When Hollywood Gets Political: Partisan Profits

Entertainment celebrities and businesses alike risk losing customers and thus revenue by taking positions publicly on political issues. Fearing a surge from political parties on the far-right, some large businesses in the E.U. took the unusual step of coming out against those parties, labeling them as “extremist,” prior to the E.U. election in June, 2024. Typically, businesses there limit their political stances to particular issues that bear on core functions. This is a prudent policy, for human beings, being of bounded rationality, can easily translate ideological disagreement into switching brands. Even universities can get bruised by becoming embroiled in a domestic or international matter that is controversial. Hence after the contentious spring semester of pro-Palestine protests at Harvard (and other many other universities), the university’s administration enacted a policy not to take positions on issues in which the core functions of the university are only indirectly touched or are not affected at all. In creating a “marketplace” for academic freedom, universities themselves are best positioned by staying neutral. Although it is tempting for anyone (for oneself or one’s institution) who has access to media to sway public opinion on a political issue, I contend that the immediate self-gratification is usually outweighed by lost revenue and the reputation of being partisan. Applying strict scrutiny to one’s foray into controversial issues is harder to do if some vocal customers are demanding that a position be publicly taken. The silence of other customers, who would “vote with their purse or wallet” were an opposing position to be taken, should not be overlooked.  The singer Taylor Swift and the actor Robert De Niro provide us with two illustrations. Stepping out of their respective domains comes at a cost in those domains, and thus should, I submit, be done prudently and seldom.

As Israel was bombing Rafah in Gaza in 2024, contravening two rulings of the International Court of Justice (i.e., the UN’s court), a significant number of “Swifties,” that is, fans of the singer Taylor Swift, pleaded on social media for the international celebrity to take a position against Israel’s aggression. One fan wrote, “Taylor, please say something. Your silence is hurting us. We need you to stand with Palestine and condemn the Israeli occupation and aggression.”[1] I submit that the alleged hurt was exaggerated by the teenager. I sincerely doubt that Taylor’s silence kept many Swifties from buying Swift’s recently released album. Had the singer taken a stand, on the other hand, her fans on the other side might do more than block Swift on social media. That is to say, Swift’s financial bottom-line would be more impacted, and negatively so. It seems very improbably that increased purchases by Swifties in favor of Palestine would surpass the loss of revenue from Swifties on the other side of the issue “voting with their purses and wallets.” The lack of symmetry here is behind my advice to celebrities not to take a position on a controversial political issue, or to do so knowing that a financial cost will come with the exercise of political influence.

To be sure, exercising political influence on a societal and even world stage is tempting. As one Swiftie wrote on social media of Swift’s latent power, “if she can rally all of us to vote, she had the power to speak up about injustice.”[2] More bluntly stated, Taylor Swift had the power to significantly influence elections. The ideological benefit to her in doing so is not trivial; my point is that in accruing such a benefit, she should know that it comes with a financial cost in terms of her core function. By 2024, she had made so much money that not earning as much as she otherwise could by taking a position on Israel and Palestine could have made rational sense to her. Yet possible hits to her reputational capital could go beyond merely losing some customers of her music.

As Israel was bombing Gaza, former U.S. president Don Trump was on trial for criminal fraud in order to commit a political crime. Robert De Niro, a movie star, went to the courthouse and castigated Trump, calling him a monster.[3] As a result, the National Association of Broadcasters rescinded its Service to America Award, which the actor was to accept in just days. A spokesperson for the organization explained that it “is proudly bipartisan, uniting those from across the political spectrum to celebrate the impactful work of local broadcasters and our partners.”[4] De Niro would be a “distraction.”[5] Hence he was disinvited from even attending the event. De Niro took the high road and wished the organization well. For him, the loss of the award and even any loss at the box office if Trump supporters would then “vote with their purses and wallets” was worth it. Like Swift, De Niro had plenty of money, no doubt, and great star-power; he could take some of it out for a spin—like taking a new car out for a fast drive—without fear that he would end up in the poor house. Even so, the question of whether the hit to his personal “brand” was worth the financial and reputational cost is worth asking. Perhaps the answer is yes only if his public condemnation of Trump would end up making a difference in the election that was still half a year away. To De Niro, the answer could have been yes even if not because of the psychological reward that he felt from standing up for something important to him. Even so, rationally it would still be wise to keep an eye on the brand.

