At some points during Benjamin Franklin’s autobiography I feel like the world we live in today is so different from the times he speaks of. In particular, Franklin’s belief in reciprocal altruism makes me shake my head the hardest. Franklin practiced reciprocal altruism, the idea that humans should reciprocate with one another and allow benefits to be exchanged over time. This way, in the long term everyone prospers and little expense as necessary is paid. Franklin touches on this theme when he discusses business partnerships and explains that they are carried out most “amicably when everything to be done by or expected from each partner has been very explicitly settled” (91). Franklin stressed social cooperation and thought that those who do not keep their word are the nemesis to reciprocal altruism. He believed there was a direct positive correlation between one’s exercise of honesty and the acquisition of wealth. If one keeps his words, pays bills on time, charges fair prices, and treats his neighbor with respect then he will naturally be successful in business and in society. To Franklin, what goes around comes around and the individual who holds himself to such standards should expect the same admirable treatment in return. He would like to think that the good character one demonstrates to his neighbor should encourage his neighbor to emulate that same dedication to reciprocal altruism.
It amazes me today to think how far the world has strayed from this ideology. The first and most recent major example that comes to mind is the financial crisis in the United States. The business ethics demonstrated by Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, and Bear Stearns would leave Franklin mortified and saying “I could have told you so” if he saw our current financial situation. These five investment banks and financial conglomerates such as Citigroup and JPMorgan lost sight of doing what was right for the greater good and instead inflated their company’s worth as much as possible in order to sell out before the cash was gone. Instead of charging fair prices, banks charged too good of prices, where sub primes loans were issued and derivatives bought because of the expectation the payments wouldn’t be met. Banks made money off the ignorance of others and because the market could bear it at the time. Paying bills on time? The financial industry paid their losses with each other’s debt that would eventually never be collected. When every player in the game begins to cheat, what goes around still comes around, but instead of benefiting society as a whole in turns people into greedy bastards that will take advantage of whoever they can in order to make money. Maybe if we had listened to Big Ben a little harder we wouldn’t be in the midst of the worst recession in the country’s history.
