The End of Ethics and A Way Back: How To Fix A Fundamentally Broken Global Financial System

Chapter 11

The Way Back

We conclude The End of Ethics with the way back. It is fundamentally necessary to find the map that leads us out of the vice-ridden maze. Yet, in order to find the way back, we must become uncomfortable with where we are now.

We must not blame others for our current ethical malaise because, on a systemic level, vice has consumed us. Our CEOs, presidents, politicians, celebrities, and sports leaders only exhibit the values that we all have accepted on a global level.

Economic vice is everywhere.

Lambast Gordon Gekko all you want as an out-of-control glutton, yet he has his progeny all over the world. This is accepted. This is now the new normal.

We can no longer look to our governments for virtue and pragmatism. They have uniformly betrayed us. Indeed, nearly every postindustrial nation is battling gigantic black holes of public debt. This massive debt could have been easily avoided through prudential sustainability. Yet, world governments have discharged their immense responsibilities as public stewards.

They have unremorsefully maxed out their own credit cards, which, unfortunately, never had a limit and still do not. Rationalizing out-of-control spending when you do not have the money to pay for such costs, now, or ever, is a heinous betrayal of public duties (not to mention future generations) and a manifestation of the classical seven deadly sins on a grand scale.

Sadly, eventual consequences are never considered. Not enough companies, governments, and ...