Bob Diamond, chief executive of Barclays, has resigned because of Libor rate-fixing among his traders in 2005–9. He once defined the ‘culture’ of a successful bank as ‘how people behave when you think no one is watching’. Plato knew all about that, as the story of Gyges’ ring in his dialogue Republic (c. 370 bc) explains.
Glaucon, challenging Socrates to demonstrate that behaving morally is intrinsically good (whatever the consequences), tells how a Lydian shepherd Gyges found a ring which rendered him invisible when he turned it to one position on his finger, and visible again when he turned it back. As a result, he seduced the king’s wife, with her help killed the king and took the throne. Glaucon continues: would not anyone, however committed to morality, act in this way? He would steal whatever he wanted from the marketplace, sleep with anyone he wanted to, kill or free from prison whomever he chose, and generally act like a god.
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