An intimate account of the eighteenth-century Bank of England that shows how a private institution became “a great engine of state” The eighteenth-century Bank of England was an institution that operated for the benefit of its shareholders—and yet came to be considered, as Adam Smith described it, “a great engine of state.” In Virtuous Bankers, Anne Murphy explores how this private organization became the guardian of the public credit upon which Britain’s economic and geopolitical power was based. Drawing on the voluminous and detailed minute books of a Committee of Inspection that examined the Bank’s workings in 1783–84, Murphy frames her account as “a day in the life” of the Bank of England, looking at a day’s worth of banking activities that ranged from the issuing of bank notes to the management of public funds. Murphy discusses the bank as a domestic environment, a working environment, and a space to be protected against theft, fire, and revolt. She offers new insights into the skills of the Bank’s clerks and the ways in which their work was organized, and she positions the Bank as part of the physical and cultural landscape of the City: an aggressive property developer, a vulnerable institution seeking to secure its buildings, and an enterprise necessarily accessible to the public. She considers the aesthetics of its headquarters—one of London’s finest buildings—and the messages of creditworthiness embedded in that architecture and in the very visible actions of the Bank’s clerks. Murphy’s uniquely intimate account shows how the eighteenth-century Bank was able to deliver a set of services that were essential to the state and commanded the confidence of the public.

Review of Anne Murphy's recent book, situating it within histories of the Bank of England and capitalism.

The evolution of modern capitalist society is increasingly being marked by an undeniable and consistent tension between pure economic and ethical ways of valuing and acting. This book is a collaborative and cross-disciplinary contribution that challenges the assumptions of capitalist business and society. It ultimately reflects on how to restore benevolence, collaboration, wisdom and various forms of virtuous deliberation amongst all those who take part in the common good, drawing inspiration from European history and continental philosophical traditions on virtue.

An introduction to the role of virtue ethics in business, written by one of the foremost Aristotelian scholars.

Bringing together normative and instrumental CSR conceptualizations, practice based examples and international case studies, this edited volume brings together important contributions on the conceptualizations of CSR post financial crisis. Including coverage of a variety of practices in developing and developed contexts, industry-specific activities, business ethics and sustainable development issues, Corporate Social Responsibility in the Post-Financial Crisis brings together a variety of perspectives to provide knowledge and understanding across contexts.

This book offers a commentary on the responses to white collar crime since the financial crisis. The book brings together experts from academia and practice to analyse the legal and policy responses that have been put in place following the 2008 financial crisis. The book looks at a range of topics including: the low priority and resources allocated to fraud; EU regulatory efforts to fight financial crime; protecting whistleblowers in the financial industry; the criminality of the rogue trader; the evolution of financial crime in cryptocurrencies; and the levying of financial penalties against banks and corporations by the US Department of Justice and Securities and Exchange Commission.