The Morality of Adam Smith's Free Market Economics

Via Ethics Sage.

Our free market economic system depends on the exercise of ethical behavior by corporate officials to provide for the public good. Absent decision making based on ethical values such as honesty, objectivity and integrity, the system cannot be trusted to allocate resources in the best interests of society. The root cause of such problems is the pursuit of self-interests to the exclusion of all others. The financial crisis that started in 2007 resulted in large part from unethical conduct including making home mortgage loans when financial institutions knew (or should have known) that borrowers were not qualified – a fact that was ignored (or overlooked) so that these institutions could earn large fees from closing and other transaction costs. This scandal came on the heels of accounting frauds in the early 2000s at companies such as Enron, WorldCom, Tyco and Health South that shredded billions of dollars of shareholder wealth while top management pay packages at these companies were in the multi-millions.

Click Here to Read: The Morality of Adam Smith's Free Market Economics