While sitting at a bar, a man noticed a good-looking woman and tried to engage her in a conversation. "Excuse me," he said, "would you sleep with me for a million dollars?"
Not knowing what to make of this, she looked him over, and after a moment or so, answered, "For a million dollars, I would sleep with you."
He thought a moment, and then asked, "Would you sleep with me for $1?" "What kind of girl do you think I am?" she replied indignantly.
"We've established what kind of girl you are," he responded with a smile. "Now we're just haggling over price."
It's an old joke, but I like it because it illustrates a part of the human condition and the dilemma that we all face when confronted with the choice between capital gain and a test of our own moral and ethical fortitude. Morals and ethics somehow seem tied to goodness and the divine, but that doesn't mean that an ethical choice needs to have religious overtones. As children, our parents, schoolteachers, religious leaders and even our television programmers teach us ethics and morals. We have all been made aware of right and wrong, and we know that heroes either have a strong moral and ethical strength or attain these attributes after going through a transformation due to a long, hard struggle with the dark forces. Temptations from our everyday existence constantly seduce us and test our ethical convictions, and though everyone may have a moral compass, not every compass is pointed due north.
Maybe there isn't a real "due north" in an ethical and moral sense. Moral and ethical codes differ due to circumstance, and "due north" is a setting based upon perspective and location. For example, certain crime organizations have an ethical code that I'm sure has a different setting for "due north" than most religious organizations. Prison populations have their own ethical and moral settings that probably differ from the armed forces' codes of honor and ethical bearing. On a certain level, our country's own Civil War was a war of ethics and moral conduct, as was our conflict in World War II an epic struggle between the "ethical" and the "unethical" forces in this world. Five years into the new millennium, we are still confronted by enemies who live by a different moral code, and we find ourselves being tested in new ways as we try to uphold our nation's adherence to a set of values and ethics that, in the past, we have believed to be the apogee of noble behavior.
As depicted in the previously mentioned joke, money changes everything and business has its own criteria for setting the moral compass. Michael Douglas, as Gordon Gekko in the 1987 movie Wall Street, says, "The point is, ladies and gentlemen, that greed, for a lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right. Greed works." Apparently, greed works for some and not for others as evidenced by the collapse of various major corporations and the incarceration of their leaders. Oil companies are making unprecedented profits, major retail firms are profiting while not compensating their employees for longer hours, credit card companies have a free reign to raise interest rates as they please and there are many in our government who want to capitalize on our country's every resource by strip mining, logging and drilling in our national parks and wildlife refuges.
Gluttony and covetousness are forms of greed, both of which are also "deadly sins," and since there is a cold-bloodedness associated with the selfishness of greed, it's not surprising that Michael Douglas' character is aptly named after a lizard. Capitalism, in its pure form, is good in that it sparks competition and choice. It allows for a free-market society where any company can vie for the consumer dollar and, in theory, it keeps everyone honest in their dealings by having to comply with a market value for their services or goods. Unchecked and with a different set of coordinates, "due north" on the capitalist compass leads to monopoly, self-serving behavior and greed.
The SR business is no different than any other business in that we exist to provide a service and make a profit at the same time. We may not be prone to the same cupidity as some in other fields of work, but avarice rears its ugly little head in many ways, and our ethics can be questioned. For example, you rent a customer a speaker for a fair-market rate of $50, but the speaker has seen better days. It works, but the grill is pushed in, the wood is chipped and it needs a paint job. You have charged top-market dollar for a piece of gear that is not in its best form, and while the equipment is functional, your business ethic has now come into question. If you are willing to cut corners to make a profit on a relatively small level, what will you do when it comes to larger jobs where there might be an element of danger involved because of rigging, cartage or proper power? Ethical behavior does not necessarily need to be determined by some apocalyptic struggle between good and evil, and invariably, one is often tested in the form of everyday conduct.
The question of what one will do for money becomes tricky when related to a business proposition since, by definition, we are "in business" to make money. Marlon Brando, playing Don Vito Corleone in the movie The Godfather, refused to buy into the drug trade because he was ethically opposed to it, even though he could have made a huge profit. This seemed strange coming from a man who killed for business with a credo of "it's nothing personal; it's just business." Of course, he finally relented after being shot by other gangsters, and agreed to a limited involvement in the drug trade as long as the drugs were confined to certain neighborhoods… now that's ethics!
In a 1775 speech, the fiery orator Patrick Henry, as he pleaded a case for war with the British, decried, "Give me liberty or give me death." Not many people would cleave to such a lofty ethic and knowing some of Henry's history, so I'm not sure that the phrase was spoken as anything more than chest-pounding rhetoric on the eve of war, but the valor of a man of principal cannot be denied. We are only as good as the words and deeds we perform, and that is not only on a personal level, but when we are conducting business as well. After World War II, many captured Nazi SS officers pleaded not guilty to war crimes and claimed that they were only following orders from their superiors. Unfortunately for them, the international court saw matters differently and found them guilty of war crimes.
Considering that all ethical questions do not fit conveniently into a good or evil category, here's a tricky question in a time of political correctness: What if someone comes to you and asks you to provide equipment for a rally during the off-month of January, when business is usually slow? You are appreciative of the business, but you find out that the organization is a religious or political group that you do not like or support because of their basic beliefs. What do you do?
On the one hand, you are an audio company that provides a service to the public for a price and the work is being offered to you at a time when business is slow. In the end, it shouldn't matter what type of program is being played through the speakers. After all, it's not your program and does not express your feelings or thoughts; you are just doing your job and providing a client with equipment. On the other hand, you do not want to aid this particular group in amplifying or broadcasting their message due to your own personal convictions; therefore, because of your strong principles, you tell them you are busy and cannot help out. Just a note; I am not speaking of a bias toward any particular group or another, it may just be that you don't approve of the way the would-be client treats their employees or how they conduct their business. Still, the prospective client, unaware of your code of ethics, is adamant about using your services and makes you an offer that even a man of principle and ethical fortitude should not be able to refuse. You might easily justify taking the job because of the exorbitant amount of money being offered, and most likely, nobody would fault you, but the point is that we do have choices, and while we are in business to make a profit, we should be careful not to compromise our ethics to blindly serve mannon. Otherwise, we may find ourselves in the laughable position of the girl in the joke…just haggling over price.
