What capitalism can learn from the religions of the world

What capitalism can learn from the religions of the world (The Conversation)

It may be the season for peace on Earth and goodwill to all men {sic}, but you don’t have to look very far in the financial pages to find stories about businesses doing exactly the opposite...

Fortunately for us, faiths have been reflecting on the nature and limits of money for hundreds of years. They see business as a servant of society, never its master. Ancient traditions give us a caring and respectful attitude to planet Earth, where human greed is restrained, and kindness and compassion towards all living beings encouraged. In Christianity, caring for the weak and the poor has always been central to its practices... The Dharmic traditions of India - Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism and my own tradition, Jainism – have never treated animals and nature as separate from humanity...

At root, money has always been a medium of exchange, a fiction which we humans have created to help us deal with everyday needs. Its value derives from the trust that we give to each other. The more we turn money into a factual, materialistic and overarching reality, the more insecure and selfish we become as a society. Financial institutions and professions have forgotten these basic truths about the nature and limits of money. They have distanced themselves from the trust, relationships and conscience which ought to be central to how it is handled. Too often they have become the vehicles for spreading distrust and inequality, by using their political and economic power to benefit themselves at the expense of nature and society...

If capitalism were human at all (let alone humane), the idea of it "learning" from religion might mean something. That title reads like: "What a chainsaw can learn from literary authors." When I got to the second screen of that article and read "the high standards of integrity and protection of the public interest that are supposed to exist among banks, listed companies and consultancies," I gave up. Merry Christmas.