Jeune Street

Philip Delves Broughton places responsibility for the financial crisis at the feet of business education. Most specifically, he points the finger at Harvard MBA graduates, who are disproportionately in the driver seats of the world economy.

Given the present chaos, shouldn't we be asking if business education is not just a waste of time, but actually damaging to our economic health? ...

During my time at the [Harvard Business] school, 50 students were chosen to participate in a detailed survey of their development. Scott Snook, the professor who ran it, reported that about a third of students were inclined to define right and wrong simply in terms of what everyone else was doing.

"They can't really step back and take a critical view," he said. "They're totally defined by others and by the outcomes of what they're doing."

Broughton's comments sound extreme, but they're not far off what I heard last Friday night when I listened to several Bank Governors, academics, and top-gun bankers talk about the financial crisis at Oxford's business school. There seemed to be consensus on two neglected factors: first, the role of high compensation for corporate executives as a collective risk (leading few to question the use of dodgy financial instruments); and second, the rigid economic orthodoxy that endorsed massive bank mergers and deregulated practices. Basically, Susan Strange called it back in 1986 when she coined the term 'casino capitalism' to describe the new international financial order.

When a third of Harvard MBA graduates show an inclination toward group think, detached from ethics and values that reflect a sense of public responsibility, it's no wonder the edifice of capitalism begins to shake.