| Abstract: | Prof. Lodge explores the use of ideology as a concept to understand ethical issues. He observes an ideological transition occurring in the United States, one that has been under way for some 80 years from what he refers to as Individualism to Communitarianism. Many ethical questions depend for an answer on which ideology is dominant or which is appropriate.George Cabot Lodge, professor of business administration at Harvard Business School, is well known as both a scholar and a statesman. He served in the Eisenhower Administration as Director of Information for the United States Department of Labor (1954–58) and Assistant Secretary of Labor for International Affairs (1958–61). Lodge is a member of the board of trustees of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the World Peace Foundation, and the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial. He is the author of Spearheads of Democracy (1962), Engine of Change: United States Interests and Revolution in Latin America (1970) and The New American Ideology (1975).This paper was written in March 1977 for the Conference on Business Ethics at Bentley College, Boston, Mass. In spite of indications to the contrary, the author believes that it is as valid in 1982 as it was in 1977. |
