Business ethics

“ Its faults, many of them purely the faults of the moral constitution of business, clog its progress and make it sick every little while. Some day the ethics of business will be universally recognized, and in that day business will be seen to be the oldest and most useful of all the professions. ”

“ I cannot doubt that the high laws which each man sees implicated in those processes with which he is conversant, the stern ethics which sparkle on his chisel-edge, which are measured out by his plumb and foot-rule, which stand as manifest in the footing of the shop-bill as in the history of a state, — do recommend to him his trade, and though seldom named, exalt his business to his imagination. ”

“ As business men report, their occupation is not so entirely healthy that no change and no relief could be desired. They say—we quote from varied and extensive testimony—that the trades, and even the professions, are but few in which a scrupulous regard is shown for genuine, as distinct from legal, honesty. It really seems then that some little intermission might be advocated, and accepted by the saner portion of the world. A wholesome change of occupation might improve the moral tone, and possibly revive the spirit of our business men. ”

“ But we are now speaking of the business community as a whole, and the force which ultimately keeps the ethics of every business community pure is, I imagine, the same, namely that without honesty the community itself cannot live or prosper and that, with normal ability, he who is most honest prospers most. American business was dishonest before society had settled down and knitted itself together.
The change which has come over the American business world can perhaps best be made clear to English readers by taking a single example ”

“ The truth is that, in spite of the sincerity with which it was held that the transactions of business must somehow be amenable to the moral law, the code of practical ethics, in which that claim was expressed, had been forged to meet the conditions of a very different environment from that of commercial England in the seventeenth century. ”

“ It has been thought that business existed for profit. That is wrong. Business exists for service. It is a profession, and must have recognized professional ethics, to violate which declasses a man. Business needs more of the professional spirit. The professional spirit seeks professional integrity, from pride, not from compulsion. The professional spirit detects its own violations and penalizes them. Business will some day become clean. A machine that stops every little while is an imperfect machine, and its imperfection is within itself. ”

“ Without attempting to carry the modern business situation bodily over into the domain of pure ethics, he was still young enough and enthusiastic enough to lay down the general principle that a great corporation, being itself a creation of the law, must necessarily be law-abiding, and, if not entirely ethical in its dealings with the public, at least equitably just. ”

“ Business has during the past two centuries been the great civilizer, the great moral teacher. It has found that honesty and righteousness pay and that injustice is folly. Business has led the way to the acceptance of a new ethics, and new morals. ”

“ Business education gives some sense of the interdependence of industry, personal ethics, and government. The broadly trained business man realizes that he is in a sense a servant of the community, that his property is wrapped up with the welfare of his fellow men, and that what he has is a trust which society grants to him to be conducted after the manner of a good steward. ”

“ But oftentimes it takes rather definite characteristics to do this.
Every business institution has, or should have, its moral, commercial, financial, artistic, and other standards with reference to personnel, according to the character of the business and other important considerations. And the man who contemplates work with any firm will examine himself to see whether he can harmonize happily with these standards. In like manner, every profession and art has its traditional standards and ethics, which should be considered. ”

“ At the present moment we are concerned with the particular misapprehension which exists in the English mind in regard to the commercial ethics—the average level of common honesty—in the masses of American business men. ”

“ Nevertheless, when we disentangle the three orders of ends, and consider each separately, it becomes clear that the conduct which achieves each kind of end is regarded as relatively good; and conduct which fails to achieve it is regarded as relatively bad. The goodness ascribed to a man of business, as such, is measured by the activity and ability with which he buys and sells to advantage, and may coexist with a hard treatment of dependents which is reprobated. The ethical judgments we pass on such self-regarding acts are ordinarily little emphasized ”

“ Even the employer is beginning to see that practical ethics, or true Christianity, and business cannot and must not be divorced; that the man he employs, instead of being a mere animal whose services he buys, is, after all his fellow-man and his brother, and demands a treatment as such, and that when he fails to recognize this truth, a righteous God steps in, demanding a penalty for its violation. ”

“ The limited "corpora- tions" of the business world being thus ruled out, the whole profession assumes something of the aspect of a corporation. It supplements the ad- vantage or the necessity of the small- scale, often the one-man, unit by con- certed action to remove its "natural" disadvantage, that free play of uncontrolled individualism which undermines all essential standards. It achieves an integration not of form but of spirit. Of this spirit nothing is more significant than the ethical code which it creates. ”

“ Conventional morality, while sometimes over-severe against old and well-recognized sins, lags far behind in its branding of the newer forms. The evils arising from the modern congestion of population, the unscrupulousness of modern business, the selfishness of politicians, the servility of newspapers to the "interests" and to advertisers, for example, find too little reprobation in our established moral codes. "Business is business" has been said by respectable church-members. A successful American boss, when asked if he was not in politics for his pocketbook, said, "Of course! ”

“ The men for whom I presume to speak, far from being hostile or indifferent to the call of revitalized business morality, are quite as deeply imbued with the potent spirit of business reform as are the men who make the country’s laws. ”

“ Aware of the unworthy reputation of its business men, in respect of business morality, the commercial schools, higher and lower, government and private, are placing emphasis upon the side of moral instruction and discipline in preparation for business life. ”

