Hi David,
We really do have a mindset problem in academia, according to what I read of your post:
Re: required course in Securities Law, ethics etc. Similarly, an anatomy class for Medical Doctors doesn't have to cover ethics either
I think you are comparing apples and oranges. With anatomy, you have your basic healthy anatomy which everyone either has or not, as the case may be, and the course will clearly point out what is pathological.
In comparison, in Securities Law, what is pathological is often the norm. Like the perversion of accountancy for stock options is the US tax code.
So the two aren't in the least comparable. Securities law, and all law for that matter, are human constructs. Not products of nature. I simply can't see the use of your comparison.
Re: In an MBA that would belong in an ethics class or something along that line.
Well, one of the glaring faults with biz-schul education is that the ethics class has far too often become considered "optional". No pun intended. My whole point is being well made by your post. As a culture, we seem to have lost our moral compass and not noticed it. This is devastating, both in the long run, and in the short run for the chumps in 401(k) plans at the likes of a criminal operation like End Run and Global Crassing. This is what I rail against.
I'll bet you dollars to donuts (Short KKD!) that you will not say to your acolytes in your management class that they would be morally wrong to treat employees the way Ken Lay or Gary Winnick did in their rush to their own centimillions. Now will you? You won't talk about fairness in the workplace and the creation of an equitable society.
No, instead you'll talk about stock option revolvers, preferential pensions, and golden parachutes. All those things that managers love. But that don't benefit anyone other than a small elite.
Have I got this about right? As a teacher of management, your only goal is to make management more distant financially, spiritually and ethically from the rest of humanity than it has ever been before?
Re: Ethical considerations come into mainstream economics under the heading of "welfare economics".
I'm aghast at this notion. Welfare? Holy sh*t! I thought ethics was where we said Ken Lay is a criminal. And so is Jeff Skilling and Andy Fastow. I had no idea that in the academy we have become so unhinged from a moral compass that ethics has been reduced to a mere supplementary charity concept. Thanks so much for clearing up how utter morally bankrupt the managerial class has become. I'm feeling much better about tearing down all the walls now and siding with al Quada against an obviously morally inferior culture.
Re: On the other hand my environmental economics course is being developed from scratch and that will focus more heavily on ethical/distribution issues
Right. The ethical distribution of air pollution and asthma. I'd love to hear you rationalize privatizing all wealth and socializing all the health risks associated with the creation of the wealth. That'd be rich. Or how about the absurdity of Sen. Tom Daschle using a midnight "earmark" to stick the citizens of South Dakota with the cleanup bill for a gold mine that profitted a Canadian corporation, Barrick, which doesn't want to pay to clean up the mine it is abandoning in the Black Hills. I'd love to hear an economic apologist for the corporations explain away that travesty. I'm sure you've got similar horror stories with BHP or Rio Tinto out on Bouganville, eh?
All the best, Ray |
