A recent article in the NYT describes how financial analysts are opting to learn on the job, rather than do MBA’s. While the article is largely anecdotal, what is apparent is that the culture of Wall Street encourages a cut-throat approach to business. While you can make more money than you need (maybe even more than you want) very quickly, there is little loyalty and only cash counts. The hedge fund career is mentioned frequently and raises the profile of a mercenary approach to investment. While those making money will fully support this culture, I’ve never been a fan of it. Although philosophically it may be justified by objectivist (even hedonistic) perspectives like that of Ayn Rand and Milton Friedman, which discount any value of a moral code to the duty of “rational self-interest”, it provides fuel for the criticisms of capitalism and globalisation. And it would be wrong to say that this is what Adam Smith advocated or that it is the only or appropriate way. We may choose to manage assets so that the financial performance is enough, but our approach to business also leaves space for relationships, family and leisure. Growing up in an investment bankers’ family can be a privileged path, but it ought to be underpinned by necessity to survive rather than greed because otherwise one finds oneself in later life with dysfunctional family and friends who only communicate with you if there’s something in it for them. It is not a happy result, as some realise after the first or second heart attack.
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