The Star Ledger Sunday Business Section recently printed a front page article called, “Shortage puts lives in Jeopardy: Cancer drugs’ scarcity a persistent problem” by Susan Todd. Todd highlights that in New Jersey there is a notable shortage of some cancer treatment drugs. These shortages began to show up about four years ago. The cause seems to be manufacturing problem, supplies of ingredients, or ceasing to make unprofitable drugs.  Profitability is argued as the key reason.

What is notable is that New Jersey is the drug company state.  Most major drug companies are headquartered in New Jersey.  So the shortage here is very notable.

What is the take away relative to ethics? Regulation and other factors that increase costs may limit supplies.  Yes, this is basic economics, but it is also the law of business.  Business has to make a profit to remain in business.  Governments and NGOs do not.  When the government intrudes it brings in the profit not essential orientation.

That the U.S. has drug shortages should be a wake-up call on the environment for business and the resulting quality of life. It must be pointed out that the wonderful progress in living standards over the past 200 years is mostly due to innovative businesses.  We should understand that even as a community can go forward, it can also go backward.  A great example is the City of Detroit and the decay of the past 50 years.

Please Share Your Thoughts!

The second article is just below it. “Welcome to the United States of Puritanism”, by Paul Mulshine, reviews the unreasonable standards being applied to the security details that had some recreation while preparing for the president’s visits.  Mulshine argues that after hours recreation is none of our business, when it is legal in the host country.

It is fair to say that each article has more points than the brief summaries above.  But they suffice for clarity of the analysis problem.  The first talks about the moral compass and the second says it can only be judged based on office hours not personal time.  But we know that the answer to both is the full person.  A business is not an entity, rather it is a collection of individuals.  The individuals create the culture of the company.  The whole individual comes to work. Therefore, the behavior of the individual in his or her off hours is telling as to the values the individual is bringing to work.  It is a warning of how that individual will do the job and how that individual will act when pressures on the job arise.

So the answers to both situations is indeed the Puritan approach to rules, values and life. Indeed it is the Mulshines of the world that encourage the loss of compass we are seeing. The business schools teach and the media reinforce the Mulshine way.

Your Thoughts?

I.Covenant and Theft

II. Global Level- The Theft of an Idea

III. National Level – Identity Theft

IV. Organizational Level -Theft of Relationships

V. Individual Level – Theft by Renegotiating the Deal

VI. For Love Nor Money

To read an excerpt from this Chapter Click Here. In this excerpt David will pose the question, “Can we seek to please God in our Business?”  He will also address money -”What horrible stuff it is!  Or, is it?”

To read the entire chapter, purchase a copy of BET:Stealing.

The book, How the Church Fails Businesspeople, is our featured Book of the Month for April. Join the Center’s Book of the Month Forum HERE and join in on the discussion HERE!

Two articles debate election laws and question whether we should allow a state to put ID requirements in place at the voting stations.

The USA Today editorial is in support of NOT requiring ID as a means to protect against voter fraud.  Greg Abbott, Texas attorney General, opposes this and defends why Texas has put in a voter ID requirement to minimize voter fraud. It is interesting that both sides recognize the prevalence of fraud, and acknowledge fraud to be a problem in the voting system.

The question is: How do we balance the actions needed to prevent fraud?

The USA Today Editor says “individual rights transcend the protection of fraud”. In other words, if a person might be prevented from voting due to the inconvenience of getting an ID, then we should allow everybody to vote without ID’s.

Philosophically, this is the “one versus many.” So the many can vote but the one might suffer because they couldn’t get around to getting an ID.  The Texas Attorney General feels if a person wants to vote, they can get an ID. This doesn’t cost them money, it’s not inconvenient, we make it possible. He believes this is a matter of individual responsibility embedded in the right to vote.

As a matter of business, fraud is real and must be prevented. Collective individual responsibility goes out the window because the full responsibility for protecting against fraud is put solely on the particular business in question.  See the difference?

It is modern social thinking that has allowed us to come up with this notion that people are not necessarily responsible and therefore can’t burdened with individual responsibility. In business you don’t have that option. The reality of the marketplace is that if you don’t stay focused on the disciplines of the individual responsibility and doing everything that it takes to protect against fraud, the marketplace will crush you. It’s an important business ethics discussion because we have to recognize that the standards in community have more bandwidth than the market allows us to have in business.

What are your thoughts?