Wall Street Ethical Analysis
Ethical Analysis of the Movie, Wall Street
Oliver Stone directed the film Wall Street; it takes us through an American society where the industry has recently experienced a decline in ethics and values that were once upheld with utmost importance by the business community. The movie portrays many ethical issues, as manifested by such characters as such as Gordon Gekko who is a wealthy but corrupt business player. The character of Gordon Gekko is played by both Bud Fox and Michael Douglas, a young and free-spirited stock broker, a role taken by Charlie Sheen (Axelson, 2015). The main theme of the movie is the impact of greed on our society. It commences with Bud Fox, as he spends his time at work calling individuals to sell them stock plans and shares. He is seen as a desperate character whose only focus is to rise to the top. Fox was born into a working-class family, while Gekko is a baron whom Fox has a high regard for and wants to be allied with. Fox’s father works for “blue-star” airline, a company that takes an important role in the movie. Fox is frantic to make Gekko his customer, and thus he goes to his workplace one morning on Gekko’s birthday and mentions some stocks to him after analysing them for some time. Gekko is nonetheless unimpressed, and Fox realizes that Gekko might refuse his business proposal. Therefore, he decides to give him some ‘insider information’ about his father’s airline company. The information was about how the airline took part in a crash but would come out of suspension and look to expand its business. This information enables Fox to convert Gekko into his client. One of the main issues in the film is insider information which will be explained well ahead in the essay.
Gekko decides to take Fox as his business partner and coerces him to find out some new information in any way, including to become a partner in a cleaning establishment. Hence, in his quest to become productive, Fox uses the wrong road. He later turns out to be wealthy, delighting in Gekko’s promises like a penthouse on Manhattan’s Upper East Side (Darrow t al., 2015). He asks Fox to purchase stocks in bulk from a paper company, Teldar, a falling business that he plans to take control of. Fox buys their assets by recruiting his companions as straw buyers of the shares and gives them a share of the proceeds (here, he uses his friends as a means to support his wrong actions by offering them a cut of his salary. In a way it amounts to bribery, another ethical issue). At the Company’s annual stakeholder meeting, Gekko gives a ‘greed is good’ speech. In his speech, he quotes:
“Greed -- for lack of a better word -- is good. Greed is right. Gluttony works. Greed
elucidates, cuts through, and arrests the core of the evolutionary spirit. Gluttony, in all of
its forms -- greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge -- has marked the upward surge
of humanity. And greed -- you mark my words -- will not only save Teldar Paper, but that
other malfunctioning corporation called the USA." (Axelson, 2015 p.350)
Major Moral Agents
Bud Fox
Fox is a determined stock dealer who makes $60, 000 as his annual salary. His father, Carl, works at the BlueStar Airlines. Fox was offered a place at the company but declined due to his personal ambitions. He wanted to make himself an important person in the business world by any means and proved it in the film (Ferrel, 2015). He ‘bags the elephant’ saying he does business with an important businessman and his luxurious lifestyle shows us that he is a go-getter in life.
Gordon Gekko
Gekko’s role is a quest for insider information about industries that are wreckable. Once he discovers a business with potential, he buys a major stake in it and then makes gains through the bankruptcy of the dominated company assets. One may say greed leads him due to his carelessness and lust for more wealth in spite of having everything that he needs. During his search for such companies, he looks for poor but smart people like Fix who can get confidential information from these corporations by all means necessary (Dasgupta, 2015). Thus, he spreads his greed to his employees like Fox who do things on Gekko's behalf that he would not be willing to do to get the information that he needs.
Carl (Fox’s father
Carl's (Fox's father) role is taken by Martin Sheen who is imperative in the film. He changes Fox in the nick of time, by making him realize that the most important aspect is to make worth instead of selling dreams to others (Tremayne, 2014). Carl changes Fox and makes him view the world from a different angle, and this helps in the achievement of the greater good for society. We see that Carl has high ethical standards since he did not let himself get involved in Gekko’s evil plans of selling the company.
