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Review by Samuel Gregg

Hard Cases, Tough Choices: Exploring the Ethical Landscape of Business
by Simon Longstaff
Pan Macmillan Australia, Sydney, 1997, 265pp, $19.95 , ISBN 0-7329-0904-X

The importance of business ethics is becoming recognised in almost all sectors of the Australian corporate world. The author of Hard Cases, Tough Choices has, in this reviewerÕs judgment, played a major role in bringing about this raising of consciousness. In this book, Dr. Simon Longstaff writes for those businesspersons who may not be trained in ethics, but nonetheless are aware that, either for reasons of corporate efficiency and/or because they want to be people of integrity, the ethical dimension of their work cannot be ignored.

LongstaffÕs approach is not so much to provide answers to the moral dilemmas faced by those in business, but rather to teach them to ask the right questions that will help them to make ethical decisions as to what ought to be done. To this end, he employs what may be loosely described as a neo-Socratic method to explore issues that commonly confront business. LongstaffÕs method is Socratic insofar as he uses fictional cases and characters to develop a dialogue through which different arguments may be advanced as to what are appropriate courses of action. In this regard, Longstaff takes his reader back to the very origins of the Western philosophical tradition in order to shed new light on some very modern problems. In an age where so much moral philosophy has become a captive of ideology or those who would endlessly de-construct the world to the point of meaninglessness, LongstaffÕs approach is both refreshing and welcome.

The cases explored by Longstaff have been cleverly chosen because they embrace ethical questions that are becoming more and more relevant for people working in an economy that is increasingly international in outlook as well as more competitive. Just what, for example, does the ÔfairÕ often attached to the word ÔcompetitionÕ actually mean? What are the pitfalls of which Australian firms should be aware as they expand into countries where the rule of law is at best fragile, and cultures in which certain practices generally considered unacceptable in Western contexts are part of Ôthe rules of the gameÕ?

Another strength of LongstaffÕs cases is that they explore questions relevant to all members of a business ranging from the boardroom to the humble data-entry processor. Conflicts of interest are, after all, hardly confined to the level of company director. One should, however, also note that Longstaff is careful in several of his cases to introduce the reader to some basic principles that have for centuries proved their worth in ethical reasoning about difficult problems, such as the principle of double effect, while simultaneously highlighting their limitations.

In his concluding remarks, Longstaff directs his readersÕ attention to general themes of which they should be aware when thinking about business ethics. This includes underlining the distinction between ethics and morality, as well as issuing a gentle warning about the hazards associated with the common post-Enlightenment tendency to think about non-technological questions (such as ethics) in a technical way. Longstaff ends, however, by claiming that on an even broader level, we are faced with a quite fundamental choice. ÔDo we wantÕ, he posits, Ôa society of citizens in which something like the virtues of justice and benevolence makes sense? Or do we want the enterprise association in which each of us is little more than a purveyor or consumer of commodities? If the latter, then we will have opted for a place in which the exercise of virtue will seem an unattainable luxury.Õ (p.264)

Is this a choice that actually confronts us? Surely people cannot, even if they so wished, reduce themselves to be nothing more than producers and consumers of commodities. To try and do so would be to defy human nature itself, a nature which requires both the material goods often proceeding from contractual (Gesellschaft) relationships as well as the moral-spiritual goods often obtained through communal (Gemeinschaft) relations. Moreover, in posing this question, Longstaff may indirectly (though one suspects that this is not his intention) encourage his reader to underestimate the extent to which business activity depends upon, and encourages, people to develop the virtues (understood here as moral habits of action that reflects a personÕs consistent free choice of moral good). Certainly, as the Scottish Enlightenment thinker, Adam Ferguson warns us, an entirely commercialised society is undesirable. Nonetheless, it is easy to overlook commerceÕs civilising effects, an influence that was emphasised by medieval scholars such as Hugh of St. Victor and St. Bernardino of Siena, early modern writers such as Francisco Suarez, S.J., and Domingo de Soto, O.P., as well as more contemporary thinkers such as Edmund Burke, Alexis de Tocqueville, and Lord Acton.

