According to former top banker, Ken Costs, the market economy had lost “its moral foundations with disastrous consequences.”
Costa, a former chairman of UBS Europe and Lazard International, spoke out after being appointed by Bishop of London Richard Chartres to lead an initiative aimed at “reconnecting the financial with the ethical.”
Writing in the Sunday Telegraph, Costa asked how the market has managed to slip its moral moorings.
“For some time and particularly during the exuberant irrationality of the last few decades, the market economy has shifted from its moral foundations with disastrous consequences.”
While still regarding financial incentives as “both valid and effective,” he said there was a need to “rebalance the equilibrium between risk, responsibility and reward.”
On Sunday, leader of the opposition David Miliband entered the fray, writing in the Observer: “You do not have to be in a tent to feel angry.
“Many of those who earn the most, exercise great power, enjoy enormous privilege — in the City and elsewhere — do so with values that are out of kilter with almost everyone else.”
“Only the most reckless will ignore or, still worse, dismiss the danger signals,” Miliband said.
A new survey showed that Britain’s top company directors received a 50 percent average pay rise while the majority of Britons are having to endure a pay freeze during a period of austerity imposed by the government to reduce high debt.
Sources