What Happened to the Moral Center of American Capitalism?

 

Posted on Sep 7, 2015
By Robert Reich

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This post originally ran on Robert Reich’s website.
                                                             I
An economy depends fundamentally on public morality; some shared standards about what sorts of activities are impermissible because they so fundamentally violate trust that they threaten to undermine the social fabric.

It is ironic that at a time the Republican presidential candidates and state legislators are furiously focusing on private morality – what people do in their bedrooms, contraception, abortion, gay marriage – we are experiencing a far more significant crisis in public morality.

We’ve witnessed over the last two decades in the United States a steady decline in the willingness of people in leading positions in the private sector – on Wall Street and in large corporations especially – to maintain minimum standards of public morality. They seek the highest profits and highest compensation for themselves regardless of social consequences.

Read more at

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/what_happened_to_the_moral_center_of_american_capitalism_20150907


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