I did take several courses in ethics. I internalized several key lessons.
1. People who stand up for what’s right get fired and blacklisted. Perhaps killed.
2. People who get caught get second chances or never even lose their ill gotten gains. Enron fraudsters have rebuilt their wealth becoming new executives and public speakers on ethics. This is in addition to any wealth they hid away. Boeing has killed many people before the 737 max for similar sloppiness. It didn’t matter then either.
3. Low level fraud virtually never gets prosecuted, yet alone unethical behaviour. We had plenty of cases where we studied some embezzler who got fired. The penalty for ill gotten millions is being fired? That’s just the day in the life of an employee in the world of regular layoffs.
Here’s the problem with every ethics class I have taken. Who won in the end except in the most extreme cases (Madoff)? Usually the crook.
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I did take several courses in ethics. I internalized several key lessons.
1. People who stand up for what’s right get fired and blacklisted. Perhaps killed.
2. People who get caught get second chances or never even lose their ill gotten gains. Enron fraudsters have rebuilt their wealth becoming new executives and public speakers on ethics. This is in addition to any wealth they hid away. Boeing has killed many people before the 737 max for similar sloppiness. It didn’t matter then either.
3. Low level fraud virtually never gets prosecuted, yet alone unethical behaviour. We had plenty of cases where we studied some embezzler who got fired. The penalty for ill gotten millions is being fired? That’s just the day in the life of an employee in the world of regular layoffs.
Here’s the problem with every ethics class I have taken. Who won in the end except in the most extreme cases (Madoff)? Usually the crook.