Hubris on Wall Street. (Memo for Members) (column)

I had planned to devote this column to the subject of ethics until I learned that the theme for this issue of Management Review is one that some may regard as quite unrelated to ethics: Wall Street.

What can be said about Wall Street that hasn't been said already in such novels as Bonfire of the Vanities (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1987)? In this bestseller, author Tom Wolfe paints a wholly unsympathetic picture of a bond trader who considers himself a "Master of the Universe"-until circumstances, mostly of his own making, destroy him. What can be observed that hasn't already been observed by the movie Wall Street? In one scene its character Gordon Gekko celebrates greed through mouthing the sentiments of inside trader (and now former convict) Ivan Boesky, Are the …