In short, it is human, all too human, to want to have political influence on a societal or even a global scale, and to enjoy the psychological pleasure that goes with the expenditure even though it could mean fewer sales than would otherwise be the case and a hit to one’s reputational capital, or brand. Generally speaking, though, such immediate gratification may not usually be worth the long-term costs, both tangible and intangible. Balancing the immediate with the long-term is not something that we humans are particularly good at, and natural selection in the process of evolution is to blame. The time-value of money, an economic concept, stems from the human preference for instant gratification. It is for this reason that I contend that celebrities should as a rule stick to their core functions—stick to the knitting in the words of the business book, In Search of Excellence—and only branch out to “cash in” to influence a political matter only rarely if at all. Taylor’s silence wasn’t actually hurting anyone; she was being an astute businesswoman and thus acting in her best interest.

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1. David Mouriquand, “#SwiftiesForPalestine: Taylor Swift Urged to Speak Up on Gaza Conflict,” Euronews.com, May 29, 2024 (accessed June 3, 2024).
2. Ibid.
3. Dylan Donnelly, “Robert De Niro Has Award Withdrawn after Calling Donald Trump ‘Monster’ Outside Trial,” Sky News, June 2, 2024 (accessed June 3, 2024).
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.

On the Decadence of American Journalism: Journalists as Celebrities

I submit that when a conveyer of the news becomes the story, something is wrong; in typing this sentence initially, I did not include I submit that. To state my thesis statement as if it were a fact of reason (Kant’s phrase) seemed to me rather heavy-handed (i.e., arrogant). Similarly, when some Americans insisted after the U.S. presidential that Don Trump had won as if the asseveration were a fact of reason, I could sense aggressiveness along with the presumptuousness in treating one’s own opinion as a declaration of fact, especially if the actual fact—Joe Biden being sworn into the office—was otherwise. Opinion is one thing; fact is another. When a person misconstrues one’s opinion with fact, something is wrong. I believe this happens so often that it may be due to a problem innate in the human brain. Religious folks would not have to reach far to point out that in the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, the sin of pride manifests in wanting to be omniscient; eating of that proverbial apple of the knowledge of good and evil ushers in original sin. A person perceiving one’s own opinion as fact, or even as important as fact, implicitly regards oneself as God. A journalist who interlards one’s role in conveying the news with one’s own commentary, and an editor who then makes that commentary the point of a story both treat a means (i.e., the conveyer of news) as an end (i.e., the news itself). I contend that at least by 2023, American journalism had fallen into this hole with impunity, which involved a lack of industry self-regulation and individual self-discipline.   

On July 4, 2023, The Huffington Post ran a story, “CNN Journalist Responds to Brazen Trump Campaign Claim with Disbelief.” The story begins with the following statement: “CNN’s Phil Mattingly on Monday couldn’t quite believe a Trump campaign response to a Washington Post question about the former president’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election result.”[1] Why should it matter whether a journalist can’t quite believe a statement made by a person being interviewed? CNN also ran the story, "Anderson Cooper Is Dumbfounded by Ron DeSantis' Bad Polling Excuse." The news network reported that the "CNN anchor was confused by the 2024 Republican presidential candidate's reason for falling behind Donald Trump." Why should it matter that the journalist was confused? Maybe he was not the brightest lightbulb. The network's message was obviously that DeSantis was to blame for the journalist's confusion, so the intent was to bias the viewers and readers against the presidential candidate. The inclusion of the word, excuse, in the story's title indicates the tenor of the bias in the "news" story.  

Is it ethical for a journalist to sway or bias the reactions of viewers or readers? Euronews, a E.U. rather than a U.S. news network, explicitly espouses impartiality so viewers can form their own opinions unimpeded by that of a journalist. That network even has a feature in which video is shown of events going on around the world, such as a political protest, with “No Comment” showing at the end. What a contrast to the American news media!

CNN’s obsession with the visible reactions of one of its news anchors, Anderson Cooper, to political statements even of people being interviewed illustrates my thesis. From his “news” show, Anderson Cooper 360, the network posted a video on CNN.com entitled “Watch Cooper’s Reaction to What Sondland Told Trump.” His reaction was visibly nothing spectacular. 

Another video had the title, “See Anderson Cooper’s Reaction to Ted Cruz ‘Groveling’ on Fox.” Again, the reaction was hardly noteworthy. 

Nevertheless, his show on the new network all about the anchor, as the very name of the show makes explicit. CNN’s CEO must have thought that the anchor’s reactions would make good promotional material for the network. Strangely, a magazine’s editor even thought that Anderson Cooper’s reactions were of value apart from promotional purposes. People posted a story online about the CNN anchor’s reactions in a New Year’s Eve broadcast from Times Square in New York City. The story, “Anderson Cooper Was All of Us with His Hilarious Reactions as He Took Shots to Bid 2020 Farewell,” featured the celebrity’s reaction to drinking a shot of alcohol on live television. After he and the other host drank a shot, “Cooper pursed his lips and coughed in seemingly slight discomfort, though he otherwise held it together.”[2] Hilarious.

