Hebberigheid doet economie wankelen*
Als gevolg van de hebberigheid van mensen, die het resultaat zijn van het huidige
economische denken, zitten we nu in een wereld omvattende klimaat-, energie-, voedsel- en financiële crisis. Hieronder een bijdrage daarover uit de New York Times en een column van Jos de Beus in het TV-programma
Buitenhof van 5 oktober 2008.
A Cure for Greed
Of
course, it’s all Gordon Gekko’s fault! “Greed and irresponsibility,” blasted Barack Obama. “Greed and excess and corruption,” charged John McCain. President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva could tell from as far away as Brazil that the “boundless greed of a few” blew up the American financial system. Why didn’t I think of that?
With the eureka moment behind us, I would suggest that this insight offers a way to try to restore the abused financial markets to health. If greed is to blame, the question is whether we can line up a reasonable array of alternative incentives — and disincentives — to do away with greed for good.
This will be no easy task. From populist opprobrium to elitist disdain — standard social behavioral devices have proved unable to dent humanity’s greedy nature.
The Soviet Union deployed the entire power of the state to stamp out greed — and ensured that the state was the greediest actor of all. Even religion’s not insubstantial powers of persuasion (think Hell) and coercion (think Inquisition) have proved insufficient to blot out this insidious sin.
The free market, it should be obvious by now, hasn’t been up to the task either. Capitalism, in all its cleverness, decided that what you can’t beat, you should use. It worked to harness greed. To be able to discuss it in polite company, economists renamed it “maximization of utility,” and built a theory of the world that everyone benefits when we seek to maximize our own individual welfare.
Greed reached its zenith in the 1980s, when the Reagan Revolution brought us supply-side economics and its bedrock belief that the path to prosperity for all required removing every obstacle to utility maximization, including most regulations and taxes. Then financial markets crashed. On the campaign trail, the Rev. Jesse Jackson lambasted America’s greedy corporations. And one survey found that 83 percent of Americans blamed “unmitigated greed” for the financial crisis. A few years later the markets were again soaring; greed was back in style.
Yet despite the consistent failure to temper our greedy nature, I still have hopes. Because there is a crucial brake that has been missing from the edifice of high-tech financial capitalism — a counterbalance at the other end of the scale from where utility gets maximized. That piece is fear. My suggestion, then, is to put fear back in the picture. When the banker who loses his or her bank also loses his or her shirt, greed will be tempered. At least for a while. EDUARDO PORTER
(Oktober
2008)
