所属专辑:美国名校励志演说 17篇
歌手: 英语演讲
时长: 15:28
Trust and Individual Fair Dealing - 英语演讲[00:00:02]
Address by Alan Greenspan [00:00:08]
at University of Pennsylvania[00:00:10]
Dean Harker, members of the faculty,[00:00:13]
Wharton alumni, friends and families and,[00:00:17]
especially, members of the 2005 graduating class.[00:00:21]
I have more in common with you graduates[00:00:25]
than people might think. [00:00:29]
After all, before long, after my term[00:00:30]
at the Federal Reserve comes to an end, [00:00:33]
I too will be looking for a job.[00:00:35]
I am delighted to join in celebrating [00:00:38]
your achievements and promise.[00:00:43]
You are being bequeathed the tools [00:00:45]
for creating a material existence [00:00:48]
that neither my generation nor any [00:00:50]
that preceded it could have even [00:00:53]
remotely imagined as we began our life's work. [00:00:56]
What you must fashion for yourselves[00:01:00]
are those values that will enable you [00:01:03]
to contribute and thrive in a world [00:01:06]
that is becoming increasingly competitive and frenetic.[00:01:08]
The creative abilities of this graduating class [00:01:12]
and those of your contemporaries will determine [00:01:19]
the magnitude and extent of American prosperity[00:01:22]
in this century. And the ideas and values [00:01:25]
that you employ in these creative endeavors [00:01:29]
will shape the future state of our cultural,[00:01:32]
legal, and economic institutions.[00:01:35]
You will doubtless foster advances in science, [00:01:38]
engineering, and business management. [00:01:42]
But scientific proficiency will not be enough.[00:01:48]
Technology is a tool that, unless guided[00:01:50]
by a set of ethical principles, is of qualified value.[00:01:53]
The principles governing business behavior[00:01:58]
are an essential support to voluntary exchange, [00:02:03]
the defining characteristic of free markets. [00:02:06]
Voluntary exchange, in turn, [00:02:09]
implies trust in the word of those with[00:02:13]
whom we do business. To be sure,[00:02:16]
all market economies require a rule of law to function -[00:02:18]
laws of contracts, rights to property,[00:02:23]
and a general protection of citizens[00:02:26]
from arbitrary actions of the state. [00:02:30]
Yet, if even a small fraction of legally [00:02:31]
binding transactions required adjudication, [00:02:35]
our court systems would be swamped into immobility, [00:02:38]
and a rule of law would be unenforceable.[00:02:43]
Of necessity, therefore, in virtually [00:02:47]
all our transactions, whether with customers or with colleagues,[00:02:52]
with friends or with strangers,[00:02:56]
we rely on the word of those [00:02:58]
with whom we do business.[00:03:01]
If we could not do so, goods [00:03:02]
and services could not be exchanged efficiently.[00:03:05]
Trillions of dollars of assets are priced[00:03:08]
and traded daily in our financial markets.[00:03:13]
Before recent technologies enabled transactions[00:03:17]
to clear and settle virtually in real time,[00:03:20]
most of the vast volumes of trades[00:03:23]
were not legally binding for days. [00:03:26]
Their validity rested on trust.[00:03:29]
Even today, much of business is transacted [00:03:33]
on parties' undocumented verbal agreements.[00:03:36]
We take this for granted and rarely pause [00:03:39]
to ponder how unusual this practice is.[00:03:44]
Moreover, even when followed to the letter,[00:03:47]
laws guide only a few of the day-to-day[00:03:52]
decisions required of business and financial managers.[00:03:56]
The rest are governed by whatever personal code [00:03:59]
of values market participants bring to the table.[00:04:03]
Trust as the necessary condition for commerce[00:04:07]
was particularly evident in freewheeling nineteenth century America,[00:04:12]
where reputation became a valued asset.[00:04:17]
Throughout much of that century, [00:04:21]
laissez-faire reigned in the United States as elsewhere,[00:04:23]
and caveat emptor was the prevailing prescription[00:04:28]
for guarding against wide-open trading practices. [00:04:32]
In such an environment, a reputation for honest dealing,[00:04:36]
which many feared was in short supply,[00:04:41]
was particularly valued. [00:04:43]
Even those inclined to be less than scrupulous [00:04:46]
in their personal dealings had to adhere to[00:04:49]
a more ethical standard in their market transactions,[00:04:53]
or they risked being driven out of business.[00:04:57]
To be sure, the history of world business,[00:05:00]
then and now, is strewn with Fisks, Goulds, [00:05:05]
Ponzis and numerous others treading on,[00:05:09]
or over, the edge of legality. [00:05:13]