It may be that Anderson Cooper’s minute reactions were such important fodder for publications because the anchor’s mother, Gloria Vanderbilt, was an heiress of an illustrious (and very rich) American family. She was a businesswoman, fashion designer, socialite, and writer in her own right. Interestingly, she had offered at the age of 85 to carry a baby for her gay son. That in itself was more newsworthy than any of her son’s muted political reactions on air. Of course, when Anderson Cooper had come out as gay on air, that too was deemed to be newsworthy in spite the journalistic standard that the sexual orientation (or race, gender, or political ideology) of a conveyer of news shouldn’t have an impact on the presentation of the news.

When a journalist becomes the story, especially in expressing a personal opinion, news itself (and journalism) becomes obfuscated, diluted, and even toxic from the standpoint of the role of an electorate in a democracy. The societal justification in giving journalists an outsized mouthpiece in public discourse is predicated on their function in conveying the news. This does not extend to molding public opinion and being the news themselves. In a culture in which reality-shows spawn celebrities, perhaps it is only natural that anyone on television could be made into one even for displaying muted visible reactions.

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1. Lee Moran, “CNN Journalist Responds to Brazen Trump Campaign Claim with Disbelief,” The Huffington Post, July 4, 2023.

2. Jen Juneau, “Anderson Cooper Was All of Us with His Hilarious Reactions as He Took Shots to Bid 2020 Farewell,” People, January 1, 2021.

Karl Lagerfeld: An Artistic (and Marketing) Genius

Weeks after Karl Lagerfeld’s death at 85 in February, 2019, I poured over interviews that the eternally-modern yet classic Renaissance man had given. “I only answer questions,” he had said an interview in at a WWD conference in 2013. His answers provide as inside as possible a look at l’homme extradinaire.  He considered himself a fashion designer, a book publisher (regular and picture books), and a photographer, though he did much more. I’m not sure whether his books, interior designs, architecture, and photography can be considered marks of genius, but that he extended his method of fashion-design and did so well is a testament to the man’s inner-workings. His answers remind me of Frank Lloyd Wright, the famous architect from Wisconsin whose work so revolutionized homes from the Victorian era. Essentially, he ushered in open homes from the closed roomed Victorian houses. Lagerfeld was also innovative, taking the classic Chanel look and adding bits of modernity, such as in combining a black dress with sneakers. Both men produced homes/dresses that were inexpensive and expensive. Neither was beyond reach, yet as visionaries so far above most other people. Lagerfeld, like Wright, saw things differently than most of their respective contemporaries did. This is perhaps their shared mark of genius: not be so tied to yesterday, combined with being inspired to use creative freedom then expanding its application. This is all based in the inner constitution of the two men, which I suspect was similar. As Lagerfeld said, “I am down to earth—just not this Earth.” This is actually quite telling of genius, for such minds typically think "outside the box" and so can easily see through even societal sacred cows and thus proffer very different perspectives. The thinking, intuition and/or artistic perspective, in other words, innately go beyond the societal and individual assumptions that most people do not even realize they live by or hold. I contend that Karl Lagerfeld's artistic, or visual genius went far beyond fashion-designing.  

Regarding his creativity, Lagerfeld said that perfect work conditions permit creative freedom such that fits of inspiration can run their course like a stream unimpeded by obstacles. Working for a label need not detract. “I do the job because I enjoy it,” he said. “I love to photograph architecture,” for example. He eschewed analyzing his work. “To analyze is very unhealthy,” he said. “The worst thing in fashion . . . is the ivory tower.” So Lagerfeld’s genius did not manifest chiefly through the commonly presumed realm of reason. “I don’t listen to my voice,” he said, “I listen to my inspiration. . . . When I like something, I don’t ask myself why,” he said. “I am like a building that has an antenna; I look at everything.” His genius may have been in both how he looked at everything (i.e., from a distinct vantage-point transcending his own day) and how his inspiration was related to the raw empirical sensory data. “I’m a story teller. From a little detail a story can be made.” The underlying mechanism is difficult to describe “Most of the time, there are strange accidents.” These are innately unprogramable and therefore beyond turning into a programmed series of steps (i.e., mechanization). “I’m not an office person, you know.” Both his unique way of looking at modernity and his inspiration were clearly not easily translated by reason. Yet curiously he viewed his sketching and writing as “the same thing,” which may imply that genius is genius underneath regardless of how it manifests.

