Fes Forum, Day Two: Are Solidarity and Harmony Possible Through the World of Finance?
June 9, 2013
Katherine Marshall reports on the ethics of finance from a panel on the second day of the 2013 Fes Forum in Morocco.
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Speakers: Faouzi Skali, introduction; Katherine Marshall, summary of June 8; Fahd Yata, moderator; panelists speakers: Ali Benmakhlouf, Pierre Lecocq, Bishop Gunnar Stalsett
The focus of Sunday’s discussion was the ethics of finance. More broadly, it touched on the entire world of business, large and small. The spark for this specific discussion (which was, in many respects, the continuation of a conversation launched when the forum began a decade ago) was small, local, community-driven enterprise and inspirational examples of its beneficial effects. However, the discussion ranged widely, from the very global to the very local. Participants engaged actively, and they offered widely different perspectives. Above all they brought their experience, positive and negative, to the core question of whether business can indeed be conducted in solidarity, and ethically. The question of what that means in practice is on the agenda for the future.
The discussion was framed within two larger challenges. The first reflects a paradox that echoed the deep paradoxes emerging from Saturday’s discussion about common values and pluralism. This paradox pits solidarity in contrast to competition. There are tensions, in intellectual debates as well as in practical affairs, between the social, spiritual ideals of solidarity and harmony and the thrust of competition and the search for excellence and results that are the daily reality of business life. We need both, but above all the vital juste milieu, a balance that acknowledges cooperation and interconnection but also recognizes and appreciates the animal spirit in business, its energy and creativity. A seasoned business leader once described the vital energy of business in this forum as a powerful stallion that must be tamed but not broken.
The second challenge is to keep the essential goal of fighting poverty at the center of the debate. The marginalized, the billions left behind, truly behind, must never be forgotten. A society can be understood, and judged, by how it treats its most vulnerable members. In reflecting on systems and ethics, the question of how to rebalance, to assure a decent life for all, emerges as the ethical challenge for this generation. That is because, for the first time in human history we have the means and knowledge to end poverty. Poverty is no longer inevitable. With this power to bring change comes the responsibility to act. But we caught a glimpse in the discussions of the raging debates about the “hows” of ending the injustice and pain of poverty, the inexcusable tragedies of preventable deaths of children and poor people. Amartya Sen’s focus on capabilities, Esther Duflo’s practical lessons for well-run programs, Acemoglu and Robinson’s insights on the critical roles of institutions and elites and pragmatic experience in rural Morocco, and the Bible and Koran were all invoked in this exploration of how solidarity applies to the search for equity and the application of human rights, including the right to development, and labor rights, and thus to economics and business.
Bishop Stalsett argued that the worlds of spirituality, religion, and business, traditionally apart, are connected in many ways: spiritual, ethical, social, and cultural. The fundamental golden rule, which is common to all religions, holds that we must do unto others as we would have them do unto ourselves. This inspiration and guide applies in force to the pragmatic, earthly questions around business. Stalsett spoke to the creative power of religion to respond to daily challenges, but above all he insisted that its main call upon us is to promote a culture of peace. Religious practice and belief offer a holistic understanding of the dignity of human life and an awareness of its sacred origins. Peace means not only the absence of violence and war but also jobs, education, and health. The core principles of human rights speak to our shared fragility and vulnerability and thus to fundamental ideas of justice and fairness.
Pierre Lecocq brought the discussion to the larger plane of business, state, and society. He spoke to the conflicts and complementarity of business competition and the ethics that are part of belief and faith. Leading a large network of Christian business leaders, he pointed to solidarity as a core value. But he cautioned against overburdening business. For an entrepreneur, goals are defined and clear, and the moral imperative is to adhere to rules and ethical principles. Finance is an instrument, above all a vehicle for managing risk. New technologies and techniques like microfinance and crowd financing offer rich potential and an outlet for many good intentions and transfers of resources. But, for broader social goals, it is government and citizens who must take responsibility.
The ethics of markets was a theme woven through the day’s discussion, set against the clear common message that markets in themselves have no ethical obligations or character. We must, rather, look to the people who decide and who apply the rules. The market is a mechanism, entirely amoral. The obligation is to make morally good use of the market, and simply to banish the very notion that we can “leave it to the market”. Recent disasters in Bangladesh and Cambodia attest to the folly of such a path. The challenge is to make markets work for the global good, and that opens wide avenues for reflection and action. This involves ethics and the values of societies, but it also involves laws. There, the fragmentation and overlaps within international systems are an important threat.
Mohamed Kabbaj and Faouzi Skali joined the debate about the significance of solidarity, focusing on the lessons that Islam, both its theology and its lived reality, has to offer. The principles of Islamic finance, with their emphasis on shared risk and balance, need to be part of the creative effort to recapture the ethical foundations of business and financial systems. And Zakat also offers a powerful tool for an ethical approach to equity and even redistribution.
The forum participants entered eagerly into the debates. They offered a wide array of experience. Questions raised touched on the challenges and power offered by microenterprise and small business, poverty-focused investment, the strengths and weaknesses of microcredit, frustrations involved in battling regulations and contending with the imbalances in international systems, practical and ethical dimensions of training of business leaders, arts management and lessons it may offer for resilience, unemployment realities, the roles of women, the core objectives of education systems, and the nature of the knowledge economy and its impact on a region like Fes. These questions reflected keen interest in the topics at hand, a rich trove of experience to tap, and widely diverging perspectives: the proverbial elephant that Rumi described, perceived so differently by different individuals yet the same beast. Once again, we saw the paradox of unity and diversity.