Hard Cases, Tough Choices is not, strictly speaking, an academic text. Indeed it makes no claim to be so. To this extent, this book may not be entirely suitable for use in, for example, a course of systematic ethics (where, to my mind, the Aristotelian-Thomistic approach is superior to that of Socrates, or for that matter most post-Cartesian philosophical methodology). Nonetheless, LongstaffÕs book will be of tremendous benefit to another set of audiences. These include those required to do an ethics subject as part of, for example, an MBA course, or companies seeking to educate their personnel in how to deal with the very real moral dilemmas with which they may be faced. For these groups, Hard Cases, Tough Choices is required reading.

Review by Barry Maley

Measuring Immorality: Social Inquiry & The Problem of Illegitimacy
by Gail Reekie,
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1998, 224pp, $29.95 (PB). ISBN 0 521 62974 8.

he ubiquitous spectre that haunts this book is Michel Foucault. In the Introduction, the author informs us that we will be embarking Ôon a guided expedition into the archive of illegitimacyÕ. She then explains the Foucauldian meaning of ÔarchiveÕ here by quoting the master himself, who tells us that the archive is:

the law of what can be said, the system that governs the appearance of statements as unique events. But the archive is also that which determines that all these things said do not accumulate endlessly in an amorphous mass, nor are they inscribed in an unbroken linearity, nor do they disappear at the mercy of chance external accidents; but they are grouped together in distinct figures, composed together in accordance with multiple relations, maintained or blurred in accordance with specific regularities; that which determines that they do not withdraw at the same pace in time, but shine, as it were, like stars, some that seem close to us are shining brightly from afar off, while others that are in fact close to us are already growing pale. The archiveÉis that which differentiates discourses in their multiple existence and specifies them in their own duration.

That discoursal champagne having been smashed against the readerÕs brow, we are launched on an expedition to find out why the birth of a baby to a mother who isnÕt married has come to be described as ÔillegitimateÕ and seen as a social problem or moral issue.

FoucaultÕs ÔarchivesÕ, incidentally, are more prosaically familiar to linguists as ÔregistersÕ or ÔgenresÕ ø specialised vocabularies and forms of expression attached to particular occupations or studies or areas of human behaviour (e.g. Ôlegal languageÕ, ÔsociologistsÕ languageÕ, etc.). So this book, in large part, comprises an examination of the semantic history of ÔillegitimacyÕ, its vicissitudes as a morally loaded or morally neutral concept, and varying perceptions of it as a social problem or as socially negligible.

Before going any further, an interest should be declared. The Centre for Independent Studies, and this reviewer in his capacity as author of some of its publications, are identified early on as among the many Ôconservative right wingÕ culprits who have created the discourse which sees the consequences of unmarried motherhood as a factor which may (depending upon individual circumstances) affect the well-being of the children concerned, be associated with a variety of social problems, and be a legitimateÊ subject for moral conjecture about the motives of the parties involved and the consequences.

One of the authorÕs themes is that illegitimacy was not identified as a ÔsocialÕ problem until the nineteenth century. Having been so identified, it became the subject of investigation and the gathering of statistics ø hence the title of the book. However, she also says that it has been a Ôpersonal problem, a family problem, a community problem, a religious problem and a legal problemÕ, and that ÔThe notion that a birth is either legitimate or illegitimate is present in most known human culturesÕ (p.21). It seems then, that in most known human cultures illegitimacy was not regarded as beneath notice, and its significance was therefore appropriately marked in the discourse of those societies by specific terminology. If legitimacy or its absence always meant something, it would indeed be surprising if its absence was not regularly regarded as problematic ø if not to the whole society then certainly to the family or the clan, and, by extension, to important questions of descent, inheritance and succession.

In the modern extended society marked by extreme division of labour, impersonality and social distance, we would expect that the local significance of illegitimacy would grow weaker, that the imposition of stigma would begin to disappear, and that any general concern with illegitimacy (or more accurately in modern parlance, Ôex-nuptialityÕ) would only begin to emerge as it was identified as a factor in macro, or broadly social, problems with widespread effects that could not be ignored. And this seems to have been the case in the modern period as statistics and social inquiry began to uncover a range of unwelcome sequelae associated with illegitimacy ø such as declining child well-being, neglect, impoverished mother and child, the genesis of delinquency, rising welfare expenditure and increasing taxation to cover it, and so on.

