Who Am I? Manifestly Espoused.

An article just caught my eye. It talks about people ignoring their own moral standards when acting as market participants. That is, when buying food at the supermarket or wet market, trading in stocks and shares and the like. People have a tendency, the article says, to justify deliberately ignoring their own moral standards with notions like “If I don’t buy or sell, someone else will”, having the subconscious thought that “Everyone’s doing it anyway” (my interpretation of the article) and “My impact on outcomes is negligible anyway”.

Moral standards markets

Does that sound familiar? Someone once asked me to put some of my CPF (retirement) savings into some instruments run by a large fund manager. I remember that the first thing I asked was whether the funds had anything to do with drugs, tobacco, alcohol, GMO, that sort of thing. I was assured that they didn’t, because the funds were compliant with the laws of a major religious group. Even then, I wasn’t so sure. Have you ever found yourself in a similar situation where you had to decide whether to make money on the market or stand by your espoused values? How did you respond? Why? If you went against your own moral standards, were those moral standards yours in the first place? Do you still wish to maintain those moral standards? Why or why not?

Be clear as to why you do or don’t do something that involves your personal morality and market forces. Are you a rat in a race or a person living a noble life? Your actions will tell you. Who you really are will then be manifestly expressed.

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