Does society need a moral re-education?

Transcript

World Finance speaks to Brett Scott author of The Heretic’s guide to Global Finance on where responsibility lies.

World Finance: Now Brett: you’ve said that the financial industry is amoral, but wouldn’t you say it’s just society as a whole that lacks morals?

Brett Scott: Amoral means, in a sense, it doesn’t mean it’s immoral. It kind of, like… it tries divorce itself from the sphere of ethics.

You could argue that society itself is always complicit in forms of… lets, for example, say unsustainable investment. The average person maybe doesn’t understand or necessarily care about future issues like, for example, climate change; but we can argue that a large financial intermediary is in a much greater position of power to do something about that than, for example, a pensioner.

So that’s why in a sense you target financial… like, big banks; when you are trying to make changes in the system. In a sense you demand more of a fund manager than you do of a pensioner who is relying on the fund manager.