The concluding discussions returned to the core insight that economic policy and ethics cannot and must not be separated, that we must bring our values, openly and explicitly, to these debates. These ethical values apply for each individual in the conduct of their lives, as consumers, citizens, and business leaders. They also apply for the elites who are a vital factor in the success and failure of societies. The time has come to stop the search for someone to blame, the forum was advised, but rather to act on our values and to work for solutions.
Other Daily Reports from Fes
day one | Contemporary Challenges for Diverse and Plural Societies
day three | Bhutan's Gross National Happiness as a Development Paradigm?
day four | The Memory of Andalusia: Development through Culture
The discussion was framed within two larger challenges. The first reflects a paradox that echoed the deep paradoxes emerging from Saturday’s discussion about common values and pluralism. This paradox pits solidarity in contrast to competition. There are tensions, in intellectual debates as well as in practical affairs, between the social, spiritual ideals of solidarity and harmony and the thrust of competition and the search for excellence and results that are the daily reality of business life. We need both, but above all the vital juste milieu, a balance that acknowledges cooperation and interconnection but also recognizes and appreciates the animal spirit in business, its energy and creativity. A seasoned business leader once described the vital energy of business in this forum as a powerful stallion that must be tamed but not broken.
The second challenge is to keep the essential goal of fighting poverty at the center of the debate. The marginalized, the billions left behind, truly behind, must never be forgotten. A society can be understood, and judged, by how it treats its most vulnerable members. In reflecting on systems and ethics, the question of how to rebalance, to assure a decent life for all, emerges as the ethical challenge for this generation. That is because, for the first time in human history we have the means and knowledge to end poverty. Poverty is no longer inevitable. With this power to bring change comes the responsibility to act. But we caught a glimpse in the discussions of the raging debates about the “hows” of ending the injustice and pain of poverty, the inexcusable tragedies of preventable deaths of children and poor people. Amartya Sen’s focus on capabilities, Esther Duflo’s practical lessons for well-run programs, Acemoglu and Robinson’s insights on the critical roles of institutions and elites and pragmatic experience in rural Morocco, and the Bible and Koran were all invoked in this exploration of how solidarity applies to the search for equity and the application of human rights, including the right to development, and labor rights, and thus to economics and business.
Bishop Stalsett argued that the worlds of spirituality, religion, and business, traditionally apart, are connected in many ways: spiritual, ethical, social, and cultural. The fundamental golden rule, which is common to all religions, holds that we must do unto others as we would have them do unto ourselves. This inspiration and guide applies in force to the pragmatic, earthly questions around business. Stalsett spoke to the creative power of religion to respond to daily challenges, but above all he insisted that its main call upon us is to promote a culture of peace. Religious practice and belief offer a holistic understanding of the dignity of human life and an awareness of its sacred origins. Peace means not only the absence of violence and war but also jobs, education, and health. The core principles of human rights speak to our shared fragility and vulnerability and thus to fundamental ideas of justice and fairness.
Pierre Lecocq brought the discussion to the larger plane of business, state, and society. He spoke to the conflicts and complementarity of business competition and the ethics that are part of belief and faith. Leading a large network of Christian business leaders, he pointed to solidarity as a core value. But he cautioned against overburdening business. For an entrepreneur, goals are defined and clear, and the moral imperative is to adhere to rules and ethical principles. Finance is an instrument, above all a vehicle for managing risk. New technologies and techniques like microfinance and crowd financing offer rich potential and an outlet for many good intentions and transfers of resources. But, for broader social goals, it is government and citizens who must take responsibility.
The ethics of markets was a theme woven through the day’s discussion, set against the clear common message that markets in themselves have no ethical obligations or character. We must, rather, look to the people who decide and who apply the rules. The market is a mechanism, entirely amoral. The obligation is to make morally good use of the market, and simply to banish the very notion that we can “leave it to the market”. Recent disasters in Bangladesh and Cambodia attest to the folly of such a path. The challenge is to make markets work for the global good, and that opens wide avenues for reflection and action. This involves ethics and the values of societies, but it also involves laws. There, the fragmentation and overlaps within international systems are an important threat.
Mohamed Kabbaj and Faouzi Skali joined the debate about the significance of solidarity, focusing on the lessons that Islam, both its theology and its lived reality, has to offer. The principles of Islamic finance, with their emphasis on shared risk and balance, need to be part of the creative effort to recapture the ethical foundations of business and financial systems. And Zakat also offers a powerful tool for an ethical approach to equity and even redistribution.
The forum participants entered eagerly into the debates. They offered a wide array of experience. Questions raised touched on the challenges and power offered by microenterprise and small business, poverty-focused investment, the strengths and weaknesses of microcredit, frustrations involved in battling regulations and contending with the imbalances in international systems, practical and ethical dimensions of training of business leaders, arts management and lessons it may offer for resilience, unemployment realities, the roles of women, the core objectives of education systems, and the nature of the knowledge economy and its impact on a region like Fes. These questions reflected keen interest in the topics at hand, a rich trove of experience to tap, and widely diverging perspectives: the proverbial elephant that Rumi described, perceived so differently by different individuals yet the same beast. Once again, we saw the paradox of unity and diversity.
The concluding discussions returned to the core insight that economic policy and ethics cannot and must not be separated, that we must bring our values, openly and explicitly, to these debates. These ethical values apply for each individual in the conduct of their lives, as consumers, citizens, and business leaders. They also apply for the elites who are a vital factor in the success and failure of societies. The time has come to stop the search for someone to blame, the forum was advised, but rather to act on our values and to work for solutions.
Other Daily Reports from Fes
day one | Contemporary Challenges for Diverse and Plural Societies
day three | Bhutan's Gross National Happiness as a Development Paradigm?
day four | The Memory of Andalusia: Development through Culture
