The Decline of Ethical Behavior in American Business

There are signs of problems everywhere. A meltdown in financial markets resulting from a government wanting to make home ownership easier for people, and blackmailing lenders to reduce credit standards. Lenders, seeing a way to make a quick buck, by writing mortgages that misled borrowers, and then reselling the mortgages to investors for a quick profit. Investors, creating incomprehensible mortgage backed securities that avoided regulation, and that were so complicated they could make enormous commissions on them. Borrowers, sometimes lying on loan applications, sometimes taking on way more debt than they could afford to pay, to try to make a buck in the housing market. Politicians turning the backs on their oversight responsibilities and taking campaign contributions from the perpetrators. There were breakdowns in moral and ethical behavior throughout the system.

This financial meltdown shows us the breadth and depth of this moral crisis, but we see signs of ethical collapse all around us. Credit Card companies misleading borrowers and charging outrageous fees and interest rates. Boards of Directors approving ridiculous compensation levels for senior managers that are unrelated to what other people in the organizations are making, and not based on performance, while receiving high amounts of Directors compensation themselves. Businesses making it so difficult for customers to receive support that they give up trying. Health insurance companies taking advantage of people by dropping them or charging outrageous premiums at times when they are most vulnerable. Businesses laying off some workers while forcing others to work long hours, and having to deal with almost incapacitating levels of stress. Businesses and business organizations spending fortunes lobbying government, and giving campaign contributions to politicians, paying more attention to them than they do their customers or employees. Businesses preparing fraudulent financial statements, and once independent CPAs, looking the other way, and signing off on them, so they can get lucrative consulting contracts from their audit clients.

This isn’t the way things used to be. We used to be able to rely on a certain level of honesty, fairness, and commitment to customers and employees. Why was that? What is different now?

Chuck Colson, in one his books, wrote about being asked to speak about ethics at an Ivy League business school. After meeting with them, he concluded that it was pointless to talk with most of the instructors and students because they had no basis or foundation for ethics. You see, they do not believe in any source of absolute truth. For them, all truth is relative. Your truth may be different than mine. Truth, or what is right or wrong, depends on the circumstances. Utility, or getting the outcomes you want, becomes the driving factor. Guess where a lot of these Ivy League graduates ended up? Wall Street and Government, and many more move into management positions in business.

In the past, Judeo-Christian beliefs about what is right and wrong, were the default position in our society. Even though everyone was not Christian or Jewish, there was sort-of an unofficial understanding of what the underlying basis for ethics and morality was. Today that is gone, and the reality is that there is no underlying basis for ethics and morality, so anything goes. That means that I can do whatever I want, given my own take on morality. We are beginning to see what the consequences of this kind of thinking are. We are still early in this game. Thinks are going to get much worse. That is where we come in as Christian business men and women.

The reality is that we are the last bulwark against a total collapse of business ethics and morality. That is a lot of pressure, but we shouldn’t kid ourselves into thinking otherwise. It is important for us to get clear about the role that God wants us to play in this time and place. On the one hand, it is discouraging and scary. On the other, what an opportunity for Christians to make a critical difference in our country and the world.

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