Tom, the first premise of “business ethics” courses is that men and women in business are incapable of real ethics, so the subject has to be dumbed down for them by “experts” who have never met a payroll.
The second premise is that real ethics is impossible in this world of ours that puts such a high value on “diversity.” After all, what’s good for you might not be good for me, right? So the logical (btw, logic is impossible too) conclusion is to browbeat productive enterprises with the ideological brickbats of envious, guilt-ridden, power-hungry lefties who (it’s shocking, I know) want to cram their ethics down your obviously unethical throat.
The people I went to business school with forty-plus years ago were, on the whole, noticeably smarter than the political science graduate students of my generation. And Capitol Hill? Twentysomethings are recruited by swaggering criminals (referred to colloquially as “Mister/Madame Chairman”) to harass CEOs who gainfully employ people by the thousands, and produce products that people actually want to buy.
My old boss was on the “Senate Ethics Committee” for years. My conclusion? In Washington, being “ethical” means you’re not in jail.
2:31 pm on August 22, 2010
