The Good Earth any Good Society

In the fifties the respected professions were in medicine, engineering, law and education. The civil service was a sort of comfort zone for those who had a desire for certainty and stability throughout life. Business, finance and money lenders were anathema were considered a sleazy business and were treated with disdain and suspicion. Doctors, Engineers, Judges, Lawyers and Professors felt rewarded and belonged to an elite club. The advent of MNC’s and B-schools changed the landscape overnight and a whole new world of professions with a breed of men with halos appeared on the firmament. Managers, stock brokers, Investment bankers, financial analysts, advisors etc. were the desired vocations. There is a stampede for finance related occupations and software professionals. Finance and salesmanship were the buzzwords of the eighties and nineties. Yes the real world is focused on wealth creation and may even cut corners in the process. In reality the Shylockian image no longer causes anxiety, as it did earlier as a lot of our morals have been modified to accept the peccadilloes of the high world of financial pornography, where stocks are over rated, accounts and balance sheets are manipulated etc. More and more people are leaving high minded fields to venture into finance related occupations. We may ask why anyone with a sense of personal morality should go into finance, well for one it offers astronomically high salaries and offers more than the usual temptation to be less than honest. The person may experience what psychologists call “cognitive dissonance”. Morals when they exist, reside within one’s self – independent and irrespective of who or what the other entity may be. To maintain self esteem in such circumstances, people may revise their beliefs. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that our morality goes out of the window. It’s a case of morals taking a nose dive in the brave new world of finance. _-Citings- The Good Society