I had a difficult conversation with an investment banker friend yesterday. He expressed relief that things were starting to look better, and to indicate that the basic banking model was not totally flawed. I asked him what kind of people would be needed at the top in the future. Even though he is a good friend, and knows that I am far from anti-banks, I could hear him curdle. He said that the people at the top of enterprises would always be motivated primarily by making money, and that there was nothing wrong with this.
There is nothing wrong with being motivated by money (quite the opposite), but it’s the “primarily” word that’s the problem for me – I think it belittles enterprise. I have always understood that the role of enterprise is to create the wealth, deliver the goods and provide the services that society needs. This is a fine objective for enterprise, one that puts it at the heart of society. Surely there is a difference between enterprise and self interest?
2 responses so far ↓
1 davidcoethica // Jun 10, 2009 at 00:32
I too agree with the requirement for wealth generation and the role that enterprise needs to play within global economic regeneration.
The problem is that most people forget that wealth is only a means to an end. As sustainability issues (and I include those areas beyond environmental impacts such as education and poverty) further infiltrate into commercial activities aligned with very tangible global challenges such as climate change, energy security and population growth, wealth alone becomes an incredibly narrow set of goal posts.
It may take many years to come, or possibly sooner if some climate scientists are to be believed, for irrefutable evidence to appear to current and younger generations to allow them to arrive at an intellectual crossroads where just making money without due consideration for society or the planet will be akin to being a smoker in the UK today.
This evolution is already happening, educational institutions are racing to play catch up with repect to sustainability and ethical curricula,s it’s just painfully slow for those us who have the vision to see further.
2 mike chitty // Jun 10, 2009 at 11:44
The challenge is not self interest per se, but as de Tocqueville pointed out ’self interest – rightly understood’.
Our self interest fully negotiated with the interests of our contemporaries, but also with the future. I believe that the power behind enterprises, however social or otherwise, is ’self interest’.
The challenge is how to provide an environment make more people understand their self interest more fully and enjoy sufficient hope to look to the future as well as the present.
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