Anytime you are in a position of power you have increased responsibilities to be ethical. We often criticize large corporations for giving large amounts of money to politicians in order to get there way. In a recent business ethics class we discussed Enron and one of the issues was the amount of access they bought to Pres. Bush and VP Cheney in order to influence policy. Enron had vast amounts of financial resources available to them which are a source of power and then they used it to advance their own agenda. This is a common occurrence in business and government, in large measure because most of the power is now held in multinational corporations and the U.S. Federal government. I would contend that the greater power a corporation or government holds the more responsibility they have to wield that power carefully.

The problem we currently face is the federal government is moving quickly to expand its power and then using it in ways that are ethically questionable. Two recent examples of the questionable use of power are the stimulus bill and the report today on the GM and Chrysler future. In the case of the stimulus bill, considerable money was funneled to state government, who the federal government knows are struggling right now. In exchange for the must needed money, stipulations were required that fundamentally changed welfare and other programs. This is a circumvention of state rights and a use of power to force change that would normally go through a more democratic process. The second example is the dealing of GM and Chrysler which should go through bankruptcy procedures to determine which creditors get what. Instead, the federal government forced the issue outside of the court system and ended up with a questionable distribution of ownership. Bondholders ended up on the short end of the stick, despite having most of the money into the two automakers. Tax payers and unions should certainly get a cut of the deal, but look to end up with a far bigger percentage then their debt would suggest. Again, this is a questionable use of power that circumvents the normal processes that are supposed to provide a check and balance to the system.

Many would claim that capitalism is on trial and that recent performance of banks and other institutions suggest that capitalism does not work. The reality is that any government and economic system must be based on ethics, and that no government or economic system will survive long if it engages in unethical behavior. Capitalism has proven very resilient, but even that cannot survive if power gets consolidated in the hands of a few and they act unethically. Our governmental system has also proven resilient, but like capitalism, will not survive if power gets consolidated into the hands of a few and they engage in unethical behavior. There are only two ways to really handle the situation, those in charge of powerful institutions have to act ethically on their own accord, or else you have to decentralize power so that the impact of unethical behavior is not felt as widely. The fact is that we are required to hold organizations that wield considerable power to a higher ethical standard no matter what and so far the change in presidency has not done anything to alter the level of ethics in our federal government.