It takes some chutzpah to write a book that takes on the whole financial system, let alone a plan to fix it. But that’s the task my co-authors and I undertook in writing “What They Do With Your Money.”
Why? Consider that Talmudic tradition tells us that the first question you are asked in making the transformation from this world to whatever comes next is “were you honest in business?” And that there are more mitzvot regarding business and property and buying and selling than there are for almost anything else. From the earliest of times, our ancestors understood that a fair economy is central to an ethical world.
Yet today, we seem very far away from even considering the question of ethics and purpose when it comes to capitalism. That’s a shame because doing so could not only provide a framework for how the financial sector should function, but also point a direction to tikkun olam, to improving our world…
For much of the world, the term “Jew” is synonymous with dishonesty in business. So I doubt that much of the world is going to want to hear about how the Talmud promotes financial honesty.
Judaism is a dual morality system (like the moral systems of all tribes but the anglos). There’s one morality for how you treat fellow Jews and another morality for how you treat non-Jews.
For Protestants and anglos, there is only one morality. There are not in-group and out-group moralities. That’s why the historically anglo countries such as the United States, Canada, England, and Australia are uniquely high-trust societies.
From the blog Those Who Can See:
Europe and the U.S. are both being overrun with illegal immigrants from the South. We recently asked the question, ‘Why?’ One answer, we’ve found, could be the former’s higher levels of Future Orientation. This ability to fully conceive of and plan for the future creates societies that are the envy of the world.
But we also argue that a second quality is drawing the masses to Euros’ doors. We call this trait Commonweal Orientation. Where it is found in abundance, safe and prosperous societies seem to flourish. So what is it, and why has it been so unevenly distributed on Planet Earth?
I. Low Commonweal: A character sketch
For those of us born in high-trust societies, it may come as a surprise that low commonweal orientation, also known as low trust, clannishness, or amoral familism, is anything but rare–globally, it is not the exception but the rule.
1) Low-trust: Don’t be a sucker
Let’s hear it from the horse’s mouth:
a) Semitics
Via HBD Chick, Marjorie Miller explains the Israeli concept of ‘freier’:
A freier, in Israeli eyes, is a shopper who waits in line to pay retail. It is a driver who searches for legal parking rather than pulling onto the sidewalk with the other cars. … The fear of being a sucker turns driving into a bumper-car competition and makes grocery shopping as trying as arm wrestling.… ‘In London, the culture is to give way, be a gentleman, don’t compete,’ said Peri, the former editor. ‘But an Israeli is the opposite. If you are stronger, why should you give way to someone weaker? In a debate, the British will say, ‘You have a point.’ In a debate here, no Israeli will admit he has been persuaded to change his mind. That shows weakness.’
Americans often find the Israeli attitude intolerably rude. Israelis, meanwhile, find Americans to be the biggest freiers of all. They are naive idealists. … Americans are perceived as innocents who follow the rules and who believe a person will actually do what he promises to do. ‘An American is willing to trust until someone proves to be untrustworthy,’ Shahar said. ‘Israel is much more like the rest of the world, where the basic assumption is that people . . . should not be trusted until proven trustworthy.’
David Pryce-Jones, who lived many years among the Arabs:
‘Public welfare’ is a concept without meaningful application [in the Arab world]; there is no common good. Generosity is suspect as a ploy for advantage. Idealism and sincerity are penalized. Self-sacrifice is akin to lunacy or martyrdom.David Lamb, after three years in Cairo:
But here’s the curious thing: While Egyptians are content to live in filthy, battered buildings, the insides of their homes are always immaculate. … When I asked friends if anyone had ever considered a neighborhood block association or an owners’ association to clean up common areas, they would chuckle and say “Oh, THAT would never work here.” No doubt it wouldn’t. My friends did not feel that their responsibility extended beyond their own boundaries.b) Persians
Steve Sailer quotes Iranians Firoozeh Dumas and Dayi Hamid on the Persian concept of ‘zerangi’:
… When we first came to America in 1972, my father was amazed at the way Americans waited in line at Disneyland. No complaints, no cutting. In Iran, we have zerangi, a concept that loosely means “cleverness.”… Most, if not all the time in Iranian culture and society, a zerang person is seen in a positive light … For example, a person who knows how the American legal system works and is able to work it to his or her advantage is zerang. A person who is resourceful in business and has made something of himself is zerang. … It does not stop here; a person who is able to wittingly cheat people, companies, businesses, governments of money is zerang and an idol for many Iranians. …We Iranians, although outwardly criticize corruption, internally glorify it and wish to master it.
Brazilian social anthropologist Roberto DaMatta has observed the stark contrasts between his countrymen’s behavior within the family circle and without. In sum:
If I am buying from or selling to a relative, I neither seek profit nor concern myself with money. The same can happen in a transaction with a friend. But, if I am dealing with a stranger, then there are no rules, other than the one of exploiting him to the utmost.Lawrence Harrison, who spent decades working in Latin America, has identified what he calls the ‘attitude system typical of Hispanic America’:
[…] a limited radius of social identification resulting in a lack of concern for the interests and well-being of people outside the family, and for the society as a whole; the generalized absence of trust throughout the society; absence of due process, […] low incidence of organized group solutions to common problems; nepotism and corruption; tax evasion; absence of philanthropy…
In stark contrast to the above, NW Europeans–and first and foremost the English–are famous for their notion of ‘fair-play’. Salvador de Madariaga, in his Englishmen, Frenchmen, Spaniards (1929):
…the English sensitiveness to the ‘laws of things’–the law of the road, the law of the sea, the law of the hunting field. … the English are the teachers of the world, not merely in their quickness to perceive these natural laws, but in their cordial and sincere obedience to the restrictions which they impose upon each individual for the good of the whole.
Each Englishman is his own regulator. … The need of outside safeguards or guarantees of any kind is therefore less urgently felt than in other countries. The average level of honesty in English civil life is singularly high, as is shown in the usual disregard for detailed precautions against fraud or deceit.
… No bureaucracy in the world can vie with the English Civil Service in its devotion to the interests of the country. … it owes much also to that instinct for co-operation, that objectivity, that absence of self-seeking, of vanity and of personal passion which are typical of the whole race.