Reekie, however, is primarily concerned with the familiar agenda of documenting class, race, and gender-orientedÊ discourse about illegitimacy at great length and with impressive, if exhausting, detail, and in locating its recent motivation in a desperate attempt by right-wing conservatives to moralise the essentially neutral facts of illegitimacy. Such moralisation (or moralising) is a conservative movement to capture political initiatives and legitimacy in order to wield power in the interests of demonising illegitimacy and re-establishing the traditional nuclear family. The appropriate response to this, she argues, would be critical Ôinterventions into the illegitimacy debate [that] would uncouple the relationship between morals and factsÕ É and to press for the normalisation of single-parent familiesÉby questioning, for example, the need for statistical demographic categories that separate nuptial from ex-nuptial children, and single-parent from two-parent familiesÕ (p.187).

It is true that the facts ÔX has had a baby and X is not marriedÕ cannot lead logically to the conclusion that Ôthis situation is illegitimateÕ unless one interpolates moral premises, e.g. Ôhaving a baby while unmarried is illegitimate, wrong or socially problematic for such and such reasonsÕ. However, Reekie commits the obverse of this fallacy by assuming that to press for ÔnormalisationÕ is not itself the adoption of a moral position. So what is at issue here are competing moral characterisations of a form of human conduct.

Bearing in mind the Foucauldian inspiration behind this book, for Foucault the central reality of social life is bourgeois domination, and liberation therefore consists in the destruction of the foundational bourgeois institutions. His relevant dicta here are that all ÔdiscourseÕ reflects power, and that social discourse is overwhelmingly ÔbourgeoisÕ. It follows that the regular characterisation of unmarried motherhood as ÔillegitimateÕ reflects the (discoursal) power of the bourgeoisie to dispense legitimacy or illegitimacy. Accordingly, ReekieÕs objective is to throw a statistical veil over a pressing social problem and to turn the discoursal tables by answering in the affirmative her own question: ÔCan illegitimacy mean power (for women) instead of a problem (for society)?Õ (p. 188).

What is being explored here is a way of increasing the influence of a species of feminist ideology in the deconstruction of the bourgeois institution of the ÔtraditionalÕ family as a prelude to its elimination, at least as a preferred model. This requires the acquisition of Foucauldian power, and the Foucauldian touchstone, the avenue to power, is command over discourse. A first step, therefore, is to break the nexus between illegitimacy, risks for children, and social problems by recasting the prevailing discourse about such matters.

A revolutionised discourse is characterised by attempted reversals of meaning (OrwellÕs Ôwar is peaceÕ; Ôignorance is strengthÕ) andÊ theÊ smudging or disappearance of distinctions, including distinctions of usage reflecting different forms of social or personal conduct. As the meanings and distinctions are lost, our grasp on reality is weakened and pressure for undiscriminating and uniform moral judgements is increased. One consequence may be the discoursal marginalising of institutions sustaining independent moralities or ways of life. Other tactics, although not key issues in this book, are the ridiculing of stands against post-modern cant and defining as ÔoffensiveÕ any discourse that is bold enough to challenge the Ôpolitically correctÕ. Accordingly, to accept without demur ReekieÕs project of ÔnormalisingÕ single parent families, and thereby to diminish the significance of marriage and the socially-relevant distinctions between traditional and single parent families, would be to acquiesce in such a process.

In the Foucauldian sociology, power in a society where the bourgeoisie prevail is always oppressive and may never be benign. Bourgeois society and bourgeois power, must therefore be destroyed. However, one of the marks of bourgeois society is the existence of a plurality of vigorous and independent institutions operating under the rule of law in ways which constrain and direct power by establishing a variety of limited objectives and by generating rules of conduct and motives for action appropriate to those objectives. Yet the perverse end of the Foucauldian program is to eliminate these disseminated powers, and the moralities sustaining them, in order to accrete to the political centre the power needed to destroy them and thereby to liberate us all.

