Interminable List of Carr's Points

This is an absurdly detailed list of things Carr says in his article. Your list only needs to be about ten items. The trick is to look for the most significant and controversial things. If you can identify the absolutely most significant things he says, your list can be pretty short.

Now, assuming that the list is only really required to include really, really significant items, take a look at my list, and see if I caught any critically significant items that you didn't.

The basis of private morality is a respect for truth and that the closer a businessman comes to the truth, the more he deserves respect
Most "bluffing" in business might be regarded simply as game strategy, like bluffing in poker,
Bluffing in poker does not reflect on the morality of the bluffer
Henry Taylor said “falsehood ceases to be falsehood when it is understood on all sides that the truth is not expected to be spoken”
Taylor's words are an exact description of bluffing in poker, diplomacy, and business
This is supposed to be analogous to the behavior of defendants and lawyers in criminal court.
The criminal is not expected to tell the truth when he pleads “not guilty.”
The job of the defendant’s attorney is to get his client off, not to reveal the truth;
Lawyers withholding information is considered ethical practice.
Rep. Omar Burleson (D) Texas, supposedly said, “Ethics is a barrel of worms”
Burleson's supposed words sum up the problem of deciding who is ethical in politics.
Millions of businessmen feel constrained every day to say yes to their bosses when they secretly believe no
This is generally accepted as permissible strategy when the alternative might be the loss of a job
the ethics of business are game ethics, different from the ethics of religion
The Respected Businessman ("RB") gave long list of bad things his company doesn't do, and said they meet the highest standard of ethics.
RB was saying, without realizing it, that he was living up to the ethical standards of the business game
the ethical standards of the business game are very different from those of private life.
RB was like a good poker player, he did not play in cahoots with others at the table, try to smear their reputations, or hold back chips he owed them.
RB was allowing one of his products to be advertised in a way that made it sound a great deal better than it actually was.
Another item in RB's product line was notorious among dealers for its “built-in obsolescence.”
RB was holding back from the market a much-improved product because he did not want it to interfere with sales of the inferior item it would have replaced.
With others, RB had hired an unscrupulous lobbyist to push a state legislature into amending a bill then being enacted.
RB thought all those things were merely normal business practice.
RB has personally never lied, but his entire organization was deeply involved in numerous strategies of deception.
To help their companies and themselves, executives are "almost compelled" to deceive customers, dealers, unions, and government officials..
To help their companies and themselves, executives are "almost compelled" to deceive even their own colleagues.
Executives consciously misstate facts, consciously conceal pertinent facts, and consciously exaggerate
Misstatements, concealment of pertinent facts, or exaggeration are all examples of "bluffing".
Honest executives miss opportunities "permitted under the rules".
Honest executives are at a heavy disadvantage in his business dealings.
Sometimes dishonest executives get a bit mental about being liars.
Sometimes dishonest executives have bad feelings about being liars.
To be a successful "bluffer", an executive must also keep his self-respect and equanimity.
To reconcile integrity with "practical requirements of business" he must feel that his "bluffs" are ethical.
"Bluff" are justified by the "fact" that business "has the impersonal character of a game".
The business game demands special strategy.
The business game demands understanding of its special ethics.
An applicant pretended to be conservative to land a job at a firm run by conservatives.
The applicant made a game player’s decision, consistent with business ethics.
Another applicant died his hair and lied about his age to get a job.
within the accepted rules of the business game, no moral culpability attaches to this lie
We can learn a good deal about the nature of business by comparing it with poker.
In both, winning requires skills, blah, blah, blah.
No-one expects poker to follow religious rules.
If a player plays nice, that's not part of the rules.
Some kinds of deception are allowed in poker, other kinds of deception are not allowed
In poker, people who cheat (hiding cards, marking cards) can be shot.
As well as cheating, there's also unethical play, like talking loud, drunkening people, collusion.
No-one thinks the worse of poker for its distrust, betrayal, deception, unkindness, hardheartedness.
No-one should think any the worse of the game of business because of it's different standards of right and wrong
. . . which standards of right and wrong differ from the prevailing traditions of morality in our society.
This worries people who don't have business experience.
Some minister once said that business can only function if it follows "Judeo-Christian" rules.
This minister knows many businessers who adhere to codes of ethics based on religion.
This minister says these businessers give to charity, and do community things.
This minister says these businessers cooperate with other companies to improve working conditions in their industries.
Businessers in their office lives cease to be private citizens; they become game players who must be guided by a somewhat different set of ethical standards.
A Midwestern executive ("Robbins"), has given a good deal of thought to the question:
