Orthodoxy or Reevaluation at the G20?
Published April 02, 2009 @ 09:03AM PT
The big news today is all about the G20 Summit and whether the cohort of global leaders can find enough common ground to acually move forward with common action rather than ceding to the forces of chaos, dull thinking, and protectionism.
One of the key conversations is what is the appropriate role of regulation vs. opportunity facilitation in rebuilding the financial system. This has, historically, been a highly ideology-charged argument with little room for middle ground. Macro-economic health would come through more government regulation and stimulus, or alternately, by getting out of the way of private enterprise.
Where I hope we get after this crisis, and where it seems like the larger part of my generation is at least relatively comfortable with as a starting point, is a more nuanced notion of what a "good" market looks like. We can affirm that markets have great power to distribute goods and unleash opportunity, but at the same time, recognize that they can enable highly concentrated wealth that does not respect even minimum standards of global social equity. We can be excited about markets and at the same time recognize that they often fail spectacularly to meet the full spectrum of needs we have as a society and create incentives for exploitative, abhorrent behavior which we don't want to condone.
At the end of the day, I tend to believe that our larger macro-economic problems have everything to do with ideology that calcifies to orthodoxy, rather than ideology that exists as failable guiding principle. It's a problem, for example, when "Deregulation" becomes a Platonic form of "economic good" rather than an occasionally powerful but sometimes damaging tool for delivering services more widely and effectively. It seems to me that the conversation we need to have is what values and goals we have as a society as a whole, and which of them tend to be served well by the economy and which not so much.
To keep track of the G20 and get some provocative thought, check out some of the following links:
- At Stake Are More Than Banks- Nick Kristoff
- Three Things the G20 Must Get Right - BBC
- The Finance 2.0 Manifesto - Umair Haque
- Reimagining Value For a Post Crisis Economy - Steve Wright
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Comments (2)
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Nathaniel is the founding Director of the Center for Global Engagement at Northwestern University, which works annually with hundreds of students in dozens of countries around the world through curricular programs and student project incubation.
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More and more I've been coming to the estimation that the G20 Summits are a closed circle of club-members only interested in their own good like most of our leaders meanwhile. Therefore, I am thinking that discussions about new regulations are a total waste of time.
What we need is a conversation about values and ethical behaviour which is not only driven by greed to making money cost what it may.
I grew up in a time where it was an unspoken rule to be gentle and considerate towards the people in our society. Of course we had our CEO's and how one calls them today. However, in my view they had also something like a code of ethics which included to give John Doe work untill he retires and thanking him in this way for more than 40-hard-working-years to the benefit of the company.
Seeing the reckless behaviour nowadays I have my doubts if there is a sensitivity not to say empathy for the society its leaders also have to serve to in some way - not only at the gala dinners by Charity's for being effective as publicity.
Responsible leadership doesn't exclude technological progress by itself but it ought to implement high morals and should not lead to double standards. Maybe a new subject for our high class university's - wasn't it called Management by Ethics in the old days? Hartmut Rast, New York
Posted by Hartmut Rast on 05/10/2009 @ 03:29AM PT
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Hi Hartmut
I think that you're right to indicate a return to ethics. Perhaps our failure is two part. Maybe it's both a general lack of (or at least forgetting) of the ethical underpinnings of all business, which is build on trust, but also lack of translation of ethics to today's rapidly shifting career and employment landscape. Recognizing that people will switch careers more than ever before, how do we behave ethically towards employees?
Posted by Nathaniel Whittemore on 05/11/2009 @ 01:24PM PT
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