Greed

Beginning the article with Gordon Gekko's famous utterance might be considered unoriginal, hence ignored. Albeit good or bad, the objective today is neither to praise greed nor bury it; simply put we need to decide.
The business of businesses is profit; businesses are not in the business of doing good, since goodness does not pay.
Even bankers would rather lend to a business with a higher EBITDA than a business which is cognizant of its moral, social, environmental and patriotic duties, if the latter business exists at all. And why is the existence of a goody two shoes business improbable if not impossible?
It can logically be argued that businesses which get distracted with moral issues will make lesser profits and will eventually be driven out of business by not so scrupulous competitors. As an example a business which fires employees as they get senior, replacing them with less paid younger employees, will invariably make more money than a business conscientious about its responsibility to the people who work for it. That by the way is one of the key differences between the private and public sector.
"A man who wishes to make a profession of goodness in everything must necessarily come to grief among so many who are not so good"-Niccolo Machiavelli.
So do we want unethical and ruthless businesses motivated solely by greed, or do we want noble men focused on charity, providing free education and health, and ambulance services, to the poor. Arguably, if we did not have more of the first type, the second type will have a lot more poor people to look after. Given a choice, the head of a household would, at least in my opinion, likely opt for employment before free education and health for his family; simply put, if he, or she, earns he/she can honorably look after the needs of his/her dependents, compared with begging for alms.
In a Utopian world a nation may have a perfect mix of the ruthless businessman and the selfless philanthropist, both of whom perhaps are necessary, but in the real world, a nation's policies have a role in begetting, or eliminating, at least the former.
About two scores and few years ago, it was alleged that 22 industrial family groups held two thirds of industrial assets and 80% of the financial sector. What happened after that is history, we made short work of them; albeit in defense of nationalization, admittedly, socialism was the dominant economic thought in that era.
Greed was bad back then.
However, in the 80s, slowly but surely, through an elaborate scheme of funding educational institutions, think tanks and the media, and let us not forget the lobbyists strolling within the corridors of power, the tycoons rose from the ashes and conquered economic thought almost completely; free markets and less government became the dominant mantra. Privatization became, and remains, the new fad.
Greed became good; apologies for the cliché.
By default greed is the foundation of the free market, and the greedy will exploit for profit, whatever is exploitable; weak systems and bureaucracy are there for the picking. And all this time economics is used to continually prove that free markets and capitalism are the solution to everything despite evidence to the contrary, as in the case of income inequality and taxing the rich; even science has joined the ranks to prove that greed was good.
We in Pakistan, apparently, at least on the face of it have bought into the argument as well; remember the phrase, it's not the governments business to be in business? Probably because the government can be incompetent and inefficient but not greedy, but perhaps this is a debate for another time. Nonetheless, the bigger problem is that we apparently just cannot accept the complete package.
Nothing wrong with going with businesses, but the fault lies in believing that businesses will pay all their taxes, not exploit natural resources, and, well, will be saintly in their pursuit of profits. If the belief is that private sector is better than public sector in doing business, and by default creating jobs, then stop crying over elite capture; that is a given.
The indecisiveness is arguably one of the reasons why our domestic businesses have not grown. We want our businesses to be honest to the core and socially responsible, while in our desperation to attract foreign businesses, which are greedier by the way, we provide the latter tax waivers and all other incentives that they demand. How does that even work?!
Whether or not there is a solution, a mean path, is only relevant once we decide whether greed is good or bad. Definitely there is an urgent need to decide because neither here nor there gets you nowhere.
For my money, there is a balance, the pursuit of profit does create jobs and economic growth, except certain sectors and certain segments of the society need to be insulated, and protected from greed. That is where the public sector and the government has an economic role. But before we debate this any further, we need to with absolute clarity decide, and choose or not choose, good or bad, greed!
(The writer is a chartered accountant based in Islamabad. Email: [email protected])