Introduction
The main characters of Wall Street are Bud Fox, an aspiring rookie stockbroker, and Gordon Gekko, an unscrupulous and ruthless Wall Street power broker. Bud Fox exerts much effort and time in a bid to join Gordon Gekko’s inner circle. As soon as he is successful, Bud’s life enters the fast lane, complete with an expensive apartment or condo, riches, power, and a sexy new girlfriend. Gekko’s unethical and illegal demands intensify as time passes, culminating in the seizure and deconstruction of Bluestar Airlines, where Bud’s father works.
Through the lens of the film, this paper discusses the critical and ethical challenges Bud Fox faced, what made him prone to crossing the ethical line, and the elements that led to Fox’s efforts to rectify the ethical breach. It discusses Gordon Gekko’s views on a person’s susceptibility to commit an ethical violation and how they relate to Bud Fox. Given the divergent judgments made by Bud Fox and Gordon Gekko, the paper employs a variety of ethical theories to address the essential concerns, concluding with a recommendation for managers to apply in their company operations to prevent unethical business actions.
Business ethics guarantee a company’s smooth running and protect its overall reputation. According to Ferrell et al. (2019), business ethics encompass making judgments that align with moral principles, such as honesty and fairness, treating people with respect, avoiding bribery, and engaging in legitimate business operations. In combating their competitors, firms are more inclined to engage in unethical methods due to the intense rivalry in nearly all sectors (Ferrell et al., 2019).
Managers are often held liable for unethical company actions, as they are responsible for ensuring that workers adhere to ethical business standards. Unethical business practices can lead to costly lawsuits and damage a company’s reputation, ultimately harming its future performance (Ferrell et al., 2019). Gordon Gekko is the film’s protagonist, portrayed by Michael Douglas.
Character Analysis
Gordon Gekko exhibits characteristics such as avarice, materialism, selfishness, confidence, and a strong family orientation. Gekko is the archetypal corporate villain who views the world through the prism of greed. He is eventually sentenced to jail for his many securities crimes after being found guilty of several offenses. He portrays persons without compassion who have abandoned humanity for power.
Bud, a young and ambitious Wall Street broker, comes within Gecko’s sphere of influence and rapidly succumbs to the temptation of high-risk transactions and substantial payoffs due to his exposure to this slick and seductive role model. In 1985, when Bud Fox is imprisoned for his part in their illicit dealings and offers to turn the state’s evidence against Gekko in exchange for a lesser sentence, Gekko’s methods finally catch up with him.
The character of Bud Fox exemplifies an ambitious, morally compromised individual. Bud is a young stockbroker on Wall Street who graduated from the NYU Stern School of Business and hailed from a working-class background. He spends his days selling stocks while aspiring to play in the same league as Gordon Gekko.
Finally meeting Bud, Gekko took him under his wing, giving him a taste of money and power. Bud became ravenous after acquiring a high-rise apartment and gorgeous ladies who adored men for their wealth. He was oblivious to the business machinations that put him at odds with his father, to the point where he made poor choices, unaware that this newfound power and wealth would come at a price he could not afford.
The personality traits of Carl Fox include being family-oriented, honest, conscientious, and average in terms of intelligence. Carl symbolizes the working class in the film, as he serves as the union head of Bluestar’s maintenance employees. He relentlessly targets big corporations, money, disagreements, greedy manufacturers, and everything he perceives as a danger to his union.
The film’s undercurrent was based on the contrast between Gekko’s ruthless pursuit of money and Carl Fox’s. This subtext might be seen as the struggle between the two dads to control their son’s morality. On Wall Street, the dads were represented by the hardworking Carl Fox and the icy businessman Gordon Gekko. In the film, the filmmaker utilized Carl’s voice to combat the creative damage caused by Gekko’s unconstrained personal worldview.
Critical Decision-Making Analysis
Situational Influences
Situational elements are variables that are beyond an individual’s control. According to Zia et al. (2020), situational variables are external elements that impact an individual’s choice, such as work culture and job autonomy. Bud Fox is influenced by the culture of the stock exchange sector, which is a situational component. When he enters the brokerage sector, Bud Fox learns that the industry is exclusively focused on generating money regardless of method.
