For several years, I have been using a hypothetical in my business ethics courses involving the head of a non-profit who brings in a fundraising whiz to help the organization survive. While he is settling in and before he has had time to rescue the organization with his fundraising wizardry, she has asked the staff to accept a freeze on raises and hiring, and has cut other expenses, and even some staff. She asks the new fundraiser to live with his dilapidated office, though she had promised him a redecoration while recruiting him. But he objects: Continue reading
trustworthiness
What Was Right and Wrong With Glenn Beck’s “Restoring Honor” Rally
The pundits of the airwaves, newsprint and blogosphere have issued their assessments of the Glenn Beck rally at the Lincoln Memorial with predictable results: those who admired Beck before the rally liked it, and those who detest him ridiculed it. The New York Times, in its inimitable fashion, showed contempt for the proceedings by relegating its account to page 15, even though every past D.C. rally and march of equivalent or lesser size (especially those advocating social or political positions popular with the Times staff) received more prominent coverage. To Times columnist Frank Rich, Beck’s rally was part of a racist conspiracy hatched by billionaires—yes, Frank, sure it was. John Avlon, who long ago branded Beck as a wingnut, reasonably pointed out that it was a wee bit hypocritical for Beck to preach against divisiveness when his own cable show is one of the most polarizing, even by Fox news standards. And John Batchelor, who may be the most serious, erudite, and balanced public affairs radio talk show host in captivity, dismissed the rally as harmless and Beck as a clown:
“I think of him now and again as Quasimodo Lite, a deaf bell-ringer swinging from the Notre Dame of Fox, a man who is eager to confess his own unsightly warts—“I’ve screwed up most of my life”—and who is also heroically delighted to be our slightly stooped “Pope of Fools,” because this accidental role, in this Festival of Fools called 2010, wins the cheers of the crowd.”
Even less charitable was the Baltimore Sun’s TV critic, who accused Beck of “stealing Martin Luther King’s moral authority.” Less charitable still was MSNBC’s Chris Matthews, who seems to have been driven a little mad—or at least a little unprofessional, perhaps— by the fact that Beck had the audacity to hold his rally on the anniversary of King’s iconic “I have a dream” speech. Matthews’s hyperbole was, well, Beck-like:
“Can we imagine if King were physically here tomorrow, today, were he to reappear tomorrow on the very steps of the Lincoln Memorial? “I have a nightmare that one day a right wing talk show host will come to this spot, his people`s lips dripping with the words ‘interposition’ and ‘nullification.’ Little right wing boys and little right wing girls joining hands and singing their praise for Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin. I have a nightmare!”
Was Beck’s bash really a nightmare? Political biases aside (Chris), the question for Ethics Alarms is what was right and wrong about the “Restoring Honor” rally. Continue reading
Ethics Dunce or Hero? The Paradox of “The Amex Angel”
You probably heard the story. About three weeks ago in Manhattan, ad executive Merrie Harris was approached by a homeless man who asked her for some spare change. Harris told the man, Jay Valentine, that she had no change, but offered to lend him her American Express Platinum Card if he would promise to return it. Valentine assured her he was trustworthy, and, incredibly, Harris gave him the card. He returned the card a short time later after a modest shipping spree that added twenty-five dollars to her bill. The New York media sang the praises of both Harris and Valentine, dubbing Harris “the Amex Angel” and calling the episode “a shining act of generosity, trust and honesty.”
I almost designated Wilson an Ethics Hero at the time, but something stopped me. I have been considering the implications of the strange story ever since. It may have been that shining act, but I’m not convinced it was even ethical. Is that possible? How can an act of generosity, trust, and kindness not be ethical? Continue reading
Politics, Ethics, and the Idiot Problem
Kim Lehman, who is one of Iowa’s two national Republican Committee members, responded to Politico’s report last week about the large and, oddly, increasing number of Americans who believe that President Obama is a Muslim, with this tweet:
“@politico You’re funny. They must pay you a lot to protect Obama. BTW, he personally told the muslims that he is a muslim. Read his lips.”
When Lehman was asked by the Des Moines Register what speech she was referring to, she cited an Obama speech in Cairo last summer in which he reached out to Muslims “to seek a new beginning.” In that speech, Obama made no comment about being Muslim. In fact, he said he was a a Christian, saying,
“…Now part of this conviction is rooted in my own experience. I’m a Christian, but my father came from a Kenyan family that includes generations of Muslims. As a boy, I spent several years in Indonesia and heard the call of the azaan at the break of dawn and at the fall of dusk. As a young man, I worked in Chicago communities where many found dignity and peace in their Muslim faith. As a student of history, I also know civilization’s debt to Islam.”
