Does shattered economy make people behave better?
Finally, Bernard Madoff is sentenced to 150 years in prison. Since Madoff’s $50 billion Ponzi scheme first came to light, many have been introspecting themselves.
Recently , I read a report saying a fund manager who had acquired from his friends a significant amount of funds for Madoff cancelled his 50-year birthday party because he didn’t feel like having a celebration in such a bad economy. He apologized for handing friend’s money to Madoff, but turned around arguing it was not his fault; Madoff was a devil; he just didn’t know how to do a background check on the devil…. and so on.
What does this statement suggest? Answer is apparent – this 50-year old fund manger didn’t even try to learn a lesson from such a brutal scandal, just like what Butler said to Scarlet in movie Gone with the Wind, “You’re like the thief who isn’t the least bit sorry he stole, but is terribly, terribly sorry he’s going to jail.”
Perhaps, the root cause for this subprime crisis is the philosophy that has been part of the culture in the western world for centuries – you will succeed if you do your best; if you succeed; you will be the top dog. New Weekly once put a great saying on its cover: “there is one poison called success.” I believe that must be true.
When an economic crisis takes place under the current cultural background, it can hardly make people improve themselves. However, it can make villains to surface, like Madoff. Without this crisis, he might well be buried in a few years as a successful figure, a financial elite. Someone could even erect an eye-catching monument or write a praising book for him.
The crisis has hurt ordinary people badly. But on the other hand, it has also exposed a variety of “successful” impostors, and drawn a huge warning sign for those continuing to pursue so-called success unscrupulously. Viewing from the top level of society, I guess bad guys are likely to drop a few after this crisis, which doesn’t mean, unfortunately, good people will increase.