Ethics of FinTech and Trading

Abstract

A key promise, responsibility, and assumption underpinning democracy is that its participants are bound by a social contract that delivers win outcomes for those who adhere to its rules. But our social contract is under threat. Governments and large corporations are today being tempted to abandon the ancient conventions of our social contract by the allure of emerging technology that promises the leaders of large corporations and institutions greater control over LIQUIDITY + DATA. It has traditionally been inaccessible because the digital integration required to create the market was not possible. People intermediated transactions and played an important role in safeguarding important conventions. Machines, however, do not always adopt our conventions. And a big question is, who really owns the data rights anyway? In the absence of concerted action by democracies, the nation the largest source of aggregate demand will set the global standards for the ownership rights of data released from silos by digital integration. Unless democracies work together, with Joe Biden’s election as President of the United States there is now an opportunity to convene the world’s democracies in a call to arms to defend freedom, including our human right to be able to make informed choices.