From this perspective, we can understand why ReekieÕsÊ long excursus into illegitimacy concludes with two particular policy objectives. The first is to remove the problem of illegitimacy from the discourse:

ÔThe starting point of this de-problematisingÊ project would be to affirm the right of a single woman to bear a child and to make public discourse and government policy recognise that Òfemale-headed families are a viable, normal, and permanent family form, rather than something broken and deviant that policy should eradicateÓ, as Iris Marion Young puts itÕ (p.187).

The second objective is to move towards Ôthe state provision of job training, employment opportunities, child care, education, accommodation and physical support schemes; programs which make fathers pay child support and encourage them to be actively involved in their childÕs upbringing [because that would mitigate ÔproblemsÕ?]; and acceptance of the principle that the whole community has responsibility for the welfare of childrenÕ (p.187).

The sudden and inconsistent moralising here about community ÔresponsibilityÕ is simply a smokescreen for consummating a Foucauldian project of institutional destruction, whereby the state takes control of precisely those arrangements that define the traditional family. And the coup de grace will be the further weakening of intact families by adding to their taxes in order to fund the functions which the state will assume. But then, we are already well down that road, are we not?

Reviewed by Athol Yates Policy Analyst, Institution of Engineers

Open Australia
by Lindsay Tanner
Pluto Press, Annandale, 1999,
248pp, $24.95 (PB) ISBN 1 86403 052 6

t is easy to criticise Open Australia for lacking rigour, being faddist, and treating some issues superficially. However if the book is seen as a partisan publication aimed at influencing the Australian Labor Party (ALP) from the inside, then these criticisms are mostly irrelevant.

Open Australia ranges over a wide political landscape and focuses in depth on national identity, the role of government, the consequences of globalisation, and social problems, including loneliness and alienation. The title Open Australia refers to an option presented in the book; does Australia want to become a forward looking country, open for business in a global society or a backwards looking, closed one which Ôslowly descends into a trough of stagnation, isolation and bitternessÕ? The title, reinforced by the foreword and style elements, mislead the reader into believing that the book proposes a rigorous and comprehensive blueprint for AustraliaÕs future.

However a close reading of the introduction and bookÕs contents reveals that the publication is far from comprehensive, nor is it meant to be rigorous. The introduction points out that the book Ôis not a comprehensive examination of all areas of policy with which Labor inevitably must engageÕ (10), and that it is intended to contribute to Labor regaining government by reforming the ALP and building a new agenda (10). A less pronounced aim, but one which threads its way through the book, is to advance TannerÕs personal interest of making social-democratic governments relevant in times of globalisation and individualism.

Tanner has addressed the aim of building a new agenda and reforming the ALP by proposing a number of actions with the main ones being developing new ideals and ideas which resonate with society, analysing the changes and consequences of the new economy, taking into account voter changes, and rebuilding the structure of the ALP.

One of his most important ideas is the need to embrace ø but tame øthe increasingly irresistible dominance of globalisation and markets. ÔGlobalisation is an essentially unavoidable reality driven by pervasive technological change. It cannot be prevented without enormous costs to our living standards but it can be negotiatedÕ (12). Tanner presents a number of suggestions to ensure that the outcomes of globalisation are positive, such asÊ introducing a Tobin tax to reduce destructive short-term global capital flows (85), continuing with domestic deregulation but only if international regulation occurs simultaneously (116), and increasing AustraliaÕs involvement in international policy and regulatory organisations such as GATT, WTO and IMF. Reading the suggestions on offer, it is obvious that the list is far from comprehensive. For example, in the discussion on the last suggestion there is no mention of involvement in international standards and conformance activities or mutual recognition agreements. Both of these are essential to ensure that AustraliaÕs interests are continually represented once the policy frameworks are established.

Belief in the benefits of globalisation is also reflected in TannerÕs support for domestic competition policy. He contends that while its impact has been detrimental in the past, it can be transformed into a constructive force. This can be achieved by a Ôgreater emphasis on empirical analysis of outcomes likely to emerge from further deregulation and vertical separation. It must be balanced with the broader considerations attached to community service obligations. It should be adjusted to take account of the fact that factors other than economic efficiency are built into government operations of schools, hospitals, train and communications systems, such as access, equity and redistribution objectivesÕ (153).

