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The Ethics Recession: Reflections on the Moral Underpinnings of the Current Economic Crisis
The Ethics Recession Reflections on the Moral Underpinnings of the Current Economic Crisis Author:Rushworth M. Kidder What started as an economic recession has become an ethics recessiona full-blown collapse of integrity and responsibility that is now shaping the way we need to think about and respond to this crisisargues award-winning journalist and author Rushworth M. Kidder. In this timely new book he makes the case that, with each passing day, the current e... more »conomic crisis is moving from issues of money to issues of integrity. Kidder reflects on the abandonment of responsibility and the failures of moral courage that underlie the financial numbers. He also identifies the kind of changes required to bring us through this crisischanges not only in personal ethics but in our collective culture of integrity.
Until the fall of 2008, Kidder observes, the recession was typically reported, discussed, and analyzed as though it were simply a question of failures of prosperity and wealth creation. But as examples began piling up of failures of private character and public responsibilityfrom Bernie Madoffs Ponzi scheme to Wall Streets excessive bonusesthe public conversation has, he writes, moved irreversibly from finance to integrity. In the earlier months, the crisis was framed through what Kidder calls the two default languages of journalismthe language of economics, which asks, Whats the bottom line? or the language of politics, which asks, Wheres the power? Now, Kidder argues, were increasingly using a third languagethe language of ethicsto ask, Whats right?
In assembling these pieces, Kidder writes in the introduction, Ive been struck by the way that each weeks news kept building the case for an ethics recession.
Written with Kidders trademark fluidity, penetrating analysis, and eye for detail, this book is aimed at professionals and non-specialists alikefor all those who are seeking frameworks for understanding the current crisis, seeing its larger meaning, and finding the way through it.« less