But, despite their prominence, [00:05:15]
they were a distinct minority.[00:05:18]
If the situation had been otherwise,[00:05:20]
late nineteenth and early twentieth century America [00:05:23]
would never have realized so high a standard of living.[00:05:26]
Indeed, we could not have achieved our current level[00:05:30]
of national productivity if ethical behavior[00:05:34]
had not been the norm or [00:05:37]
if corporate governance had been deeply flawed.[00:05:40]
Over the past half-century, [00:05:43]
societies have chosen to embrace the protections[00:05:47]
of myriad government financial regulations [00:05:51]
and implied certifications of integrity [00:05:54]
as a supplement to, if not a substitute for,[00:05:57]
business reputation.[00:06:01]
Most observers believe that the world [00:06:03]
is better off as a consequence of these governmental protections.[00:06:07]
Accordingly, the market value of trust, [00:06:11]
so prominent in the 1800s,[00:06:14]
seemed by the 1990s to have become less necessary.[00:06:17]
But recent corporate scandals in the United States [00:06:22]
and elsewhere have clearly shown [00:06:28]
that the plethora of laws and regulations [00:06:30]
of the past century have not eliminated [00:06:33]
the less-savory side of human behavior. [00:06:37]
We should not be surprised then to see[00:06:39]
a re-emergence of the value placed by markets [00:06:43]
on trust and personal reputation in business practice. [00:06:46]
After the revelations of recent corporate malfeasance,[00:06:50]
the market punished the stock [00:06:55]
and bond prices of those corporations [00:06:58]
whose behaviors had cast doubt on the reliability[00:07:00]
of their reputations. [00:07:04]
There may be no better antidote for business [00:07:06]
and financial transgression.[00:07:09]
But in the wake of the scandals, [00:07:11]
the Congress clearly signaled that more was needed.[00:07:13]
The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 appropriately places [00:07:18]
the explicit responsibility for certification[00:07:25]
of the soundness of accounting and disclosure procedures [00:07:28]
on the chief executive officer, [00:07:32]
who holds most of the decision making power [00:07:35]
in the modern corporation. [00:07:38]
Merely certifying that generally [00:07:40]
accepted accounting principles [00:07:43]
were being followed is no longer enough. [00:07:44]
Even full adherence to those principles,[00:07:47]
given some of the imaginative accounting of recent years, [00:07:51]
has proved inadequate.[00:07:55]
I am surprised that the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, [00:07:57]
so rapidly developed and enacted,[00:08:01]
has functioned as well as it has.[00:08:04]
It will doubtless be fine-tuned [00:08:06]
as experience with the act's details points the way.[00:08:10]
But the act importantly reinforced the principle [00:08:14]
that shareholders own our corporations [00:08:19]
and that corporate managers should be[00:08:22]
working on behalf of shareholders to[00:08:25]
allocate business resources to their optimum use.[00:08:27]
But as our economy has grown,[00:08:32]
and our business units have become ever larger, [00:08:35]
de facto shareholder control has diminished.[00:08:38]
Ownership has become more dispersed[00:08:42]
and few shareholders have sufficient stakes [00:08:45]
to individually influence the choice of boards [00:08:48]
of directors or chief executive officers.[00:08:51]
The vast majority of corporate share ownership is,[00:08:55]
of course, for investment, [00:08:59]
not to achieve operating control of a company.[00:09:01]
Thus, it has increasingly fallen to corporate officers, [00:09:04]
especially the chief executive officer, [00:09:10]
to guide the business, one hopes by [00:09:13]
what is perceived to be in the best interest of shareholders. [00:09:17]
To be sure, senior officers in today's corporations [00:09:20]
no longer have the dominance [00:09:25]
that they were able to achieve prior to [00:09:27]
the revolution in information technology.[00:09:29]
A decade ago, senior officers of a corporation [00:09:32]
could tightly control, if they chose,[00:09:36]
access to key information systems. [00:09:39]
Those senior officers could have far[00:09:42]
greater knowledge of the workings of their business [00:09:45]
than others and, as a consequence, [00:09:47]
were less subject to challenge [00:09:50]
when making day-by-day tactical and strategic decisions.[00:09:53]
Arguably, with information systems now accessible [00:09:57]
to broader ranges of managers and other employees,[00:10:03]
the monopoly power that proprietary information[00:10:07]
