Can't Rely on Invisible Hand

To the editors:

It is nice to know that Caustic Sen, and hopefully others, feel compelled to at least consider the social implications of a finance career. I only hope that some considering that track will recognize the flimsiness of the humanitarian argument. The moral good of most investment bankers' work is purely incidental. While finance has helped many people and communities, it has also hurt many in the interest of making a few people richer.

Sen argues that finance work is necessarily humanitarian because the "invisible hand" will soothe and heal all. But the invisible hand knows no morality and doesn't care for people's pain. Though the numbers (stock points, profit margins, etc.) by which investment bankers make decisions are amoral, the decisions they make can determine whether working people have the jobs that allow them to feed their families and whether communities thrive or atrophy. The investment bankers and consultants guiding the merger of Mobil and Exxon into one great leviathan seem little concerned with the 9,000 factory workers expected to be left jobless as a result.

The rich will always be rich, even without the great skill and intellect of Harvard students protecting them. The needy, however, need people like us--smart, hard-working young people who can use the incredible tools we have received here to make the world a better place. We have an obligation to give back to those who deserve it most, and not just incidentally if it is convenient for us and for our investment bank's profit margin.

The most offensive and careless rationalization in Sen's article is his claim that those who undertake real humanitarian work in the public sector are missing the big picture and wasting time. But Teach For America's success in bringing 3,000 of the nation's top college graduates into desperate school systems, the American Red Cross' life-giving assistance to 30 million people annually and even the initiatives of those puny social workers to help broken families piece themselves together can hardly be considered "toothpicks." JEANNIE A. LANG '00   Dec. 3, 1998