Wall Street Run Amok: Why Harvard's to Blame

[marmar]

via MichaelMoore.com:



October 5th, 2009 10:04 PM
Wall Street Run Amok: Why Harvard's to Blame
A Harvard Business School alumna argues that the brand of business taught at HBS and elsewhere is seriously in need of an overhaul

By By Charles H. Green / Business Week


On Oct. 2, Michael Moore's new movie, Capitalism—A Love Story, spooled out in theaters nationwide. Like most of Moore's films, it will likely do well—spectacularly so for a documentary. It will also likely stoke the Main Street sentiment that Wall Street is a den of iniquity, or something worse.

How did this schism come about? Just where did Wall Street go wrong? It's popular to blame misaligned incentives, lack of regulation, or just plain greed. Those would be conveniently simple explanations: We could just fix incentives, regulate more, and prosecute the guilty.

The truth is, sadly, more complex, but it boils down to this. Harvard Business School (Harvard Full-Time MBA Profile) is to blame. Not solely and specifically HBS, but HBS as representative of business's best thinking and the preferred finishing school for the American System of Free Enterprise. Our best and brightest did it.

Harvard Business School led the charge away from an approach to business centered in relationships and commerce, and toward one rooted in markets and competition. They promised us competitive advantage and efficiency. They delivered. ...........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/mike-in-the-news/wall-street-run-amok-why-harvards-blame

[wishlist]

1. Melissa Frances of CNBC said Harvard teaches conservative capitalism

Over a year ago (before the meltdown) when different economic philosophies of the political parties were debated on CNBC, Melissa defended the merits of unfettered capitalism by saying that was what they taught her at Harvard. (She majored in Economics there) I don't remember the specifics of the debate regarding taxes and regulations but clearly in hindsight the Harvard business philosophy she was defending has proven to be wrong for promoting a strong healthy economy.

[izquierdista]

2. Our "best and brightest"?

Oh, no, no, no. Maybe some of the HBS class are "the brightest", but don't shorten "the best connected" (aka George W.) to just "the best", because they aren't. Sons (but not many daughters) of the greediest sociopaths to ever steal a fortune, who are brought up to think they should be running things when they couldn't even be trusted to drive a beer delivery truck are NOT "the best" this country can find. Same goes for Yale law school and other places where "the best connected" are mingled with "the brightest" so that the former can gain some undeserved credibility.

[marmar]

4. What I've noticed about MBAs is that they know how to follow processes and equations.....

But cannot THINK. Anything that requires outside-the-box thinking causes a meltdown.

[baldguy]

3. It comes from making education a commodity rather than a right.