Nowhere to Go but Up

The topic, Ethics and Economics, is of critical importance in an economy such as ours, in which private ownership and control of eco? nomic resources carries with it immense power to undermine ethical standards. This paper explores two themes. First, that the overriding and political power of giant corporations requires a govern? ment role centered on protecting the public from the actions and deci? sions of entities that exist only to make a profit; and second, that such a government role must be supplemented with a strong labor movement dedicated to serving workers who would otherwise be reduced to deper? sonalized cogs in a machine controlled by a small elite with interests not shared by the direct producers, the workers. Too many economists have a tradition of explicitly rejecting ethical principles as part of their field. In assuming economic man, that is, each woman and seeking to maximize her or his utility, they deduce that people exhibit behavior which, when added up over all individuals, produces the greatest abundance of income and an ethi? cally acceptable income distribution. Economic man is the Smithian economics taught in our universi? ties today. But there is more, as a bit of history should make clear. In Smith's time ? and continuing through at least the early 1870s ? the basic mission of classical economics was to explain not the behavior of individuals, but the distribution of income and wealth among classes, that is, among workers, capitalists, and landlords. As such, economics was aimed at explaining what is essentially an ethical question, namely, the basis, amount, and propriety of the different classes' claims to soci? ety's total income. That central ethical concern, all but lost in the so called neoclassical economics of our era which sacrifices explanation for some predictive power, must return to center stage if the great majority of people are to see the economy as more than a web of unequal power relations in which they are powerless. A return to ethical values in looking at the economy could not be more imperative. Two years ago, the frustration of the powerless and the cunning of the powerful combined to elect an administration com? mitted to the belief that an ouer-concern with ethics ? with the distri

Corporation · Economics · Economy · Political science · Sociology · Economic Theory and Institutions · Law

• Business, Economics and Ethics

  Joseph W Mcguire•Review of Social Economy•1982

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• Confucianism and the Economic Order of Taiwan

  Open Access•Li‐teh Sun•International Journal of Social…•1986

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