Apart from economic determinism, according to which economic ethics seems systematically impossible (supposed Sachzwänge), there is a second, no less common objection that this endeavour is not only impossible but also systematically unnecessary and superfluous. Economic ethics is then passed off as being even damaging and dangerous, as it approaches in a moralizing fashion complex relationships which are best coordinated or should even be exclusively coordinated by the market itself. The anonymous functional logic of the competitive system is not then perceived as the problem but, on the contrary, as the solution of (almost) all ethical problems in society. The market itself is regarded as the best ‘guarantor’ that everything is in the best of order from an ethical point of view. If only it is allowed to function, the market mechanism seems to be the great harmonizer, reconciling the conflicting interests of society of its own accord. Adam Smith was the first to put his finger on this function of competition as a (partial) substitute for normative social integration in a famous statement still enormously popular among ‘liberal’ economists and economic practitioners: