I agree it would take too long. The blogging space limits your thought capacity somewhat. What a fantastic point you make in the last paragraph (in both actually)… I have noticed that too. I sat down to write a paper about it a while ago and hit the wall at that point. I agree I think it is a natural tendency. I especially take your final point about surrogate social relationships. That’s a wall breaker!

In the end, it is a natural tendency developed to an unnatural degree. Technology and affluence enable individuals to sustain isolationism by offering a variety of virtual and surrogate social and commercial interactions, in place of genuine and necessary collaborations.

I love it when people disagree with me and then highlight what they think I got right in the manner you have above…

I think your logic here is precisely (at least towards the end) what I am arguing for here. I have to say however, that in the same sense as the buyer is responsible for the shortfall, the seller is responsible as well. The both participate willingly and unwillingly in both the simultaneous creation of market and it’s deconstruction. Why? That’s a question I don’t have the mental capacity to answer.

Take for example the desire to buy a house. We spend our lives working for it, we dedicate the best part of existence to this. Why? The “market” appears to have so much relevance to us that we forgo our working lives in support of it. It influences every single transaction of our lives so much so, that we sell our souls over the length of a life time for it. The question I can’t get out of my head is this: how did it get to be this way? Not that I am advocating the absence of a market. But just asking why…

Great comments Alan, thanks!

Luke

Okay, I think you’re wrong on most of the specifics, but you still reach the right conclusions, which is quite a feat…

The Market exists in the same sense that you exist. You are not your body parts, your mind, your soul, your thoughts and ways of thinking. You are less than this, and more. You are less to the extent that your inherent contradictions are (temporarily and contingently) resolved by the abstractive (selective) processes of belief and decision. You are more to the extent that you are a more or less coherent and directed projection of a mess of irrelevance and contradiction; you can be reasoned about with some success.

The most common systems of ethics take the view that you are not responsible for your desires and beliefs, but for your decisions and actions. It is in this sense that the Market is amoral. However ethical or otherwise the actions of individuals “in the Market” may be (analogous to your internal beliefs, desires etc), the Market will, inevitably and, to some extent, predictably, “make sense” of all available information and react accordingly (analogous to your decisions, actions etc). There is no equivalent to your (real or illusory) free will.

I think Soros might go a bit further than this. If you reason, for example, that house prices in a given area are likely to fall in the short term, which is a Market prediction, then that is a factor in your personal (and hence, to some extent, ethical) decision about how much to pay for a particular house in that area. All else being equal, you will be inclined to pay less. This inclination is both rational and amoral. But to what extent do you feel personally responsible for any shortfall experienced by the sellers as a result? On the one hand, it’s not your fault that the Market is falling, but on the other hand you are a direct cause of the Market prediction coming true…

Very interesting article. It got me thinking….

I’d like to think that business only exists because of people so a business can only be as moral as the people controlling the business. Without ROI the business would cease to exist so this is also important. Also, morals are subjective so we’ll never be in agreement over what is morally right or wrong, but I don’t feel businesses are amoral and actually have a obligation to acte ethically where possible.

In love, light and abundance x x x

Very good points. That line of demarcation is extremely blurry at times and yes where people stop and start is interesting.

Thanks for you comment.

Luke

You have an excellent view on how markets should be intertwined with ethics. I also see your point about the concept of a “market” is just an abstract model of the real world of people trading and that people have ethics (whether good or bad ethics).

I do think that there are some level of ethics in play with markets. Maybe less in financial markets like Wall Street, but if a place like McDonald’s or WalMart is active in community service, I may lean towards going there to be a customer. A company can use the perception of having good ethics as part of public relations.

Ultimately though, I’d have to agree with Soros that business is amoral. Business is competition, and competition has more Darwinian rules in play rather than moral rules. Is it immoral for the cheetah to eat a gazelle? The analogy might be extreme if we’re talking about people, since people are not animals that eat or be eaten, but I think if we’re talking about business organizations rather than people, this analogy is quite close to reality.

When it comes to the business organization, morality may not be as relevant as much as ROI. However, when it comes to individuals who are customers/consumers in the markets, morality is more relevant. To me, the line of demarcation of moral/amoral seems to be whether it’s an organization or if it’s an individual.

Chris Moran