[ExI] How do we construct workable institutions and ethical behaviors?

[Stefano Vaj]

2011/12/6 spike <spike66 at att.net>:
> Plenty of us realized the Occupy people were occupying the wrong place.
> Wall Street didn’t do it, Washington DC did.  The fed set the policy on a
> course of disaster, Wall Street just did what businesses do.  John why
> weren’t the mobs descending on the people who actually did the crime?

I have some objections to the generalisation of the term "crime" (I
prefer to reserve it to the breach of the criminal law actually in
force in the territory and in the time when the alleged crime is
perpetrated, so that best-practice and "ethical" rules cannot really
be considered).

But Spike's approach is refreshingly *political* rather than moralistic.

A banker, same as a hangman, may be a very nice and considerate
individual in his private life - or perhaps not, since he would have
otherwise opted for another job :-) - but when working they have to
comply with what their actual, concrete job descriptions dictate.

Blaming them for responding to systemic expectations and Darwinian
pressures as best as they can seems therefore naive and futile. A
company is a *for-profit* organisation, and either a given undesirable
behaviour is made unprofitable or those objecting to it are simply
going to be replaced.

Perhaps by a computer having no such qualms... :-)

--
Stefano Vaj