Bud wanted to join Gekko’s inner circle, despite the fact that what he had to do was contrary to his upbringing and values. Bud coveted the prosperity that Gekko provided, but he also realized that using the information he obtained from his father concerning Bluestar airline firms was illegal and unethical. Gekko offers Bud some funds to handle after he profits substantially from the Bluestar tip. However, the other companies he chooses, based on honest investigation and the advice of a reputable senior broker, also lose money.
Bud Fox spies on the British investor Sir Lawrence Wildman to gain money and impress his girlfriends. As a result, they conclude that Wildman is submitting a bid for Anacott Steel because he is once again subject to a circumstance in which he can only generate profits and incur no losses. Gekko purchases a big block of Anacott shares, which Wildman is compelled to purchase at a premium price to complete the acquisition, resulting in increased profits for Gekko and commissions for Bud Fox.
Bud gets affluent and enjoys Gekko’s promised advantages, including an East Side apartment. He also acquires Darien, Gekko’s ex-girlfriend, and an art consultant. Darien is an interior designer. Bud gets promoted and given an office with a view due to the high commissions he is generating. He continues to use inside knowledge and friends as straw purchasers to increase his and Gekko’s profits. Unbeknownst to Bud, numerous of his transactions caught the SEC’s notice.
Furthermore, the stock market industry influenced Bud Fox’s decision-making, as he was a commission-based employee. Working on commission fosters a climate of intense competitiveness in the sector, causing brokers to seek to gain by any means possible. Some brokers may be motivated to use unethical means to entice investors to increase their commissions. According to Zia et al. (2020), the working environment or organizational culture may significantly impact people’s decisions. For example, working with Jackson Steinem & Co. compelled Fox to participate in similar dishonest behaviors. Fox learned how to exploit insider knowledge to influence investors’ choices while working for this corporation.
Considering the number of individuals whose conduct Gekko would harm, Bud Fox may have chosen to go against his employer in light of the moral gravity of the issue. According to Valentine and Godkin (2019), the moral intensity of a situation is founded on the concept that it is wrong to harm many individuals since the magnitude is more significant than harming a few people. Fox may be deemed to have made a choice based on this perspective, given his level of comprehension.
Bud discovers, for instance, that Gekko intends to dissolve Bluestar and liquidate its assets to obtain funds from the company’s pension plan, rendering Carl and the whole Bluestar crew jobless. Even though this would make Bud a very wealthy man, he is furious with Gekko’s duplicity and tortured with guilt over his role in Bluestar’s potential demise, particularly when his father has a heart attack. Bud then devises a scheme to leak information about Gekko’s acquisition to increase the price. This pushes Gekko to purchase the stock at a greater price, causing him to sell his holdings at a substantial loss.
Individual Influences
Individual considerations have a significant effect on Bud Fox’s ethical behavior. Bud’s choices are influenced mainly by his degree of knowledge, personal aspirations, and moral ideals. Bud is shown in the film as a young, ambitious individual determined to acquire a fortune by any means necessary. With his extensive understanding of Bluestar Airlines, he can affect the company’s stock market.
According to Valentine and Godkin (2019), the culture of a place influences how individuals interact with and perceive their surroundings. Bud is affected by the ethos of his business, which is focused on getting money by whatever means necessary. For example, when Roger refused to supply the information, Bud accessed the law firm’s offices via the office cleaning business and took the material. Bud knew stealing was illegal and immoral, but his desire for money, power, and Gekko’s approval led him over the line.
Individualism is a component of Hofstede’s cultural dimensions. According to Hofstede’s cultural dimensions, people in a society tend to aggressively pursue their particular objectives regardless of the approach’s repercussions (Kujala et al., 2021). Wall Street, New York, represents the cultural characteristic of individualism (Zia et al., 2020). Due to their strong support for capitalism and democracy, most Western nations are individualistic.
