Michael, here are two more thoughts, frameworks, points of view, part of which I have shared already:
1. Peter F. Drucker: Business Ethics: The purpose of business is to create jobs, for jobs enable people to live, and people have a right to live. Or as Russell Kirk put it, the survival of the human race trumps all other considerations.
2. Joseph Schumpeter: Creative Destruction: Profits exists as a measure of efficiency and as a source of resources for innovation. Profits do not exist for financial speculations in casino stock markets. The Germans grasp this, with good reason. They reinvest profits into improved equipment and training on a continuous basis, and the result is a country that A) has the highest export business in the world in terms of absolute value, and B) has a high-wage, high-benefit workforce at the same time! You do not have to be a Third World country to compete. Germany is proof. Let's talk about the German example, model. Germany learned from its history. We have not. As the old saying goes, winners learn nothing. The losers learn from the pain of losing, and this pain forces them to rethink why they lost.
My German information comes from first-hand observations by David McWilliams, Ireland's top business writer. www.davidmcwilliams.ie
3. We tend to frame the debate into simplistic alternatives: wide-open Darwinian looting or overwhelming governmental control of everything. Rather, it is a balance. I hope you can use these three viewpoints. Your humble servant here has come to accept them as his own.
Good luck with your projects. Keep me posted.
Paul
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