Introduction
What can we do to create finance and the economy as major contributors to the centuries-long social sustainability of a democratic nation? The answers may already be swirling in your minds, but consider this. Finance has as its intention investing and making money. The economy is all about improving the large scale productivity of investments on a national and international scale. Yet, neither has an intention to support the centuries-long social sustainability of any nation. Lacking an intention to contribute to the social sustainability of society and the nation has resulted in a boom and bust series of economic and financial calamities beginning with the collapse of the “Tulip Bubble” in February 1637, and the man made global recession of 2008.
The Moral And Ethical Obligations And Responsibilities Of Finance And The Economy To The Nation
The organizations that are within the scope of the social institutions of finance and the economy have a moral obligation to a democratic nation to devise a vision, intention, operating philosophies, missions, and objectives that support the development of stable and sustaining financial and economic policies that are consistent with the seven innate values of our species and the morality and ethics of those values. Doing so will more consistently shift self-interest to other-interest to improve global financial and economic stability to the benefit of global community of nations, both democratic and non-democratic. Finance and the economy are jointly co-responsible with the government for the economic and financial stability of the nation and co-responsible with all other nation’s economies and finance.
Of all the cataclysms that have occurred, are occurring, and will occur, none have had such devastating effects upon the individual lives of billions of people as the uncontrolled self-interests of those involved in finance and the economy. Surely 381 years of experience must contain the wisdom to avoid the occurrence of more financial cataclysms.
For good or bad, of all of the social institutions that support and knit together the functionality of nations, their societies, and the lives of billions of individuals and their families all pale in comparison to the effect that an economy has on billions of lives around the world. Of all the commonalities of the connections that affect the quality of life for individuals and families, the global economy has the most powerful effect in every nation.
Crimes Against Humanity
It is now 2018. In 2008 a global recession began to spread its effects around the world that affected the lives of billions of people. It has taken ten years for national and the global economies to regain their position prior to 2008. The lives of hundreds of millions of people were changed irreparably due to the loss of savings, investments, retirement accounts, and other forms of savings and investments. In many cases, for people who were approaching retirement and those who had retired, the experience would remain for the rest of their lives as they struggle to pay their mortgages, loans, and to forget about putting their children or grandchildren through college or technical school.
Yes, no one is usually killed during an Economic Holocaust as occurred in and after 2008, but the widespread destruction of millions of people’s quality of life equates to crimes against humanity. “Crimes Against Humanity” is not too severe a label for what recessions and depressions bring to billions of individual’s lives. Crimes against humanity are those immoral actions that affects the lives of people worldwide.
From page 52 “● Moral Definitions provide us with a set of rules to guide human decisions and actions to prevent destructive life-altering behavior of human interaction;” With that definition in mind, actions taken individually or severally and whether by omission or commission that destroy or greatly impair the global economy are immoral and truly do constitute crimes against humanity.
The egregious effects of global recessions and depression not only affect today’s generations, but the undeveloped potential of each succeeding generation. The losses from today’s generations have multi-generational repercussions as the lost potential to develop the full potential of succeeding generations. Because citizens are the natural resource asset of every nation, failing to develop their innate potential equates to the loss of billions of dollars to the GNP of future generations of every nation.
The humungous irony that is evident is the acceptance by billions of people that recessions, depressions, and the incredible loss of trillions of dollars and social resources are accepted the same as tornadoes and hurricanes — “They just happen.” Underlying this humungous irony is an assumption that escapes any level of intelligence, that recessions and depressions are similar to “Acts of God,” being a natural consequence of uncontrollable forces, and that loss and suffering from their occurrence is just a fact of life.
Time OUT! Here, we need to get a grip on reality. Recessions and depressions are not acts of God, but are caused by decisions of self-interest — man made decisions.
[You may note that I have consistently said that these financial cataclysms were caused by MEN, identifying men rather than women who made those decisions. Although Blythe Masters is credited with inventing the credit default swap financial instrument that figured prominently in the 2008 recession, my position is that men have consistently maintained the “glass ceiling” where women are almost totally excluded from the option-development, choice - making, decision-making, and action- implementation of executive positions in financial corporations at regional, national, and international levels. The worrisome part of this exclusion is that women are not able to bring their humanity (three secondary values) to bear upon the strategic executive processes of decision-making … at a huge cost and to the detriment to billions of people worldwide.]
In the genre of this book, to make preparations for stable and sustainable societies, we must eliminate this asinine global assumption that is held by billions of people that recessions and depressions are not preventable. And as usual, let us begin at the beginning with values, morality, ethics, and the priorities of decision-making that will be necessary to make meaningful and effective contributions to the social sustainability of this and all future generations.
Values, Morality, Ethics, And Priorities Of Decision-Making
Values always underlie all decisions whether made in a micro-second or take years to execute. Millions of decisions are made every day in thousands of financial organizations and in dozens of stock exchanges every day. National reserve banks, the “Fed” as it is called in the United States, uses market research data to make decisions that will not only affect the market and decision-making of that national economy, but will also affect larger and smaller national economies around the world.