Additionally, success is a defining characteristic of America since every youngster is taught to work hard and achieve individual success (Zia et al., 2020). Bud Fox was raised with such an attitude, and he must accept brokerage as a possibility for personal accomplishment. Even though he was determined, he believed that hard effort alone could not guarantee him the life he envied in the Wall Street stockbrokers he encountered. Therefore, from the beginning, Bud had learned to prioritize his wants, which may have prompted him to sell inflated penny stocks that caused Lou Mannheim to lose money.
Ethical Issues Analysis
This section focuses on many ethical problems mentioned in the film Wall Street. The section focuses on the critical managerial actions made by Bud that revealed his lack of ethics. In addition, the film’s appraisal of many ethical dilemmas is supported by ethical theories. People encounter ethical difficulties daily and often make decisions without carefully weighing their choices.
Immanuel Kant and John Stuart Mill are two ethically-focused philosophers with contrasting perspectives (Teresiene & Budriene, 2021). Kant is considered a non-consequentialist, which means he believes that the goals, reasons, and goodwill behind an action are more significant than its outcomes or consequences (Gustafson, 2018). Conversely, Mill is called a consequentialist, believing that the proper action must provide the most significant net benefit and maximize good or decrease evil from the community’s perspective.
Kantianism Theory
Gekko failed to adhere to the Kantian idea of ethics by providing a poor example for his coworkers. According to Hendricks and Matthews (2020), Kantianism says that individuals should behave consistently and reason by assisting others in making the same rational judgments. Gekko failed because, contrary to ethical business practices, he exploited his position to push his employee Bud at Jackson Steinem & Co to embrace the acquisition of insider information.
Jordan learns early in his profession that the primary goal of the stock market is to generate profits. The Wall Street stock exchange industry actively embraces the art of espionage since investors need to be sufficiently educated and able to anticipate the market accurately. As a result, most employees in the sector are under pressure to make a catch, as their primary source of income is commission. In Bud’s instance, he learns how to use insider knowledge to attain his goals in the brokerage business. Bud can employ questionable and aggressive ways to amass a fortune as a penny stockbroker, which he uses to work with Gekko for additional corporate riches.
Social Contract Theory
Gekko went against the notion of the social contract due to his failure as the guardian of Jackson Steinem & Co. and its workers. According to Francés-Gómez (2020), the social contract theory contends that leaders owe a commitment to the organization’s stakeholders. This indicates that the management of a firm should promote policies that benefit its stakeholders, including its workers, customers, and members of society as a whole. By providing a poor example for Bud, Gekko persuaded him to partake in conduct that badly affected society’s members.
The stock market fraud impacted Sir Lawrence Wildman, and Bud’s insider knowledge facilitated it. The impact of the top management, such as Gekko, on the terrible culture is due to their egotistical desire to make more money, which only results in massive financial losses for the rest of society. Additionally, as community members, the workers who lost their jobs and those who were sued may point to the failure of Gekko and the whole management. Gekko did not adhere to the social contract idea that demands leaders to be accountable for their actions to prevent inflicting harm on the stakeholders.
Thematic Analysis
Pro-Capitalism
The film has come to be regarded as the classic depiction of 1980s excess, with Gekko suggesting that greed is beneficial for want of a better phrase. The film is defined by many moral dilemmas pitting riches and power against simplicity and integrity, and an assault on the value system of intense competition, where ethics and the law are only incidental elements of the show (Doyle, 2020). Thus, pro-capitalists recognize people’s right to their work, regardless of their economic standing. Capitalism provides the impoverished with the ability to enhance their well-being.
In the film, Carl symbolizes the working class with a pro-capitalist outlook. He is the union head for Bluestar’s maintenance staff. Whenever he perceives a danger to his union, he blames big business, money, obligatory drug testing, greedy manufacturers, and everything else.
