Kurt Groetsch @ OldTasty.com

A popular topic of discussion with my friends recently has been the seeming sea change in American values and morals in the past several years. In fact, at Paul Stark’s wedding reception last night, several of us were trying to figure out what has caused American society to become so selfish and inconsiderate of others, on the road, in the workplace and in relationships. Of course, it’s a question none of us could answer, but I think Paul Krugman’s piece in this week’s New York Times Magazine is an excellent overview of this phenomena in the realm of economics. I’ve seen a lot of selfish behavior in the workplace, particularly among management, and this exerpt from John Kenneth Galbraith’s 1967 book, The New Industrial State, illustrates how attitudes at the top have changed in less than 30 years:

“Management does not go out ruthlessly to reward itself — a sound management is expected to exercise restraint. . . . With the power of decision goes opportunity for making money. . . . Were everyone to seek to do so . . . the corporation would be a chaos of competitive avarice. But these are not the sort of thing that a good company man does; a remarkably effective code bans such behavior. Group decision-making insures, moreover, that almost everyone’s actions and even thoughts are known to others. This acts to enforce the code and, more than incidentally, a high standard of personal honesty as well.”