Wealth of Nations | Text by Dr. Ron Sterling | Winter 2011
When first contemplating the words greed, capitalism, and gentleman, my thoughts were almost instantly drawn to one of my top-rated thought models, Adam Smith. Models are important. If you want to know what constitutes a gentleman, it always helps to have a picture in your mind, a model on which to base your personal goals.
Adam Smith, a model, really? Well, okay -- He didn't get married or have kids, but his thinking about economics and morality was of the highest gentlemanly order. You can't say things like "The man whom we naturally love the most is he who joins to . . . his own original and selfish feelings, the most exquisite sensibility both to the original and sympathetic feelings of others" and not be considered a gentleman.
Smith, known for possibly the two most significant books of the 18th century -- Theory of Moral Sentiments and Wealth of Nations -- believed that a system of so-called free enterprise had natural counterweights to greed which are the human need to be loved by others and socially accepted. He did not fully contemplate the overpowering influence of corporations, which, since his time, have been given the legal status of persons, but which have none of the human need to be loved by others or socially accepted. And, therein lies the rub. Capitalism and greed gone wild have been fully fueled by the widespread amorality of the exponential population explosion of this mutant human called a "corporation."
How to be a gentleman in the face of such overwhelming corporate amorality is daunting. It requires a mindfulness about long-term consequences that goes beyond the norm and which can rise above extremely powerful consumerism brainwashing that appeals to our deepest fear -- non-existence. It requires, as I noted in the November 2010 column, a man who lives in balance with and respect for all life and a man who stands up for Smith's vision of the socially responsible free-market.
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