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Ethics in a Business Society
191 pages, Hardcover
First published September 1, 1973
3 people want to read
About the author
Marquis Childs
28 books4 followersMarquis William Childs was an American journalist and author who served as a war correspondent during World War II.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
April 11, 2018
Actually quite the find. Social Gospel, nuclear weapons and 1984 - this book goes surprisingly deep for as few pages as it has.
* There's some definite soul searching on the question of how to be a left-leaning (christian) academic when the soviet union by that point had gone so thoroughly wrong. Likewise - how to be an intellectual of *any* type given how badly the intellectuals had screwed the 20th century up by 1950 or so - - 2 world wars, the rise of both the soviet union and the nazis and also deep problems even in places like america were laid pretty firmly at their feet. Who to look to for guidance in those times?
* The church and religion more generally.
* It's clearly from the christian point of view...but does not hold back on criticizing the various branches, institutions, persons and dogmas of faith.
* You get to find out about little proto-occupy experiments like Robert Owen's "New Harmony" and various other failed utopias
* It shows how deeply entwined, especially going further back, the issues of how life was organized was tied to christian religion - but also the family unit(which changed over the history this book covers, as it has changed since).
* It shows much of the problems of the modern world - large corporations, media, advertising -- are structural and at the end of the day based both on issues american pragmatism (does it work?) but also of *ethics* - people argue politics using both, in practice, and have for much of the important political details of the past 200 years. He delves into the problems themselves and provides some (christian) insight into each. I have seen christian thinkers delve, using christianity as a lens, into these kinds of topics before but few outside of maybe Tommy Douglas or Lorne Calvert go so systematically through the list.
* Though the author did not have the ideas to build it with - he was clearly trying to build towards a global view of the topic of ethics & business. There wasn't much beyond the sacrifice of Jesus himself for him to do so. This was rightly seen as a major flaw in Christianity in particular.
The details aren't all there - but the problems mostly are, that the 20th century had to face. They haven't gone away, and they represent lessons that we will have to learn, even if we choose to forget sometimes.
* There's some definite soul searching on the question of how to be a left-leaning (christian) academic when the soviet union by that point had gone so thoroughly wrong. Likewise - how to be an intellectual of *any* type given how badly the intellectuals had screwed the 20th century up by 1950 or so - - 2 world wars, the rise of both the soviet union and the nazis and also deep problems even in places like america were laid pretty firmly at their feet. Who to look to for guidance in those times?
* The church and religion more generally.
* It's clearly from the christian point of view...but does not hold back on criticizing the various branches, institutions, persons and dogmas of faith.
* You get to find out about little proto-occupy experiments like Robert Owen's "New Harmony" and various other failed utopias
* It shows how deeply entwined, especially going further back, the issues of how life was organized was tied to christian religion - but also the family unit(which changed over the history this book covers, as it has changed since).
* It shows much of the problems of the modern world - large corporations, media, advertising -- are structural and at the end of the day based both on issues american pragmatism (does it work?) but also of *ethics* - people argue politics using both, in practice, and have for much of the important political details of the past 200 years. He delves into the problems themselves and provides some (christian) insight into each. I have seen christian thinkers delve, using christianity as a lens, into these kinds of topics before but few outside of maybe Tommy Douglas or Lorne Calvert go so systematically through the list.
* Though the author did not have the ideas to build it with - he was clearly trying to build towards a global view of the topic of ethics & business. There wasn't much beyond the sacrifice of Jesus himself for him to do so. This was rightly seen as a major flaw in Christianity in particular.
The details aren't all there - but the problems mostly are, that the 20th century had to face. They haven't gone away, and they represent lessons that we will have to learn, even if we choose to forget sometimes.
Displaying 1 of 1 review