Robbins says “So long as a businessman complies with the laws of the land and avoids telling malicious lies, he’s ethical"
Robbins says that people who pass up profit opportunities are fools.
Robbins says that if one doesn't do it another will.
Robbins says that businessers are not obligated to stop and consider who is going to get hurt.
Robbins says that even industrial espionage isn't unethical
. . . .because spy gear and bribery are cheaper than research.
Robbins says whole branch of the electronics industry has grown up provide equipment to make industrial espionage easier.
Robbins thinks the golden rule, for all its value as an ideal for society, is simply not feasible as a guide for business.
Robbins says Espionage in business is not an ethical problem; it’s an established technique of business competition.”
Food processors use deceptive packaging of numerous products
Automobile companies for years have neglected the safety of car-owning families
Utility companies elude regulating government bodies to extract unduly large payments from users of electricity
There is hardly a major industry that isn't doing similar bad things
Critics of business regard such behavior as unethical
The companies concerned know that they are merely playing the business game
The insurance companies are among the most respected of our business institutions
Daniel Patrick Moynihan said insurance executives use outdated actuarial tables to obtain unfairly high premiums
Moynihan said insurance executives habitually delayed the hearings of lawsuits against them in order to tire out the plaintiffs and win cheap settlements.
Moynihan said insurance executives used ingenious devices to discriminate against certain minority groups.
The insurers replied that if they'll only change if pressured by law or public opinion
The insurers think that they have in their view done nothing wrong.
The insurers think that a s long as they comply with the letter of the law, they are within their rights to operate their businesses as they see fit.
A key maker provided master keys for automobiles to mail-order customers, although it was obvious that some of the purchasers might be automobile thieves.
The key maker said that if the law doesn't prevent him from selling his keys to anyone, it was not up to him to inquire as to his customers’ motives
Until the law was changed, the key maker could regard himself as being just as ethical as any other businessman by the rules of the business game
Each year the FTC orders hundreds of companies, many of them huge, to “cease and desist” from bad practices.
These things when judged by ordinary standards, are of questionable morality but which are stoutly defended by the companies concerned.
A chief executive who might have put toxic alcohol in mouthwash said they're not in business to promote ethics.
If the ethics aren’t embodied in the laws by the men who made them, you can’t expect businessmen to fill the lack.
He also complained that imposing christian ethics on business would be super disruptive to business.
The government failed to prove its case against him.
Talk about ethics by businessmen is often a thin decorative coating over the hard realities of the game:
A group of companies set up a new industry code to fend off stricter regulation by government
A young executive was fooled into thinking his industry was ethical.
Businessers often make speeches and write articles such phrases as, “It pays to be ethical,” or, “Sound ethics is good business.”
The speaker is really saying that in the long run a company can make more money if it does not antagonize competitors, suppliers, employees, and customers.
The prevailing attitude of business people on ethics is we live in what is probably the most competitive of the world’s civilized societies
Our customs encourage a high degree of aggression in the individual’s striving for success
But as long as a company does not transgress the rules of the game set by law, it has the legal right to shape its strategy without reference to anything but its profits.
Careful businessers will not seek advantage to the point where he generates dangerous hostility among employees, competitors, customers, government, or the public
Employees do unethical things for their companies, they feel bad about it. it disturbs them when they are ordered to do bad things. (Gives examples)
It's really painful when executives decide for themselves to do a thing that "runs counter to his early moral conditioning". (Gives many examples)
If an executive allows himself to be torn between a decision based on profit and one based on his ethical code, he exposes himself to a grave psychological strain.
Sound business strategy sometimes coincides with ethical ideals. (Gives many examples)
All business should be based on legality and profit.
Some apparently ethical actions are done out of pure self-interest.
It is good to “Parry every question with answers which, while perfectly truthful, are evasive of bottom facts".
This was, is, and probably always will be regarded as wise and permissible business strategy.
An executive will have problems if they tell their family about the horrible things they've done.
Their partner might have a negative opinion of these things.
A Southern sales executive said some deeply patronizing things to his spouse.
The spouse said that something is wrong with business.
Anyone who wants to do business must learn business' "special ethical outlook", so that he doesn't have a "feeling of ethical transgression".
To be a winner, a person must play to win.
A reputation for integrity, honesty, and decency, helps winning in the long run.
If a businesser wants to rise in his company and industry, then in a crisis he will bluff—and bluff hard.
The bluff is an integral part of the game, and the executive who does not master its techniques is not likely to accumulate much money or power.

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