A few weeks ago Bloomberg News reported that, in just the past year, hundreds of students at the Harvard Business School have taken something called the M.B.A. Oath.
Endorsed by Harvard's dean, and replicated by other
business schools, the oath comes in two sizes: an important
sounding long version, and a punchy executive summary,
consisting of seven crisp bullet points.
(Sample bullet point: "I will refrain from corruption,
unfair competition, or business practices harmful to society.")
The gist of even the short version can be reduced further,
to a single sentence: "Wherever I face a choice between my
self-interest, and the interests of the wider world, I pledge to
act in the interests of the wider world."
News of the oath naturally aroused the interest of cynics
everywhere, and led them to raise hard questions: Isn't the
underlying premise of free-market capitalism, and the typical
business school education, that by doing well for oneself one is
also doing well for the wider world?
Is the typical business school graduate actually capable of
seeing any difference between his own interest and the world's?
Does this sort of mushy, vague-sounding oath serve society or
the oath taker, who hopes that society will be duped into
thinking that he is acting in its interests rather than his own?
And anyway, if they are so keen to serve society instead of
themselves, why do so many of these oath-takers wind up working
on Wall Street, and, more specifically, for Goldman Sachs -- a
company whose CEO has been singled out by one of the oath's
creators for his blindness to the social consequences of his
firm's actions?
Passion for Oaths
Lost in this orgy of nay-saying was the mounting evidence
that the M.B.A. Oath already has had one clear practical
consequence. In the past year graduates of the Harvard Business
School have flooded Wall Street, as graduates of Harvard
Business School tend to do, and brought with them their new
passion for oaths.
It's too early to say if oath-taking has attained a
permanent new high, or we are living through some kind of "oath
bubble." What is clear is that many Wall Street firms, and Wall
Street people, have found the need to have their own private
oaths. In recent weeks several of these have leaked to Bloomberg
News. We report them without further comment:
Best-in-Class
-- The Goldman Sachs Oath:
We pledge not to call what we do "God's work," even
though it is.
We pledge to meet and even get to know ordinary people who
do not work for Goldman Sachs, so that we might better
understand their irrational behavior, and exploit it only when
necessary.
We pledge to create Wall Street's best-in-class oath.
-- The Morgan Stanley Oath:
We pledge to stop trying to do whatever Goldman Sachs is
doing.
We, too, pledge to create Wall Street's best-in-class oath.
-- The Merrill Lynch Oath:
We're just grateful to be asked if we have an oath. We
do!
We pledge to help the approximately 74,322 American
dentists forget that we sold them auction-rate securities and
equity tranches of subprime backed CDOs.
We also pledge that, the next time Wall Street plays crack
the whip, we will decline Goldman Sachs's offer to play the role
of the little fat kid who gets catapulted through the second-
story window of the house across the street.
Still Looking
-- The Citigroup Oath:
In our continued quest to make peace with the U.S.
taxpayer, we pledge to sell our oath to the highest foreign
bidder, the minute we decide what that oath should be.
-- The Oath of Hedge Fund Man:
I pledge to short the credit spreads of only those public
corporations and great nations that truly are doomed.
I thus pledge to accelerate Darwinian forces that elevate
the strong and destroy the weak.
And even though that should be enough goodness for one
lifetime, I pledge to bid generously for the sexier items at the
next Robin Hood auction.
Warren's Warranty
-- The Warren Buffett Oath:
I pledge, even in the privacy of my own bedroom, to seem
nothing like the abovementioned hedge fund manager.
I pledge to remain the go-to moral compass of the American
money culture.
To that end I pledge to learn less than I typically do
about the Wall Street businesses in which I invest, so that,
after they are discovered to have lied, cheated or stolen, I can
plausibly claim to have known nothing about it.
Specifically, I pledge to remain unable to find the
corporate headquarters of Moody's Inc. on a New York City map.
(Really, I have no idea where the place is!)
-- The Moody's Oath:
We pledge to do whatever we must to persuade Warren Buffett
to hold on to at least some of his shares in our company.
Failing that, we pledge to just shoot ourselves.
-- The S&P Oath:
We pledge to do whatever Moody's does, without the
pretension of being somehow "upper crust."
Oath for Sale
-- The AIG Oath:
Our deal to sell our oath to some Asian people having hit a
snag, we pledge to continue to manage our oath to maximize its
returns, assuming, of course, that our contracts are honored,
and our bonuses are paid.
-- The SEC Oath:
We pledge to figure out who on Wall Street the American
people most hate, and to sue them, even if we are sure to lose.
-- The Oath of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission:
We pledge to find out, by the year 2050, what exactly
happened on Wall Street in the early part of this century.
We pledge to reform Wall Street. Or, failing that, to be
taken seriously. Or, at a bare minimum, to attract a bit of
media.
'Elfin' Oath
-- The Oath of the U.S. Treasury:
We pledge to appear as if we have everything under control
even when we actually have no idea what we are doing.
We pledge to dissuade newspaper reporters and magazine
writers from describing our leader as "elfin."
We pledge, when he is arguing with foreign rulers, or Wall
Street CEOs, that he will strive to seem a bit more powerful,
perhaps even physically intimidating. At any rate, less of a
wuss.
-- The Oath of the Federal Reserve:
We pledge to regulate these oaths to prevent others from
doing so.
