the financial sector is morally good
Dr. Yaron Brook is executive director of the Ayn Ran Institute in Irvine, California. He wrote a chapter in the latest book by the Institute for Pension Education on why the financial sector is morally good.
Finance is usually not regarded in a postive way. Not by policy makers, not by playwrights and not by the general public. People working in finance are seen as unproductive who work at the expense of others and damage the economy unless the government comes with vast regulation, and finance uses their evil money to circumvent such regulation.
A true, free financial sector is, however, the motor for human progress. Finance helps create products. It’s the industry creating other industries by financing businesspeople’s growth and restricting risks. Finance offers a solution tot he problem that people with the best ideas but without money, are enabled to carry them out.
As long as the profit motive is viewed as immoral people will hold finance responsible for almost every problem there is, and will demand that profits are reduced by further regulating the financial industry.
However, the profit motive is good. To be able to make a profit is the only way to create value. This is what the philosopher Ayn Rand calls ‘Rational Self Interest”. The pursuit of ones own material, mental and emotional wellbeing, not by sacrificing oneself or another to you. The moral justification is that everybody needs to produce capital to be able to live and to enjoy life.
To condemn someone as immoral because he is producing capital is to condemn someone for wanting the most out of life. If human life and happiness are our purpose, then looking for profit is an enormous positive incentive to achieve that. By this standard, financiers are a very positive force.