Editorial Questionable ethics

Big business has been on the ropes lately, taking a beating for its perceived lack of ethics. Practitioners of capitalism, so the argument goes, follow no moral code whatsoever, save that of total selfishness. Big business is analogous to the Ku Klux Klan. Whatever big business supports must be suspect in the eyes of decent human beings.

If you want to smear someone’s reputation, say they’re tied in with big business. If you want to make political gains, accuse your opponent of being sympathetic to big business. If you want to deflate an argument, credit those who advance it as spokesmen for big business.

It doesn’t matter that there is no clear idea of how big a business must be to be big business. In fact, that glossing over of an essential definition is to the advantage of those who find big business somehow despicable. It insinuates that any commercial enterprise no matter how small that enterprise may really be, works within the same moral vacuum. The implication is that any business is bad unless it’s my business.

Yes, business is motivated by profit and, yes, that desire for profit can sometimes lead to a mentality of winning at any cost to others. In those instances business, like any other institution in our society, deserves criticism. But it is naive to think that the only contribution business makes is negative or that whatever positive impact it has comes solely by chance when its self-serving motives happen to coincide with the good of others.

Arden Haynes, chairman and chief executive officer of Imperial Oil, had this to say on the subject of corporate ethics at a speech made at Trent University recently: “But let’s also examine the more basic question: Is the free enterprise system a positive or negative force in our society? We’ve acknowledged some of the negatives, so let’s look at some of the positives.

“First, * * * the free-enterprise system is well named because it promotes both freedom and enterprise. Freedom to work. Freedom to move. Freedom to earn. Freedom to change. Freedom to choose. Freedom to grow. Freedom to be ambitious. Freedom to start an enterprise, make it grow, and reap rewards from it. Freedom to succeed. Freedom to fail, too, of course, but along with that, freedom to hope that your children might succeed where you couldn’t.

“Those are the positive characteristics of capitalism and they are considerable. They are, in fact, what made our society what it is today — for better or for worse. * * *

“Yes, it is a system that is based on the pursuit of profit. * * * But profit is the only thing that allows our society to grow and our standard of living to keep getting better. Profit is the mother of invention, investment, enterprise, growth, prosperity and, ultimately, economic freedom — without which there is no freedom at all.

“Moreover, profit is what feeds the hopper that provides the social services by which we support the needy and deserving in our society. Without a successful, profitable, growing business sector, we simply couldn’t provide those services. Nor, for that matter, could we go on providing employment, opportunity and improving standards of living for everyone else.”

Those who belittle business and its contributions weaken the entire fabric of our society, even though it may suit their needs. In truth, it is business, both big and small, that permits a diversified society and strives to improve the way of life that everyone can enjoy.

Ironically, it is business that will go about building a better world, regardless of unfounded criticism, while those who stand on the sidelines and criticize can only take what’s offered them.