Snapshots of the Future: Darfur,Katrina, and Maple Sugar (Climate Change,the Less Well-Off and Business Ethics)

Climate change represents a significant challenge to the entire planet and its inhabitants. While few, if any, will be able to escape totally the effects of climate change, it will fall most heavily, at least initially, on the poor, regardless of where they reside. We may observe already possible scenarios. The tragic situation in Darfur may be less an ethnic conflict and more a clash between marginal farmers and herdsmen in an increasingly more arid local climate. More powerful storms on the scale of hurricane Katrina, which affected the poor more than other economic groups, may become commonplace. The alteration of the maple sugar cycle may be a harbinger of stress on the world’s flora and fauna that humanity depends upon. Mainstream climatologists have concluded that human behavior, primarily the effects of industrialization, causes human-induced climate change. Left unchecked climate change will have serious consequences for humanity, especially the poor. Business, the primary agent of industrialization, is both the problem and the solution. This paper will apply the ethics of philosophers John Rawls (the difference principle), Robert Nozick (the Lockean Proviso, climate is a natural resource), and Aristotle, along with the work of strategist Michael Porter. Understanding how climate change management fits into a firm’s strategic opportunity will contribute to the ability of business to develop the technologies and business processes necessary to cope with climate change. The paper will conclude with a brief discussion of GE’s Ecomagination program as an example of a promising moral response to climate change.     

Money Matters (Not Only,but Also)

Journal of Quantitative Economics -     

Virtue Is Good Business: Confucianism as a Practical Business Ethics

This paper argues Confucianism is a compelling managerial ethic for several reasons: 1) Confucianism is compatible with accepted managerial practices. 2) It requires individuals and organizations to make a positive contribution to society. 3) Recognizes hierarchy as an important organizational principle and demands managerial moral leadership. 4) The Confucian "golden Rule" and virtues provide a moral basis for the hierarchical and cooperative relationships critical to organizational success. The paper applies Confucianism to the H. B. Fuller in Honduras: Street Children and Substance Abuse case.     

Saving,Lending and Interest Rates: A Critique (of the Model) of Financial Liberalisation in India

The case for financial liberalisation is founded on the neoclassical proposition that savings causes investment and that the interest rate tends to move to equate the two. We find little support for this thesis from the experience of India. Alternatively, we suggest that the Post Keynesian approach that includes the liquidity preferences of banks might be a fruitful way to examine the dynamics of an economy in transition.     

Macroeconomics from a higher standpoint

Dr A Vasudevan and Prof P Ray are scholars and teachers of monetary theory as well as practitioners of the art of monetary policy. The short message of the slim volume under review is that the weights attached to the two domains are variable. Thus, politics matters with the finitude of power in office. In practice, discretion scores over rules. The Phillips curve is askew and the problem of adding financial stability to the tradeoff or tradein might not be an unsolvable problem. The authors make a case for the revival of planning complete with sectoral distinctions and with government choice of green techniques and long-term finance. They ruminate on the unravelling of the “impossible trinity” and resurrect Keynes’ plan for an International Clearing Union. In sum, a “philosophy of development” trumps the Theil-Tinbergen theorem on instruments and targets.     

Managerial Harmony: The Confucian Ethics of Peter F. Drucker

“Confucianism⋯ is a universal ethic in which the rules and imperatives of behavior hold for all individuals.” (Peter F. Drucker, Forbes, 1981). Peter Drucker is credited as the founder of modern American management. In his distinguished career he has written widely and authoritatively on the subject and to a large extent his work possesses a distinctive ethical tone. This paper will argue that Confucian ethics underlie much of Drucker's writing. Both Drucker and Confucius view power as the central ethical issue in human relations. They emphasize authority, leadership, legitimacy, hierarchy, interdependence and individual ethical responsibility in their analysis of human affairs. Drucker views the development of large-scale formal organizations and the concomitant rise of the managerial class as the most significant developments of the 20th century, which makes the management of interdependent roles and relationships a central ethical challenge. Confucius, and the early Confucians, understood human relationships as based upon hierarchy, interdependence and personal ethics. The paper will analyze Drucker's work in light of the early Confucian Classics (The Analects, The Mencius, The Great Learning and The Doctrine of the Mean). Drucker, himself, considers The End of Economic Man (1939), The Future of Industrial Man (1942), Concept of the Corporation (1983), and The Essential Drucker (2001) as his most important and influential works. The paper will analyze these along with other works by Drucker as appropriate.