Business Ethics, Greed, Part 2: A Reading List

A long time ago, when the real estate bubble bursted and the wavelets of that puff rippled through a very large part of the western world's main feasibility institutes (aka banks with an investment arm) we set out to explore the notion of greed, that so many made responsible for this particular form of a surface crack becoming visible.

Unfortunately, right in the middle of the necessary research, we lost time and energy and did not continue as we should have. Now that the appearance of surface cracks on practically everybody's radar screens triggers gravest concerns with many, we have received enough of an impulse to stagger on.

While already last time we had to realize that most every organization of humans of which we have knowledge (because at least a part of their inscriptions survive) has condemned greed, we need to look at the few and countable individuals that have endorsed it, most notably Adam Smith, Mrs. Ayn Rand (Alissa Sinowjewna Rosenbaum, Алиса Зиновьевна Розенбаум), Mr. F.A. Hayek (Friedrich August von Hayek) and Mr. Ludwig Mises (Ludwig Heinrich Edler von Mises).

The latter 3 guys, when they emigrated, brought with them a certain virus from 2 of the badest Dungeons of Peoples (the expression sounds a lot more plausibe in German with its Völ-ker-ker-ker-sound), the Russian and Austro-Hungarian Empires respectively, to the United States, a virus born and hardened in the cold of Europe, while American customs and naturalization authorities did not even a split second take notice. Thus the virus easily sneaked into the mind and body of the collective inventor and champion of the Self Determination of Peoples and went on to work until now when we have reached a situation where individualism is nearly done with its rather short and fierce process of self-consumation. It had its definitive highs in America and later on in Europe but now it seems to be going down and away really fast and with its bads will also pass away all the good things that went with it.

It should also be said, that ethically only Mrs. Rand supported greed and unabashed self-interest consequently and that she is rightfully famous for her unwaivering attitude. This lonely and unique positioning of her's has the same good reasons stemming from the circumstances of geography, time, gender and life as with anybody else.

Here is a warning: While you dig into this, let no thunderhead of judgement gather in your gaze and overwhelm you too early on, just because for example so many exponents of the Tea Party Movement pretend to be devout followers of Mrs. Rand and are so intellectually underwhelming types at the same time. You can always make fun of the above mentioned 3 people (and their unable commenters) later on. For now hust think that they undertook the endeavour of writing down, what was wobbling through their minds and, thanks to those efforts, you can consume the results of their endeavours for just the sacrifice of a microscopic percentage of your lifetime leisure and and a tiny share of what you already pay for internet access.

Now, here's the first modest reading list to get familiar this side of the topic and gather some glimpses of the fevered debate generated by a crusade of critizism that was meant to shake the rigid corporate structure of two European empires that had long since missed to reform and had been held together by rusty steel for far too long and instead of unfolding their good work there went on to infect the Anglo-American world and instead of breaking an outdated and already cracking loop further stretched an energy overloaded loop so far that it started falling from 2nd order kybernetic guidance to mechanical 1st order control delusion. Not the only virus but a major one at that. That's how the world goes, asynchronicity seems to be everywhere.

We deliberately excluded Schumpeter, never mind.

Books

• Ayn Rand: “Atlas Shrugged"
• F.A. Hayek: "The Road To Serfdom"
• Ludwig von Mises: "Human Action: A Treatise on Economics"

And as ever: no money, no links to a store

PDFed Papers and Books

• Ayn Rand: The Virtue of Selfishness
• Steven Horwitz (for the Centenary Symposium, Part II - "Ayn Rand Among the Austrians"): Two Worlds at Once: Rand, Hayek, and the Ethics of the Micro- and Macro-cosmos
• Alan Greenspan (for the Brookings Institute): The Crisis

(these are what we mainly recommed to read if you can afford the time)

Web Articles

• Naomi Klein on The Guardian: Thanks a million, Ayn Rand, for setting the greedy free (The trickle-down theory beloved of Greenspan and his ilk is less a philosophy than a handy excuse for avarice)
• Duncan Campbell on The Guardian: Greed is good: a guide to radical individualism
• R.J. Cogburn on the Free Republic: Is Greed Good? Alan Greenspan vs. Ayn Rand.
• Daniel of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints on his blog "The Good Democrat": Ayn Rand Was Wrong! Greed Killed our economy.
• Jay W. Richards from the Christian Research Institute: Was Ayn Rand Right?
• Brent Budowsky on The Hill's Pundit Blogs: Ron Paul's godless goddess of greed: Ayn Rand
• Carl S. Milsted, Jr. Ph.D., on Holistic Politics: Greed vs. Freedom
• Heather Wilhelm on The Wallstreet Journal: Is Ayn Rand Bad for the Market?

Post Scriptum: Like we hinted last time, of course we do know that the real and really cool trinity of greed are Uncle Scrooge, John D. Rockerduck and Queen Bess but sadly all sects have fallen from them and turned to false god/esse/s that at maximum qualify as saints and for sure have cheated at their prophet exams. And a last thing: please, please forget about Gladstone Gander.

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