affords has been significantly reduced.[00:10:11]
Moreover, the availability of vital information[00:10:14]
now often extends beyond the borders of the company [00:10:18]
to suppliers and customers as well.[00:10:22]
A generation ago, for example,[00:10:24]
a purchasing manager rarely divulged to[00:10:27]
a supplier the state of the company's inventory position.[00:10:31]
It was presumed that such information [00:10:34]
in the hands of suppliers would undermine[00:10:38]
the bargaining position of the purchasing manager.[00:10:40]
Today such information is broadly [00:10:43]
and routinely shared to facilitate[00:10:47]
just-in-time supply systems. [00:10:49]
In general, technologies may be in the process[00:10:52]
of facilitating a much broader access to information,[00:10:56]
with the consequence that CEOs [00:11:00]
could increasingly face more careful monitoring.[00:11:03]
It seems clear that, if the CEO chooses,[00:11:06]
he or she can, by example and through oversight, [00:11:12]
induce corporate colleagues and outside auditors [00:11:16]
to behave ethically. Companies run by people[00:11:19]
with high ethical standards arguably do not[00:11:24]
need detailed rules on how to act in the long-run [00:11:28]
interest of shareholders and, presumably, themselves.[00:11:32]
But, regrettably, human beings come as we are -[00:11:36]
some with enviable standards, [00:11:40]
and others who continually seek to cut corners.[00:11:43]
Rules exist to govern behavior, [00:11:46]
but rules cannot substitute for character.[00:11:51]
In the years going forward, [00:11:54]
it will be your reputation - [00:11:57]
for integrity, judgment, [00:11:59]
and other qualities of character -[00:12:02]
that will determine your success in life [00:12:03]
and in business. A generation from now, [00:12:06]
as you watch your children graduate, [00:12:10]
you will want to be able to say [00:12:13]
that whatever success you achieved [00:12:16]
was the result of honest and productive work,[00:12:18]
and that you dealt with people [00:12:21]
the way you would want them to deal with you.[00:12:23]
I presume that I could offer all kinds of [00:12:26]
advice to today's graduates from my nearly [00:12:32]
six decades in private business and government. [00:12:35]
I could urge you all to work hard, save, and prosper.[00:12:39]
And I do. But transcending all else [00:12:44]
is being principled in how you go [00:12:48]
about doing those things.[00:12:51]
It is decidedly not true that "nice guys finish last,"[00:12:53]
as that highly original American baseball philosopher Leo Durocher [00:12:58]
was once alleged to have said.[00:13:03]
I do not deny that many appear to[00:13:06]
have succeeded in a material way[00:13:10]
by cutting corners and manipulating associates,[00:13:12]
both in their professional and in their personal lives.[00:13:16]
But material success is possible in this world, [00:13:19]
and far more satisfying, when it comes[00:13:23]
without exploiting others. [00:13:26]
The true measure of a career is to be able to be content,[00:13:29]
even proud, that you succeeded [00:13:33]
through your own endeavors without leaving a trail[00:13:36]
of casualties in your wake.[00:13:40]
Our system works fundamentally on trust [00:13:42]
and individual fair dealing.[00:13:47]
We need only look around today's world[00:13:50]
to realize how valuable these traits are [00:13:53]
and the consequences of their absence.[00:13:57]
While we have achieved much [00:13:59]
as a nation in this regard, more remains to be done.[00:14:02]
Prejudice of whatever stripe is unworthy[00:14:06]
of a society built on individual merit. [00:14:11]
A free market capitalist system cannot operate[00:14:14]
fully effectively unless all participants in the economy[00:14:19]
are given opportunities to achieve their best.[00:14:23]
If we succeed in opening up opportunities to everyone,[00:14:26]
our national affluence will almost surely [00:14:31]
become more widespread. Of even greater import is[00:14:35]
that all Americans recognize that they [00:14:39]
are part of a system that is fair and worthy of support.[00:14:43]
Our forefathers bestowed upon us a system of [00:14:46]
government and a culture of enterprise [00:14:52]
that have propelled the United States[00:14:54]
to the greatest material prosperity the world[00:14:57]
has ever experienced. [00:15:00]
Today's Wharton graduates are being passed[00:15:01]
the standard to carry forward those traditions.[00:15:06]
I know you will improve upon this inheritance [00:15:09]
in ways that we have yet to imagine.[00:15:13]
I offer you all my congratulations [00:15:15]
and wish you success in your chosen careers.[00:15:20]