This movie is an entertaining story about Bud Fox, a stock broker living in New York City. He starts out the movie barely making ends meet, but soon comes up with a way to make the living that he always dreamt of.
An aspect of entrepreneurship in this movie that I find interesting is the way that Buddy makes his money, and the ethical turmoil that happens throughout the process. Buddy is put in between a rock and a hard place, as they say, when he has to choose between the corporate raider that helped him make his riches, and his father which holds a high position in Bluestar Airlines. The company that is being bought, and later, bought out.
This aspect is entrepreneurial because, as we discussed in class, ethical practices are very important regardless of how good (or not) the product itself is. Consumers and society are less willing to accept production and business practices that are unethical.
This also is why the aspect of entrepreneurship in the movie is interesting. The movie does a good job of highlighting this conflict in the show by putting Buddy directly against his father in the company. The turmoil that this causes creates a picture for the movie viewer that explains the importance of ethical decision making for yourself and for companies that you support. It also is interesting because, even though Buddy might not be considered a typical entrepreneur, he was still creating value for himself and for others, he only later realized that it was at the expense of the Bluestar employees, and maybe was not what was best for creating value overall.
The link between entrepreneurship and society can be seen a lot in this movie. It can be seen between Buddy and the Bluestar workers/unions, and legally, it can be seen when Buddy gets arrested and later helps the government catch Gekko in their insider trading schemes.
The movie's form of entrepreneurship affected society by interacting with the seen and the unseen. The seen aspect for the Bluestar workers was that Gekko and Buddy were going to liquidate the company that provided them with their living. The unseen aspect could have been other, better jobs they could have gotten after the liquidation. In the end, Buddy ended up making deals to help them remain in the seen because that was the ethical decision for his dad and the workers.
This interaction is hostile because of the line of business Buddy is entrepreneurial in. Society does not like seeing or experiencing the breakup of successful companies, especially at the hands of successful, rich businessmen. Society is often usually a fan of government intervention, like the occurrence in the movie when Buddy and Gekko are arrested for insider trading. Having regulations such as these are seen as "good" in society because they prevent too much control, even though they interfere with the free market.
Society can not always affect this type of entrepreneurship, but they can make moves to stifle it through the government. Since, in the case of Wall Street, consumers are not really exchanging currency for value in relation to Buddy, they can do things like vote for regulations or support representatives that do not support unethical business practices.