Chief Moral Concerns in the Movie
Bribery:
This is an action of giving an individual a gift to get favours from them. Bribery is a form of crime no matter the circumstances under which it is done. Both corruption and bribery go hand in hand and have adverse effects on the public and their economic sphere. Corruption is everywhere, but perhaps it is more rampant in state institutions where officials are bribed to change guidelines or halt them (Derwing et al., 2014). In the film, Fox offers incentives to his friends to get Gekko’s money into their accounts. In the book, “the economist” it is mentioned that individuals act as per enticements. Thus, Fox induced his friend to be his accomplices so as to accomplish his goals.
Manipulation of stocks:
This refers to the measured effort to obstruct market operations and create false forms on the price of stock in a fair (Aggarwal, 2003). Manipulation of this kind is forbidden in most republics worldwide. Manipulation occurs in many ways: -
Pools: this includes an agreement between a group of traders where they delegate authority to a specific person to trade and then share the profits.
Churning: this is when a dealer places both prices for buy and sell the same, this is meant to increase activity anticipated to entice financiers and upsurge prices.
In the film, Fox plans revenge on Gekko and convinces his corresponding brokers to begin selling stock prices and raise prices for the Blue Star Airlines stocks to increase (Ferrel, 2015). So that Gekko can rid himself of the corporation’s securities without being involved. Similarly, we have seen that Fox asks associates to recommend their customers to buy the stock of concern to raise stock prices.
Insider information:
Insider information refers to trading a company’s stock information by an individual who has access to the company’s confidential information. Some countries allow the trading of a company’s information but place restrictions on the kind of information to be sold. Trading conducted by significant shareholders or key employees in a company should be exposed to the public usually a few days before the trade, this is allowed in some countries (Dasgupta, 2015). However, insider information hampers economic growth by increasing the price of investment for issues. s
Ethical theories
Some more ethical theories clearly showed in the film are - Gekko’s psychological egoism. He trusts that all deeds are provoked by greed (Derwing et al., 2014). Another issue is the deontological theory; which states that all humans have certain moral obligations such as caring for their children. Carl chooses his co-workers over sharing profits made by Fox showing moral values.
The consequentialist theory is another moral issue in the film. The theory states that “an action is morally right if the consequences of that action are more favorable than unfavorable,” (Darrow et al., 2015 p.120). This relates to Gekko’s thinking that though his actions will lead to the firm’s workers losing their jobs, he will still benefit from it by getting more returns on the investment.
Conclusion
This movie depicts a very robust societal setting emergent on Wall Street, where the journey to gain more wealth and business competition has left no room for morals and proper decision-making. The movie puts us in an impasse that a fresh, ambitious lad goes through when exposed to the actual world. To become productive, he has to do contrary to his moral values, he takes the offer but soon realises the mistake that money will only destroy him. For that reason, he retraces back to his former self. Concluding about the decisions made by the actors can be contentious because both sides can argue their points strongly based on theories. However, I strongly feel that Fox made the right decision.
References
Aggarwal, R.K., 2003. Stock Market Manipulation-Theory and Evidence. [Online].
Axelson, U., & Bond, P. (2015). Wall street occupations. The Journal of Finance, 70(5), 1949-1996.
Darrow, J. J., Sarpatwari, A., Avorn, J., & Kesselheim, A. S. (2015). Practical, legal, and ethical issues in expanded access to investigational drugs.
Derwing, T. M., Fraser, H., Kang, O., & Thomson, R. I. (2014). L2 accent and ethics: Issues that merit attention. In Englishes in Multilingual Contexts (pp. 63-80). Springer Netherlands.
Dasgupta, A., & Piacentino, G. (2015). The wall street walks when block holders compete for flows. The Journal of Finance, 70(6), 2853-2896.
Ferrell, O. C., & Fraedrich, J. (2015). Business Ethics: Ethical Decision making & cases. Nelson Education.
Tremayne, M. (2014). Anatomy of protest in the digital era: A network analysis of Twitter and Occupy Wall Street. Social Movement Studies, 13(1), 110-126.