The film’s subtext is based on the clash between Gekko’s persistent pursuit of fortune and Carl Fox’s leftist leanings. This subtext may be understood as the two dads vying for control over their son’s values, which Stone portrayed in the film (Stone & Pressman, 1987). The diligent worker Carl Fox embodies progressive capitalism, which seeks to improve economic outcomes via four essential concepts. Specifically, companies play a crucial role in the economy by producing employment, promoting innovation, facilitating voluntary trade, and offering competitive products and services to all members of society (Doyle, 2020). The film’s creators primarily employ Carl as their voice, a voice of reason amid the creative wreckage caused by Gekko’s unbridled personal ideology.
Anti-Capitalism
Gekko’s statement at the shareholders’ meeting of TeldarPaper, a firm he intends to acquire, is a pivotal event in the film. Gekko symbolizes anti-capitalism, a political philosophy and movement that opposes capitalism via various attitudes and concepts (Doyle, 2020). They do not care about the method if the ultimate result is profit. Stone utilizes this scenario to provide Gekko and, by extension, the Wall Street raiders he represents with an opportunity to defend his actions, presenting himself as a liberator of the company’s worth from useless and overpaid management (Stone & Pressman, 1987).
Gordon Gekko is also an anti-capitalist when Bud offers to invest in the airline that employs Bud’s father. However, he guts the airline instead of supporting that company’s development and its workers. However, “Wall Street’s” popularity was partly due to Michael Douglas’s legendary performance as Gordon Gekko, screenwriter and director Oliver Stone’s research, and real-world expertise in depicting ruthless methods.
The film is not an all-encompassing critique of capitalism and is more reminiscent of the 1980s ethos of cynicism and fast money. The film’s positive characters are capitalists, but in a more stable, industrious way. In one moment, Gekko mocks Bud Fox’s inquiry on the moral worth of hard labor by referencing his father, who worked hard his whole life yet died in debt.
Sir Laurence Wildman tries to preserve Anacott Steel but eventually saves Blue Star, despite Gekko’s insults that he laid off thousands of employees at prior firms he acquired. Lou Mannheim, the film’s quintessential mentor, states early in the film, concerning IBM and Hilton, that sometimes good things take time. As such, Gordon Gekko has come to symbolize the lack of empathy among Wall Street bankers and capitalism in general, exemplified by his view that greed is desirable.
Management Recommendation
The first step in ensuring that workers make moral judgments on the job is to adopt a code of ethics as a guide. Gaillard and DeCorte (2020) define a code of ethics as a set of guidelines that helps employees make ethical and morally appropriate decisions. It has a substantial impact on management and staff conduct. Gaillard and DeCorte (2020) argue that the code of ethics is essential for creating the groundwork for warnings and establishing guidelines for how workers and managers should act and make judgments.
According to Gaillard and DeCorte (2020), the code of ethics is a recommendation that aids businesses in adhering to state and federal regulations and avoiding legal issues that might affect a business. For instance, after witnessing the rise of Jackson Steinem & Co., Gordon Gekko neglected the code of business ethics by spying on other investors’ stakes in the stock markets. The action allows the innocent Bud Fox to use fraud to establish insider information on Bluestar Airlines, contrary to business ethics. Consequently, using the code of ethics, managers may reduce the likelihood of workers employing unethical measures to succeed in their jobs.
Conclusion
The essay has focused on understanding the ethical issues in Bud Fox and Gordon Gekko’s decisions in the film. The decisions made by Bud Fox and Gekko were influenced by both intrinsic and extrinsic factors. The situational factors that influenced Bud Fox are the culture of the stock market industry and the overall culture of America, which he learns from his encounter with Gordon Gekko. However, Bud is also influenced by his individual factors, such as his personal goals of becoming wealthy, weak moral values, and his knowledge of insider information.
Extrinsic factors, such as the culture of the industry, and individual factors, such as a lack of moral values and personal goals, influenced the actions of Bud and Gordon Gekko. Gekko’s decisions, such as inflating penny stocks and spying on investors, contravened ethical theories such as virtue ethics, utilitarianism, Kantianism, and social contract theory. Therefore, based on the actions and failures of Gordon Gekko, managers must embrace ethical leadership, embrace communication, and establish a code of ethics within a business environment as depicted by Carl Fox.
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