As Americans do in their own lives, they expect the market to value such standards as honesty, fair play and concern for one’s neighbor. That has always been the best of the “American way,” and that is the only way business leaders can rebuild their relationship with the American people.
Are today’s corporate executives capable of delivering a free market version of “change we can believe in?”
Interestingly, in 1985, Benedict XVI — then Cardinal Ratzinger — warned of the consequences of a system that removed itself from its moral foundation. He said: “It is becoming an increasingly obvious fact of economic history that the development of economic systems which concentrate on the common good depends on a determinate ethical system, which in turn can be born and sustained only by strong religious convictions. Conversely, it has also become obvious that the decline of such discipline can actually cause the laws of the market to collapse.”
We have seen ethics separated from the market, and we have seen the market collapse under the weight of greedy and selfish investment practices. The question is, can we achieve an ethical market system?
Might be useful to Reread Theory of Moral Sentiments.
Arrow’s impossibility theorem definitively demonstrates there is no perfectly fair system.
A common set of positive business values or ethics can do more for the marked and the people than all the regulations the Congress can pass.