This Time, It’s Personal

John Paul Rollert 9/26/2014

A Presentation on the Evolving Ethics of

Commercial Relationships for Belly

Carve out an “All Is Permitted” space for business 1

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Business is Business

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Distinguish personal behavior from professional behavior

Suggest “Greed Is Good”—for us and for everyone else

“It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer,

or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their

regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to

their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them

of our own necessities but of their advantages.”

--Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations (1776)

What’s In Our Interest?

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It’s A Small World After All

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Good Credit =Good Behavior “[M]any things a tradesman may perhaps allow himself to do, and

may be lawfully done, but if they should be known to be part of his

character, they would sink deep into his trading name, his credit would

suffer by it, and, in the end, it might be his ruin.”

How to Succeed in Business

(At Least in the 18th-Century): Daniel Defoe

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1

“Business for Life”

How to Succeed in Business

(At Least in the 18th-Century): Daniel Defoe

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2 “Trade must not be entered into as a thing of light concern; it is

called business very properly, for it is a business for life, and

ought to be followed as one of the great business[es] of life . . .

this is one reason why so many tradesmen come to so hasty a

conclusion of their affairs: it must be followed with the full

attention of the mind, and full attendance of the person…”

Delight in Work

How to Succeed in Business

(At Least in the 18th-Century): Daniel Defoe

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3 “To follow a trade, and not to love and delight in it, is making a

slavery, or bondage, not a business: the shop becomes a

Bridewell, and the warehouse a house of correction to the

tradesman, if he does not delight in his trade.”

Close Attention to Personal

Reputation “In order to secure my Credit and Character as a Tradesman, I

took care not only to be in Reality Industrious & frugal, but to

avoid all Appearances of the Contrary. I drest plainly; I was

seen at no Places of idle Diversion; I never went out a-fishing or

shooting; a Book, indeed, sometimes debauch’d me from my

Work, but that was seldom, snug, & gave no Scandal and to

show that I was not above my Business, I sometimes brought

home the Paper I purchas’d at the Stores, thro’ the Streets on a

Wheelbarrow…”

How to Succeed in Business

(At Least in the 18th-Century): Benjamin Franklin

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1

Cultivation of Virtue

How to Succeed in Business

(At Least in the 18th-Century): Benjamin Franklin

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2 • Temperance

• Silence

• Order

• Resolution

• Frugality

• Industry

• Sincerity

• Justice

• Moderation

• Cleanliness

• Tranquility

• Chastity

• Humility

Concern for Community

How to Succeed in Business

(At Least in the 18th-Century): Benjamin Franklin

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3 “That as we enjoy great Advantages from the Inventions of

others, we should be glad of an Opportunity to serve others by

any Invention of ours, and this we should do freely and

generously.”

“Human Felicity is produc'd not so much by great Pieces of

good Fortune that seldom happen, as by little Advantages that

occur every Day.”

1. Good Credit = Good Behavior

2. “Business for Life”

3. Delight in Work

Ethics of Intimate Capitalism

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4. Close Attention to Personal Reputation

5. Cultivation of Virtue

6. Concern for Community

Bottom line: Not only is being a good person not

at odds with being successful in business, being a

good person is essential to that success.

The Industrial Revolution Arrives

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Brave New World

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Brave New World

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Between 1800 and 1850, the number of European cities boasting more than 100,000

inhabitants rose from 22 to 47.

In Great Britain, the proportion of the population living in urban areas was 25% in 1831. It

had grown to more than 50% by 1851 and had reached 77% by 1901.

Ominous Signs

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“Formerly articles were manufactured at the

domestic hearth or in small shops which formed

part of the household. The master and his

apprentices worked side-by-side….[Today,] we

assemble thousands of operatives in the factory, in

the mine, and in the counting-house, of whom the

employer can know little or nothing, and to whom

the employer is little more than a myth. All

intercourse between them is at an end. Rigid

Castes are formed, and, as usual, mutual ignorance

breeds mutual distrust.”

--Andrew Carnegie, The Gospel of Wealth (1889)

Ominous Signs

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The commercial elite “has left remaining no other

nexus between man and man than naked self-

interest, than callous ‘cash payment.’”

--Karl Marx, The Communist Manifesto (1848)

The Hallmarks of Anonymous Capitalism

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Depersonalization of Commercial Relationships 1

Less Trust Between Employers, Employees, and Customers 2

Weaker Sense of Community Obligation 3

Proliferation of Cutthroat Commerce 4

Rise of the “Bottom Line” as Only Line of Concern 5

Faith in “Invisible Hand” as Guarantor of Common Good 6

Bottom line: Ethics and economics are not only largely

irrelevant to each other, the two may actually be at odds. 18

The World is Getting Smaller

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1. Good Credit = Good Behavior

2. “Business for Life”

3. Delight in Work

What’s Old Is New Again

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4. Close Attention to Personal Reputation

5. Cultivation of Virtue

6. Concern for Community

Bottom line: Good Behavior = Good Business

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Thank you.