“ Why should men of affairs permit them, undisputed, unanswered, unchallenged, to arrogate to themselves the right to teach the world how we shall conduct our business?"
This speaker gives his reason for thinking that business men carry in their own bosoms and interests the guarantees of social welfare: "The purposes of business, the sense of responsibility to others, the danger of personal loss and possible failure, and the hope of reward are the surest guarantees for the conduct of affairs in the mutual interests of employer and employed." ”

“ The imposition of some recognized rules of conduct, safeguarding the security of life and property, is as necessary to the community as the existence of a coinage for the negotiation of commercial bargains; in fact it is more so. The two are analogous: the moral code must give effect to that first and universal principle of ethics expressed thus, "Do unto others as you would they should do unto you," which is only another way of saying, "You may expect others to treat you as you intend to treat them in similar circumstances." ”

“ I have made up my mind that I am going to write out some plain talks on righteousness and post them up around the offices and shops where everybody will have a chance to read them. I have explained my plan about these bulletins to a number of other manufacturers, and I think several of them are going to do the same thing. Besides the moral reasons for the policy, it's the only policy to build up a sound business on. Take even the men who would be willing to make profit for themselves by shady deals, [141] and they all want to buy goods for themselves of a firm that they can depend on. ”

“ Honest men could then engage in business, without violating either honor, or conscience! Cheating and lying, would no longer form a part of the business code! At all times, and under all circumstances, to respect the sacredness of life, and the natural rights of man, would become the universal watchword! Justice would dethrone charity! The high moral tone of the industrial and commercial world, would pervade the social and political. The injury of the weakest, would become the concern of the strongest. ”

“ They are not to be settled by any one scheme or by any one plan. The only way to approach them is by careful and conscientious thought, a minute examination of the facts at first hand and a rigid determination to act toward corporations and business interests in general in the same spirit of unswerving honesty that you would wish to display to a comrade or to a friend and that you would wish to be displayed toward yourselves. ”

“ The test of right and wrong conduct in business refers to this fundamental purpose,—that conduct only is praiseworthy which advances the time when every man capable of industry shall be rewarded for his labor, not only with a loaf of bread, but with hours of fruitful leisure. ”

“ It has been forced to accept the standard of ethics in accordance with which great affairs are managed. Your merchants and manufacturers have their own code, by no means a low one, and their theory of right and wrong. Between these two classes come the men with lesser titles or no titles at all, families which spring from roots centuries deep in the soil of England, men of some wealth, but not of great riches. They have their own standard, their code, their peculiar touchstone for distinguishing fine conduct from its imitation, their ethic. ”

“ It is not claimed by the company that there is no lessening of its profits, though it repudiates any philanthropic basis for its action. However, it must be admitted that a higher standard of justice here prevails than any one can expect to become immediately prevalent in the business world. ”

“ An open honesty that is such and seems such, that is not beyond the aim and reach of common men, that is taught in scores of forms in "Poor Richard's Almanack," and that each man ever likes [244] to meet with and so ought ever to put forth, is in fact a preventive of conflicts between laborers and employers, and would if properly manifested have prevented multitudes of such actual conflicts. Here is the main, almost the sole, point of contact between strict Ethics and the Economics. ”

“ The problem is not unlike that which confronts men engaged in every kind of business or professional work. Every business man, every lawyer, every physician finds himself called upon again and again to settle for himself the same ethical question. Competition in business not infrequently leads to questionable practices for getting the better of business rivals, employees, or customers ”

“ The community, however, in its longer life, is subject to [Pg 40] the full influence of the certain though sometimes slow-working relations of cause to effect, relations which, among other things, bring out the essential connection between economics and ethics, and which show in the long-run the just method to be the wise method. ”

“ All these are compatible with fair dealing as between man and man and rigid obedience to the law. Our aim is to help every honest man, every honest corporation, and our policy means in its ultimate analysis a healthy and prosperous expansion of the business activities of honest business men and honest corporations. ”

“ Honest people of business ability do not sell wheat by whim, potatoes for appearance sake, or calico by hysterics. Produce is measured by well-defined standards and disposed of in due regard to and careful consideration of the principles of economic distribution. Why be so careless in respect to moral conduct? Ethical principles ought to be, and I believe are more clearly defined than are economic principles. What is the rule, what the standard, are the first questions concerning any moral act. ”

“ Over against all the ownership rights which do and should accrue to such manager, social responsibilities on the part of the management arise and develop with every stage in the progress of the business. These responsibilities are obligations to coöperators in the business, and to the society more remotely affected by the business. These obligations fix the ethical limits of ownership, and define the duties incumbent on proprietorship. ”

“ As lecturer for ethical societies, controversial anti-Imperialist and semi-Socialist in the Press, and sometimes on the platform, I gradually brought my ethical and political thoughts and sentiments into what I still hold to be their true organic relations with the business life and its economic science. ”

“ It is enough to say that they are things the modern business man must have upon his conscience. For, if such offenses come by way of the business world, their remedies must also come, and indeed can only come, by that same path. ”

“ Canons of professional ethics have been adopted by lawyers and doctors; any member of these professions who is guilty of breaking these canons suffers loss of prestige and, almost inevitably, financial loss. So must it be in every industry; each must be organized and must formulate for itself its code; so that pressure from within will supplement pressure from without. There is plenty of capacity for loyalty, self-denial, and discipline in men, even in captains of industry ”