Ethics the roots of everything

Why does modern economy works better than previous ones? More efficient division of labor. What makes it possible? Money. What is the money's function? Price discovery. What is price? An approximant to value. What is fair? Fair compensation for the true contribution. What is value? A fair measure of true contribution.

Is money a fair approximant to value? Not necessarily. Why not? It lets you cheat; it forces you to bet; it lets you forfeit the original conditions of the contract if the true value has changed afterwards. Money forgets.

Whatever you "own" have any meaning only inasmuch as you can sell or lease it to others.

There is only so much produce an "owner" can grow on "his" "property" without inviting day laborers and taking away from them 90% of the value they produce, all by mutual "free" concent. It's a great deal for him, but hey they have families to support. So that's the exploitation of despair.

So, as long as society has money in its modern form, and unconditional property ownership, it has exploitation of despair and less-than-optimal value-discovery. The only true value of free markets system with competition and trade is that it serves for a decent value-dicovery mechanism (in guise of price-discovery). Of course any statist coercive system is worse in that sense, and as consequence the whole society becomes more inefficient and decapacitated.

Plus, "ownership" fixates the production structure. It's great that the inventor of sliced bread got rewarded for his ingenuity, it's only fair; but why should he get for that the sanctified ability to extract and appropriate the others' fruits of labor (after becoming an "owner" of sliced-bread corporation), and why should his grandchildren have that ability also? What is that a fair compensation for? And how useful is that for the creation of most appropriate production structures in a society according to its present needs?

Fairness is fair conpensation for true contribution. Your true contribution can change with time.
Without fair compensation an individual won't labor; and economy won't function.

Fair compensation - true reward for true contribution - could only be through tractable contracts, tracking and re-evaluating every condition at any point in time. It's like instead of money you get a proper share of gains and losses in a mutual enterprise. But hey, it's only fair. It's the Truth System. The society which has the truest value discovery mechanism + the most flexible production structures, will win out, will be most conducive to individual fulfilment.

Can tractable contracts be relied upon without some kind of an enforcing agency? Not likely. Enforcing is a part of a contract. You enter into a contract voluntarily, but then you are bound by it, by definition.

As for labels, does a state agancy provides this mechanism or an independent Law Courts system, what does it matter. Whatever the given society develops that will function in that regard, will be fine. It's all in the Culture, and that has its roots in ETHICS.

Culture's roots, the society's customs and mores, lie in Ethics - the moral choices and attitudes of the Individual member of given society. It's little things mostly, finding their expression in grand differences between various cultures in the end.

So focus on ethics, on morals, on choices of the Individual. The structure will form by itself, if it is the TRUE structure - i.e. one that grows by itself, not ENFORCED, not COERCED on anyone. Even state is good when it functions properly, is conducive to each member's advantage, and restrains itself otherwise.

What if an individual's goals are contrary to others'? That shall be evaluated by correspondence with the CORE VALUE SYSTEM accepted by that society. Anyone who desires and acts contrary to it will have by definition excluded himself from that society. You are free to join in, or opt out, but while you're in, you're IN.

The only thing left is to decide the ETHICAL AXIOMS.

Ethical Axioms define CORE VALUE SYSTEM defines Culture defines Customs Mores and Laws define the Society.

It's a little things in your everyday life - what you value, what you despise. Do you hold dear the Fairness and Compassion, empathy and good will, or the Supremacy over the weak? That kind of thing. Then you get a "Western" society of Law, or Eastern Hierarchialism, or Arab Autocracy, or Russian Despotism.

Today nothing in the West stops you from actully creating your own structure and living inside it by its Laws. Today.

As for the ethical axioms, my own personal preference is

The Right to Think,
The Right to Know,
The Right to Choose.

NO COERCION.

DO NO HARM.

(in that order).

Sanctity of the Individual/Consciousness, Equality before Law, No Arbitrary Power of anybody over anyone else.

When everyone acts according to these in their everyday life, everything will follow.