Our human drive to work can only really be satisfied if we channel it into pursuits about which we feel strongly. In reality the demise of the ideas underpinning socialist economic thought was a process rather than an event. The explosion in financial services growth in the late 20th century and the economic activity which it serves signals the end of more than 100 years of ideological battle between the many disciples of Marx on the one hand, and believers in markets on the other. The lesson I take from this is that ideas matter enormously. Bad ideas can kill people, leave them in poverty and impede human progress.
Good ideas can enrich humanity physically and spiritually.
The most meaningful lesson I have taken from my vocation is that our human drive to work can only really be satisfied if we channel it into pursuits about which we feel strongly. Outside of my family and friends, my most important mentors were the Wabash faculty and staff who taught and befriended me during my personally and intellectually challenging years at Wabash from 1983-1987. Those Wabash faculty who remain my friends, and some that have moved on, had a profoundly positive affect on my life by taking me into the Wabash community and helping me put my life on a trajectory which would never have been possible without Wabash and its people. As an employee of an international investment bank I regularly experience public misconceptions of my vocation as a bastion of overpaid, overworked egomaniacs who don't actually make anything, but who nevertheless prosper by moving around the money and assets of others who do. Objects of fear and loathing that we often are, investment bankers are a key contributor to the immense efficiency of the U.S. economy, which matters tremendously to savers and borrowers alike.