going to be paramount.

But let’s hypothesize for a moment that you could separate the two. How would you do it?

True @elbanditoroso but let us say in a case like this, are we not sacrificing long term gains for short term advantage? I see what you are saying and it is an interesting premise that morality is a secondary concern and perhaps you are correct about not being able to separate the two but what if we went the other way? I even agree with you but what if we chose the moral side of the equation as the primary driving force and suffered the economic hardship in order to gain something greater at a later point in time?

Things would be decidedly different, and the world itself would be unrecognizable. Whenever the words “market forces” are uttered nine times out of ten the subject of conversation is about economics trumping ethical considerations. It’s at bottom, what capitalism is all about.

In theory, it’s a straightforward question: if we didn’t let economic concerns compromise our moral standards, would we better off? On the whole, yes, because no one would sacrifice his/her beliefs or ethics for money, so we’d be a more moral society.

It’s hard to define morality, though. Lots of things are considered immoral, yet people do business in them. Certain business practices, even if not truly dishonest, are considered immoral. These would include making money on another’s misfortune or exploiting another’s needs. Many say there can be no morality in capitalism at all. What standards would we follow?

It is no idle claim that capitalism is devoid of ethical considerations. This is exactly why laws are put in place to regulate a system without a conscience. The evidence is rather stark that everything and anything is permitted along as there is no adverse consequence to profit.

Absolutely not.

The only reason the Cold War never became “hot”, and remained a series of proxy wars, was the threat of nuclear Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD). Now, thanks to globalisation, we have economic MAD – by far a preferable scenario to nuclear MAD. Countries can become integral to the world economy through innovation, and therefore not rely on an arms race to defend themselves.

Economic concerns, in foreign affairs, actually shield the world from the stupidity of war-loving leaders.