Ethics in American Business and Government: The Confused Issues

Abstract

A comparison of American executives with their predecessors of a century ago reveals a heightening of moral awareness and concern. In both business and government, more duties are recognized today than was the case in the nineteenth century. There is also concern for a greater range of values. But this sort of responsibility is dismissed as unimportant by some critics who claim that the managerial class is failing to come to grips with the international and interracial conflicts of our time. It cannot be denied that some world-shaking decisions have been made recklessly. Although it is difficult to identify the "great decisions," some industrialists and some politicians seem to recognize that they have an obligation, and stand ready to negotiate some new policies. The peculiar difficulty of the present crisis is that preindustrial populations, both here and abroad, cannot formulate actionable demands of the kind that corporations and existing agencies of government can satisfy. We should at least consider the alternative of protected preindustrial islands in our automated sea, where unskilled labor might earn a living with self-respect. Such a course of action would put a strain on our boasted pluralism, but could that strain be as great as that which is now involving us in riots and quixotic military adventures?