Moral Man And Immoral Businessmen?

Interesting opinion piece in today's New York Times by William Deresiewicz: Capitalists and Other Psychopaths. To some extent, the article reprises themes in theologian Reinhold Neibuhr's moral Man and Immoral Society. But if anything, Deresiewicz takes a darker view, especially of businessmen.

"A recent study" Deresiewicz reports, "found that 10 percent of people who work on Wall Street are “clinical psychopaths,” exhibiting a lack of interest in and empathy for others and an “unparalleled capacity for lying, fabrication, and manipulation.” (The proportion at large is 1 percent.) Another study concluded that the rich are more likely to lie, cheat and break the law."

One can only wonder whether the corporate persons who have now been given the same First Amendment rights as natural persons (Citizens United) are the kind of persons Deresiewicz describes. The author addresses that very question: "There was a documentary several years ago called “The Corporation” that accepted the premise that corporations are persons and then asked what kind of people they are. The answer was, precisely, psychopaths: indifferent to others, incapable of guilt, exclusively devoted to their own interests."

To be sure, he points out that there are ethical corporations ethically managed. But the damage done by the others is considerable.  Even so,"ethics in capitalism is purely optional....Capitalist values are antithetical to Christian ones. (How the loudest Christians in our public life can also be the most bellicose proponents of an unbridled free market is a matter for their own consciences.) Capitalist values are also antithetical to democratic ones. Like Christian ethics, the principles of republican government require us to consider the interests of others. Capitalism, which entails the single-minded pursuit of profit, would have us believe that it’s every man for himself."

Which is why, in the nineteenth century, capitalists in the Age of Gold were so enamoured of Social Darwinism. They were, they contended, the fittest and therefore it was meet and right that they should monopolize the spoils.

Today they worship at the altar of Ayn Rand.