Never mind that, Lehman said; the speech still “just had the appearance that he was aligning himself with the Muslims.” Continue reading
Summer Rerun: “Ending the Bi-Partisan Effort to Destroy Trust in America”
[TV is full of reruns these days, and sometimes I am grateful for them, for it gives me a chance to see episodes of favorite shows I had missed for some reason or another. Back in early March, I posted the following essay about the origins of America’s current crisis of trust in our government, and how it might be cured by our elected leaders. Since then, the crisis has deepened, and as I was doing some routine site maintenance, I reread the post. It is still very timely (unfortunately), and since far fewer people were visiting Ethics Alarms in March, I decided to re-post it today, with just a few minor edits. I promise not to make this a habit. Still, trust is the reason why ethics is so important in America: if there is a single post of the more than 700 I have written here since October 2009 that I would like people to read, this is it.] Continue reading
DeLay and Blagojevich: Not Vindicated, Not Innocent, and Not Ethical
Both Rod Blagojevich and Tom DeLay were taking victory laps this week, Blago because a jury failed to come to an agreement on his trial for selling political favors, DeLay because the Justice Department dropped its prosecution of him. In the minds of both of these corrupt and shameless politicians, they were indeed vindicated, because both operate under the delusion that if one’s conduct manages to avoid breaking laws to the point where one could be found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, then that conduct is “ethical.” This same delusion has been shared by many other human blights on American society and ethical corrupters in business and politics, including Presidents Richard Nixon, and Bill Clinton, Ken Lay, the executives at Goldman Sachs and AIG, Marion Barry, Maxine Waters, and too many others to mention. It is still a delusion. Continue reading
Why We No Longer Trust Our Government, Reason #759: North Carolina’s Unethical Tax Stall
Every time Gallup does a poll to find out who the public thinks is ethical and unethical, one result always comes out the same. Over 95% of those polled will say that most ethical person they know is…themselves. I used to make fun of this result in my seminars as a classic example of self-delusion. The used-car dealer really thinks he is the most ethical person he knows? Tom Delay and Charlie Rangel really think that they are the most ethical people they know? I don’t believe it.
But I recently had an epiphany. People don’t really think they are the most ethical. What we do think is that each of us is the one person that we most trust. Not our spouses, not our parents, not our employers, not our elected officials…no matter how virtuous they may be, the person whom we know, with absolute certainty, won’t betray us is our self. That is an especially American attitude, embodying self-reliance, autonomy, and independence, and I was wrong not to misread it. Those who deride us for not trusting the government to solve our problems are wrong not to recognize it too, particularly when the attitude is being reinforced by stories like this one, from North Carolina.
The North Carolina Department of Revenue is reviewing 230,000 unresolved tax returns going back to 1994, including cases in which taxpayers overpaid and are owed money by the state. The state, however, has rigged the rules to make it less likely that the refunds are ever made. Continue reading
Unethical Quote of the Week
“The world is full of imperfect people; if everyone who ever fudged an expense report or flirted with an outside contractor were fired, there wouldn’t be many people left in the American work force. This is not to say that Mr. Hurd should be let off the hook for, in his words, failing “to live up to the standards and principles of trust, respect and integrity that I have espoused at H.P.” But a firing offense? Really? “ —New York Times business columnist Joe Nocera, in commentary concluding that Hewlett Packard’s stated justifications for firing CEO Mark Hurd— an inappropriate relationship with an adult film star he had hired as a consultant, and his “fudged” expense reports employed to hide his indiscretion—were a pretense. Nocera argues that Hurd was intensely disliked and distrusted throughout the company, and was perceived as being willing to cut core H.P. activities in order to enrich himself.
Nocera might well be correct that H.P.’s reasons for firing Hurd were not what the company claimed them to be. His conclusion, however, that what Hurd did was not a “firing offense” tells us a great deal about the skewed ethical mindset of the corporate culture in America, with which Nocera, as one who has been immersed in it for decades, is clearly infected. Continue reading
Oracle’s CEO Reminds Us Why We Can’t Trust Big Business
Lawrence J. Ellison, the chief executive of Oracle, ridiculed Hewlett-Packard’s directors for forcing the resignation of the H.P. chief executive, Mark V. Hurd.
We all owe a debt of gratitude to Ellison, for his attempt to defend a fellow CEO and friend is an abject lesson in why large corporations have to be watched carefully. Too many of them are run by those like Mr. Hurd, who believe that making his company lots of money entitle him to break rules and cut corners in ways that their companies tells their subordinates are violation of company policy and business ethics. And far too many board members of big corporations are like Mr. Ellison, not only excusing this attitude, but endorsing it. Continue reading
Andy’s Unethical Health Care Propaganda
I understand the government’s problem when it passes legislation in a fog of lies, misinformation, spin and deceit so think on both sides that nobody even pretends to know what the consequences will be. And it certainly is embarrassing when claim after claim about the legislation made by the House Speaker and President himself is shown to be untrue or mistaken after the fact: “Oops! The law won’t really be budget-neutral!” “Sorry! Many of you won’t be able to keep your health care plans after all!” “Darn! There really isn’t anything in here that will keep costs from rising!”
Gee, maybe they should have read the thing before voting for it.
Be that as it may, it does not justify the Obama Administration paying $700,000 in taxpayer funds to run TV ads showing avuncular old Andy Griffith, of Mayberry fame (Pssst! Andy used to specialize in playing con-men and scam artists before he and Don Knotts teamed up), telling seniors how peachy the new system will be. Continue reading
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