Its going to take more than a headline and a few easy words

Sir Peter Birt's comments on the "greed culture" are just the latest in a long line of similar comments from folk right across the political and business spectrum. Easy words but what are we now going to do about that culture? How are we going to change it? I have yet to see, for example, any calls by the financial services industry to review the Cadbury Code which is supposed to form the basis of good practice and ethical decision-making in the industry. Whilst legislation would help, unless the mood and the mind of those involved changes dramatically and voluntarily, then we will continue to be creating the atmosphere of decision-making where greed can flourish

Somewhere, somehow, we need to be asking what our economics are actually for. exploring how economics, far from being a morally neutral scientific endeavour is a reflection of human emotions and the quality of human relationships with the self, the neighbour and the stranger.

By defining success as a human being by the accumulation of wealth as had begun to happen, the production of profit moved from the creation of liquidity to being end result and so greed became justified as a means to achieve an idea of success that was then celebrated and affirmed. Far from fulfilling human need it ate away at our very humanness. It is these kinds of explorations that will change the culture that has brought us to the place we now find ourselves in. This has to be a debate and a discourse not about pounds and euros, dollars and yen but about morality, the soul and what it is to be human. Much more difficult to put into words than "its a greed culture" but the end result will be a better place for us all; the self, the neighbour, the stranger.