Like the limited discussion on globalisation, omissions and a lack of analysis of competition policy can lead readers to believe that the author is deliberately being superficial. For example, omissions include any discussion on the changes required to make the public benefit test more robust, the requirement to develop evaluation systems for weighing up non-comparable costs and benefits during competition policy determinations, and the need for national legislative reviews rather than incompatible state based reviews. Examples of insufficient analysis include a failure to qualify comments on the need for empirical analysis and the problems with community service obligations (CSOs). It can be claimed that rather than too little empirical analysis, there is too much emphasis on empirical analysis which results in non-quantifiable issues being down-played. Also, simply stating that broader considerations need to be attached to CSOs ignores the problems of actually identifying what the CSOs are, determining which of the two unappealing options will be used to pay for the CSOs i.e., cross-subsidies or direct government funding, and dealing with the inevitable pressure of continually reducing CSOs over time.

Open Australia contains numerous constructive ideas such as the need for governments to facilitate rather than command, to address loneliness and isolation, and to develop structures which provide individuals with the capacity to participate rather than to achieve.

The ideas derive from analysing the consequences of the new economy and adapting social democratic values to them. Particularly important changes have included globalised markets, technological innovation, loss of community, job losses, and Ôintense competition and commercialism which has swamped all aspects of Australian lifeÕ (20). In turn, these changes have led to numerous political impacts, including a dysfunctionality between societyÕs institutions and citizens (21), the politics of envy and resentment against the new elites who are cosmopolitan and multicultural and remote from the Ôrealities of manual work, financial hardship and suburban normalityÕ (22).

Tanner discusses these changes in terms of the impact on voter and membership support of the ALP. Not only does as little as 52 per cent of the electorate now always vote for the same party, Ôyoung people leaving school do not have the deep commitment to trade unionism, social justice and Labor politics which their grandparents hadÕ (193). The increasing importance of post-materialist issues draws the university educated class towards the Greens and Australian Democrats who are considered to address their political concerns better than the ALP. At the other end of the voter spectrum, the ALP vote is also being diminished by the traditional blue collar worker who is Ôexhausted by change fatigueÕ (20) and is seeking populist solutions via One Nation. To support his case, Tanner acknowledges a number of past ALP policies which disen-franchised voter segments. For example, Ôthe introduction of concepts of mutual obligation and case management under the former Labor government led to perverse outcomes, with some unemployed people forced to undertake inappropriate and even demoralising retrainingÕ (135) and Ômany Labor supporters believe that Labor betrayed them in the eighties, implementing policies contrary to our platformÕ (154). To his credit, Tanner does not adopt the paternalistic view that the voters were ignorant and would have supported the ALP if only they had understood LaborÕs message. ÔThis reaction [to changing policies] should not be dismissed merely as redneck hysteria. It reflects deep-seated insecurities which are often exacerbated by the intolerant way in which this new political agenda is sometimes pursuedÕ (24). The purpose of this discussion is to justify the recommendations in the final 10 per cent of the book which focus on modifying the structure of the ALP. Tanner advocates Ôdemocratising its internal processes, expanding its membership base and shifting its local focus outwards into the communityÕ (14).

Like most of the ideas put forward in Open Australia, the proposed internal reform of the ALP reflects personal interest in traditional social democratic issues such as democratic representation, community and equity. Despite the onslaught of two decades of economic rationalism, Tanner is still convinced that ÔSocialist ethics and ideals ...remain as relevant as everÕ (98). However he recognises that the traditional left approaches are no longer relevant and advocates radical changes. ÔLabor requires a new community philosophy which is universal rather than class-based, and is both collective, incorporating social frameworks of equity, security and community, as well as individual, providing for personal freedom, opportunity and prosperityÕ (98).

Open Australia is a book aimed at the ALP leadership and members, with the objective of returning the ALP to power. Therefore it is necessarily circumspect about some politically sensitive subjects, and walks a fine line between modernising the left and disenfranchising its members. Judged on this basis, Open Australia makes a valuable contribution to repositioning the left back into the political debate and pushing social issues higher up the ALP agenda.

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