In a society that has chosen to become socially, politically, and economically stable and hopefully to also become socially sustainable, the seven values that are innate to our species are the starting point for such planning.
Seven Values Have Sustained Our Species' Survival
Life. As the eminent value, life is given the same value to everyone regardless of race, ethnicity, culture, nationality, or gender. With that value everyone is given Equal value and treated as an equal. The reason these two values are so essential to the fulfillment of the goals of social sustainability is that failing to provide equal treatment creates an imbalance and instability in that society. Of all the seven values INequality sets up social, political, and financial-economic instability that has widespread and multi-generational negative repercussions. In other words, maintaining financial-economic INequality will never permit local communities or national societies to ever become stable and peaceful. The primary reason that INequality is maintained is due to the self-interest of the dominant culture of that society and nation from the individual level to the level of groups and associations of groups.
Any attempt to create a socially sustainable society, political environment, and economy will fail if self-interest and INequality are re-instated or continue to be maintained. Growth then becomes stalled for individuals and for whole communities when financial-economic INequalities are maintained. Any community that maintains INequalities of any type has denied the development of the innate potential of individuals and individuals collectively. The egotism and arrogance of self-interest in any realm of a society, whether social, political, or financial-economic is an example of being NON-human. The meta-language of such decisions and actions is a very loud statement that they are consciously and intentionally denying their humanity and are defining themselves as social predators. Choosing not to use one’s Empathy and to reach out in Compassion to those who are victims of financial-economic INequality is clear evidence of being NON-human, and is the same assessment we would give to the perpetrators of genocide and financial holocausts.
The ethics of decision-making. It is essential in the process of designing socially sustaining financial and economic organizations and institutions that the seven values are used as the active criteria for their design and functions. Further, the morality and ethics that emanate from those values are essential to the development of trust in the decision-making and conduct of financial and economic organizations. As shared earlier, proactive self-revealing transparency must always be clearly evident in the daily conduct of all forms of their financial business. That level of ethics does not become apparent until the last stage of the “hope continuum,” is revealed.
The Hope Continuum.
Hope ➔ Faith ➔ Belief ➔ Trust ➔ Knowing
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Knowing only becomes evident with experience.
“Trust me” is not sufficient to KNOW that trust is real. The better two-word phrase is this, “Show me,” as President Harry S. Truman said.
The ethics that support social sustainability must be applied when any decision is made concerning money, finances, and the economy. Doing so will assure that though a decision may be made with equality in mind, the “how” it is applied must be ethical, meaning that equality is not delayed or set-off to another time. Relating an old aphorism, “Justice delayed is justice denied,” applies as well to prosperity in all forms that is delayed or denied in the decisions and policies of financial institutions, big or small. It is immoral and inherently leads to the delay or elimination of an improving quality of life for everyone.
Conclusion
Though economics may seem arcane to the average person in the street, more and more people are “wising up” to the fact that the global economy, national economy, and local economy need to become more and more a personal concern for discussion. Average people are now (2018 with the trade wars) intensely concerned about the repercussions of changes in the global economy. The world of finance and economics has integrated all national economies to the point where the financial and economic impairment of one nation’s economic welfare will have almost immediate effects on the lives of billions of people nearby and far away.
Financial institutions have an intimate relationship with the state of the global and national economies. The critical measurement of financial ethical compromise is whether their financial decisions are made for the good of all or for their own self-interest … meaning the self-interest of the executives and shareholders of those financial institutions. Decisions that create profits for those institutions and individuals at the cost of the loss of millions, billions, and trillions of dollars to investors, individuals, and families is as devastating in effect as the use of chlorine gas in WW I, and phosphorous bombs on Tokyo in WW II.
Don’t be mistaken however that manipulating the economy and financial institutions should come under some form of democratic process. Wise, moral, and ethical expert professionals are needed to maximize the returns of investments and economic policies. What is as necessary to fulfill that fairly in a society that has chosen to move toward the stable, steady, and sustainable state of social sustainability is something far more rigorous, assertive, and committed to the “greater good” of all than the Federal Exchange Commission.
From Wikipedia, “The SEC has a three-part mission: to protect investors; maintain fair, orderly, and efficient markets; and facilitate capital formation.”
Something is eerily missing from the “protect investors” part of that mandate. What is missing the PROACTIVE element of the morality and ethics of the seven values that support social sustainability. Proactively that would include thorough training and certification of the seven values as applied to finance and economics, regular inhouse training of the same and related topics, and lastly severe personal and corporate penalties for decisions that cause damage to the general public, according to the extent of damage in numbers of citizens of this nation and in all other nations.
If balance, social, political, and economic stability and peace are to be achieved, then it must begin with teaching parents and their children the proactive morality and ethics of our species; and reinforcing those teachings in our schools.