Business

Those producing and trading goods and services for profit are not taking anything away from others—the producers and traders are creating material values that would not exist without their productivity.

Thinking on the job, and in every other aspect of life, is a virtue necessary for human flourishing.

As Ayn Rand explains, the only proper role of government is to protect citizens against the initiation of physical force and fraud, through the police, the armed services, and the courts.

So how to deal with a workplace bully? The only effective way to do so is to apply appropriate moral principles: rationality, integrity and justice.

Thanks to Ayn Rand and the objective moral principles she identified, we can make moral decisions more easily—and achieve our values in the long term.

Should government be an all-knowing, benevolent nanny who tells us how we must live, for our own good?

On July 21, 2011, Wake Forest University Schools of Business Distinguished Professor of Practice John Allison address the Master of Arts in Management Class of 2012. The retired chairman and CEO of BB&T discussed Principled Leadership with the incoming class of business students.

Their pragmatist mindset of “skip the philosophy; just give me the practical tips,” hinders them from becoming better managers.

Not all ethics guide us to achieve happy, fulfilling lives

Madoff was what Ayn Rand would call a second-hander: someone who tries to gain values by pleasing and manipulating others rather than thinking for himself based on observation of facts and supporting himself through productive work.

What really drives Amazin’s critics is a hatred of success: success of anyone who is achieving more than others.

There is no virtue in restraining the pursuit of profit: profit maximization is moral.

No matter what the management troubles at Uber, it must be defended against any government tax grab or regulation potentially suffocating the company.

The only thing governments can do to facilitate innovation is to stay away from markets and allow companies compete and trade freely.

Businesspeople who produce material values are not the same as crooks who prey on gullible investors or customers or both, and produce nothing.

Clear moral principles, such as honesty, make the right—the self-interested, win-win—course of action so much easier.

CSR also sneaks in the ideal of altruism, the duty to serve others “to further some social good, beyond the interests of the firm.”

By clearly and publicly withdrawing their moral sanction of government’s freedom-curtailing and welfare-destroying actions, business leaders can have a big impact on all of our future.

If we want to promote human flourishing and avoid human suffering, it is crucial that we challenge the ideal of government ‘redistribution’ of wealth and regulation of the economy and advocate reason, freedom and individual rights instead.

Rather than complaining about ‘unfairly’ low corporate taxes paid by Apple and others, we would be better off advocating low, and eventually no, corporate taxes, more wealth creation, strong protection of individual rights by governments–and capitalism.

Every day, businesses make the world a better place to live, profitably, by creating and trading material values, by mutual consent and for mutual benefit. It’s time we’d recognize it and appreciate business people for what they do. Such a cultural change would, in time, create business heroes also in Hollywood movies and spiritual fuel for all of us.