The Global Banking Sector: Corruption, Institutional Purpose, and Economic Justice

Corrupt, unethical and imprudent practices in the global banking sector have been identified as among the causes of the Global Financial Crisis (GFC). In this paper I (1) provide an analysis of institutional corruption that enables institutional corruption within the global banking sector to be (a) viewed in relation to economic injustice, and (b) demarcated from the unfortunate consequences of unavoidably risky market-based activity, poor judgment, ill-informed policy-making etc.; (2) argue for an understanding of and response to institutional corruption in the global banking sector that is holistic i.e., focuses on institutional purpose, industry structure and banking culture rather than simply structure or culture; and (3) argue for an account of moral responsibility for corruption and economic injustice in the global banking sector, and for combating it, in terms of meta-collective responsibility, a specific notion of collective moral responsibility that does not allow individual human actors to evade responsibility.