Hello Business World!
BUT I THOUGHT YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO HATE THE GAME NOT THE PLAYER?
My post today is focusing on two famous words, “Wall Street”. A term highly recognized in the business section of any Newspaper, and fantasized about in the minds of young Sauder students. The article titled “Ethics on Wall Street: Hate the player, not the game”, a twist on the classical saying about encouraging sportsmanship. The author of this article is suggesting anything but. Proposing that the scary stories of unfair play, and low moral standards are true of New York’s famous Wall Street.
THE ARTICLE
The article from Canadian Business states that the results of surveying several Wall Street executives concluded that “24% of respondents believe that financial professionals need to engage in unethical behaviour in order to get ahead”, and only “26% report having observed some form of wrongdoing.”
SERIOUSLY?
Whatever the reasoning for such encouraging results I personally, highly doubt with little contemplation that only 26% have observed a wrongdoing. Before reading the author’s own personal response to the statistics, I was astounded that these people we hold on pedestals of power, and authority of certain financial and social obligations, would attempt to stoop so low as to try and fool us as a society.
Another 16% admitted that they would engage in illegal activities if they could get away with it. An interesting article I found relating to this particular topic of insider trading expands on why some Wall Street rats believe that insider trading shouldn’t be illegal and isn’t unethical at all.
THE ETHICAL ISSUE
The main ethical issue embedded in the article is so elegantly stated by the author as “the difference between our ethical evaluation of capitalists and our ethical evaluation of capitalism.” The concept that the system is expected to produce good outcomes regardless of the cleanliness of their unethical employees ultimately is the view of many Wall Street capitalists, businessmen.
SO I CONCLUDE WITH
Even though some may say that such dirty work could easily be predicted in Wall Street and that it should come as no surprise, it took three simple statistics to illustrate the bleak and unethical legitimacy of the business that we hold at such a prestigious level.
THINK ABOUT IT
Would you want to work at Wall Street if this pressing virtue of cheating to get ahead was a constant part of your daily work?
To what extent could you be morally unethical? Would you get involved in illegal means of trade, like insider trading?
What would the cost be if insider trading were legal?
If you’re interested in reading the full articles they can be found at the links provided below:
2) http://businessethicsblog.com/2011/01/04/ethics-of-insider-trading/