I'm in agreement that ethical behaviour spans economic classes, just as it spans ethnicity, gender, sexual preference, cat people or dog people.
The thing I believe to be different is the scale of the breach of ethics and our perception of it. For example, everyone's blood boils when we read about the person who swindles $30,000.00 in Food Stamps and calls for the shutdown of the entire welfare system. Yet, at the same time, we read about Wall Street big wigs bilking billions of dollars and plunging hundreds of thousands into foreclosure... and we blame the people who are upside down on their mortgages. We tend to give the rich a break. And I'm not talking about the $200,000.00 annual salary dolts... that's chump change to the uber rich and their multi billions. To us, $30,000.00 is terms we can relate to and we want to take that Welfare Fraud and string him up by his balls, don't we. We really don't care about the greed mongers at Goldman Sachs, because we cannot relate to the numbers because it is far beyong out comprehension. We let them off the hook because we don't really know if what they are doing is THAT wrong, do we? I think it is because we cannot come close to even imagining how much a $800,000,000.00 or $1,000,000,000.00 is. Yet, to them, $200,000.00 is the annual caviar allowance.
I'm not saying one unethical decision is lesser or worse than the other... I believe we see the person commiting the breach of ethics and judge him/her based upon his/her standing in our society.
Allen Fieldhouse, home of the 2008 NCAA men's Basketball Champions! Go Jayhawks!
Hail, Hail!!!
0
brianlux
Moving through All Kinds of Terrain. Posts: 42,428
What the article doesn't seem to define is, what is rich? Compared to third world countries, most American are rich. In an average American household there are how many TV's, cell phones, cars, computers? Yes, most of us are rich.
The other question that comes to my mind is, to what extent is the acquisition of our income ethical? Lot's of gray area there. Let's use the business I'm in for example. I don't make a lot of money selling books (well, ok, if you're from Burundi I'm stinkin' rich) and I try my best to make a decent but fair living. If I sell a trade paper copy of To Kill a Mockingbird I'm making a customer happy, I make some change and feel good. In my first year as a book seller I made my biggest sale thus far in terms of pure profit- a first edition Jack London (a lesser title) that I found on a table marked "free" in a yard sale. I told the person running the yard sale that I was sure the book was valuable and I HAD to pay for it. He looked at me, smiled and said, "Can't you read? The sign on that table says free!" I replied, "Yes, but really, this book..." and he replied, "Man, you really can't read, can you? It says FREE!" So I took the book. I don't think that was unethical, but it surely felt so. I later sold that book to another book dealer at a Book fair for $100. The dealer was quite happy knowing he too could turn a profit on the book but never-the-less, I felt uneasy about making such a tremendous profit. I've since learned that this sort of thing only happens once or twice in a book dealers career and the rest of the time it's mostly hard work for little money but still, that transaction felt a bit unethical to me.
So where do we draw the line?
"Pretty cookies, heart squares all around, yeah!" -Eddie Vedder, "Smile"
What the article doesn't seem to define is, what is rich? Compared to third world countries, most American are rich. In an average American household there are how many TV's, cell phones, cars, computers? Yes, most of us are rich.
The other question that comes to my mind is, to what extent is the acquisition of our income ethical? Lot's of gray area there. Let's use the business I'm in for example. I don't make a lot of money selling books (well, ok, if you're from Burundi I'm stinkin' rich) and I try my best to make a decent but fair living. If I sell a trade paper copy of To Kill a Mockingbird I'm making a customer happy, I make some change and feel good. In my first year as a book seller I made my biggest sale thus far in terms of pure profit- a first edition Jack London (a lesser title) that I found on a table marked "free" in a yard sale. I told the person running the yard sale that I was sure the book was valuable and I HAD to pay for it. He looked at me, smiled and said, "Can't you read? The sign on that table says free!" I replied, "Yes, but really, this book..." and he replied, "Man, you really can't read, can you? It says FREE!" So I took the book. I don't think that was unethical, but it surely felt so. I later sold that book to another book dealer at a Book fair for $100. The dealer was quite happy knowing he too could turn a profit on the book but never-the-less, I felt uneasy about making such a tremendous profit. I've since learned that this sort of thing only happens once or twice in a book dealers career and the rest of the time it's mostly hard work for little money but still, that transaction felt a bit unethical to me.
So where do we draw the line?
...
Sometimes... you just have to graciously accept.
Allen Fieldhouse, home of the 2008 NCAA men's Basketball Champions! Go Jayhawks!
Hail, Hail!!!
Comments
The thing I believe to be different is the scale of the breach of ethics and our perception of it. For example, everyone's blood boils when we read about the person who swindles $30,000.00 in Food Stamps and calls for the shutdown of the entire welfare system. Yet, at the same time, we read about Wall Street big wigs bilking billions of dollars and plunging hundreds of thousands into foreclosure... and we blame the people who are upside down on their mortgages. We tend to give the rich a break. And I'm not talking about the $200,000.00 annual salary dolts... that's chump change to the uber rich and their multi billions. To us, $30,000.00 is terms we can relate to and we want to take that Welfare Fraud and string him up by his balls, don't we. We really don't care about the greed mongers at Goldman Sachs, because we cannot relate to the numbers because it is far beyong out comprehension. We let them off the hook because we don't really know if what they are doing is THAT wrong, do we? I think it is because we cannot come close to even imagining how much a $800,000,000.00 or $1,000,000,000.00 is. Yet, to them, $200,000.00 is the annual caviar allowance.
I'm not saying one unethical decision is lesser or worse than the other... I believe we see the person commiting the breach of ethics and judge him/her based upon his/her standing in our society.
Hail, Hail!!!
The other question that comes to my mind is, to what extent is the acquisition of our income ethical? Lot's of gray area there. Let's use the business I'm in for example. I don't make a lot of money selling books (well, ok, if you're from Burundi I'm stinkin' rich) and I try my best to make a decent but fair living. If I sell a trade paper copy of To Kill a Mockingbird I'm making a customer happy, I make some change and feel good. In my first year as a book seller I made my biggest sale thus far in terms of pure profit- a first edition Jack London (a lesser title) that I found on a table marked "free" in a yard sale. I told the person running the yard sale that I was sure the book was valuable and I HAD to pay for it. He looked at me, smiled and said, "Can't you read? The sign on that table says free!" I replied, "Yes, but really, this book..." and he replied, "Man, you really can't read, can you? It says FREE!" So I took the book. I don't think that was unethical, but it surely felt so. I later sold that book to another book dealer at a Book fair for $100. The dealer was quite happy knowing he too could turn a profit on the book but never-the-less, I felt uneasy about making such a tremendous profit. I've since learned that this sort of thing only happens once or twice in a book dealers career and the rest of the time it's mostly hard work for little money but still, that transaction felt a bit unethical to me.
So where do we draw the line?
-Eddie Vedder, "Smile"
Sometimes... you just have to graciously accept.
Hail, Hail!!!