US Election 2004

Getting SOX’d has put me off schedule with the books of the month updates.  With the election coming closer every day, I will be posting books of the week, but before that begins I must say something about Edwin A. Locke’s The Prime Movers.

While many people would say a chapter titled “How to Make a Billion Dollars” would be the highpoint of a book, in this case it is the review of the role of virtue in business, because its lessons are applicable to every field of human achievement. 

A leader who seeks to establish human achievement in politics must heed these lessons.

Regarding the relationship between virtue and achievement in business, Dr. Locke writes:

It is not the case that the amount of money one earns is a measure of one’s virtue.  The amount one earns depends on many factors, including one’s ability, the profession one has chosen, and market conditions.  It is the case, however, that it requires virtue to make money.  Wealth creation requires these virtues: rationality, independence, productiveness, honesty, integrity, and justice.  If a businessperson fails to practice these virtues, he or she will either go bankrupt or be “forced” into the role of criminal in order to seize the wealth he cannot earn.  Those who earn wealth deserve to feel proud of what they have done.  To repeat a point I have made before:  Earning money is a moral achievement, no the product of some lower faculty.

It is a colossal injustice that men who earn great wealth are condemned for it on the grounds that they are robber barons or monopolists or greedy materialists—and then praised if they give it all away.  How can it be good to give money away if it was earned through evil actions?  The moral evaluation should be reversed.  It is the creation of wealth that is morally good…What made it possible?  The answer is: virtue—combined with ability.  [E. Locke, “Virtue,” The Prime Movers: Traits of the Great Wealth Creators (New York: American Management Association, 2000), p. 174.] 

Image Source: Ayn Rand Bookstore

PREVIOUS BOOKS OF THE MONTH

 February: The Ominous Parallels by Leonard Peikoff

 March: Black & White World  by Cox and Forkum

 April: The Ayn Rand Column by Ayn Rand

 May: Grow Up America! Learning to Live the Happy, Responsible Life by Michael J. Hurd

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