Lagerfeld also had a unique approach to work. Believing that “there is always room to improve,” he stated, “I don’t want to rest on what I’ve done; I’m only interested in what I’m doing and what I will do.” He relished being stimulated, which is undoubtedly why he was so interested in looking at what is new at the time. “I lose interest very quickly. A lack of excitement can quickly result in a change in course, “or if people think they know better than I do” or cause complications because they think they think they are professionals. People who work to justify their salary is the worst.”

Although his father was a businessman (who made his fortune from introducing dry milk to Europe), Karl felt no need to assume a business function; he left that to others. He left business to others, though he could be accused of having had an eye for marketing his collections through elaborate shows. Even so, he was not a “business type.” For instance, he said, “People are supposed to work together. If they do, “you don’t need a contract.” A business practitioner would view this, and his dictum that he only works on things he wants to work on, as highly naïve. His lack of humility might have rubbed business practitioners the wrong way. On himself as a fashion designer, he said, “Somebody might do better, but I don’t know who.” Yet interestingly, he included himself in his observation, “Things are step by step; sometimes you go back two steps, but that is a healthy thing too.” He also valued competition, which is cherished in the business world even as its practitioners seek monopolization. “Do you know something heathier than competition?” he said, “I don’t want to rest on my success.” Friends thought he got only a few hours of sleep a night. “I’m not really a party freak, ” he remarked, “I have so little time.” As he kept working so, being open to learning more about the craft and to following through on his fits of inspiration, he may have felt he had earned the right to brag. At around 80 years of age, he still said, “My problem is to show collections that are right for the moment and right for the label.” He was corporate enough to subordinate himself under Chanel even though the company had given him free artistic license, which he regarded as necessary as part of good working conditions. Ironically, in ceding some control, the company’s CEO got more loyalty and financial success from the man. How many business practitioners past their first few promotions stay so eager to push themselves to learn more and improve rather than settle in?

Finally, the unique nature of his perspective looking out at the world as it was is in the moment, rather than looking back retrospectively, shows us how utterly distinct the vantage-point of genius is. As Fredrich Nietzsche had written in the last half of the nineteenth century in Europe, a philosopher is not a man of his time. Genius, whether analytically or artistically, can easily go beyond the status quo and its underlying operative paradigm (e.g., assumptions), and yet Lagerfeld relished the excitement from looking at modernity, which he defined as that which “is right for the moment and the next moment.” Avant guard, he noted, is an antiquated, overused word. Overused, no doubt, by minds that are not able (or willing) to transcend what they take for modernity.

Even Lagerfeld’s reason for not going back over his own story is different, and thus telling. “No memoirs,” he said, “I have nothing to say, and what I could say I don’t want to say. . . . There were important people in my life but I don’t want to give them the pleasure of mentioning them again.” Bravo! Lagerfeld was interested in history, though not of his own, which he said he already knew it so why waste time going over it? Not being moored to a particular culture, present or past, he could critique it particularly well and yet go beyond it and critique a novel trend. For instance, He said of the eighties in France: “I prefer to forget about that.” The seventies, in contrast, “were not about money.” That decade had been one of freedom. “Today if you go to a party, you bring your body-guard; there are body-guards all around.” This is an astoundingly accurate observation and indictment of the increasing security consciousness gripping the urban West. Even just the increasing intimidation in the amassed security forces by businesses and police forces by universities and cities can snuff out the atmosphere of freedom that characterized European and American culture in the 1970s. Genius is out of place, yet so vital to a people ensconced in the status quo (or what has subtly entered the status quo unexamined and perhaps even uninvited).

Sadly, I was too young to partake of the hippie culture of freedom from the late 1960s to mid 1970s; my first political memory is of the Watergate congressional hearings in which then President Nixon was dropped even by his fellow Republicans on account of his law-breaking in office. That memory, plus that of OPEC-induced gasoline shortages and President Carter’s failure to return the Americans held hostage in Iran, gave a pessimistic hue to the decade to me and many other Americans. Fortunately, Europe had a different hue, as Lagerfeld would point out: Greater freedom rather than more corruption. I share his view of the 1980s as being more about money. In Reagan’s America, prosperity was the Gospel and the rich (and business schools) thrived. I’m not surprised to learn that that spread to Europe. Lagerfeld could look back at all the wealth created back in the 1980s and still say in 2013, “Many rich people of the past are poor today (relative to today’s rich).” In spite of the financial crisis of 2008 and the ensuing European debt crisis, the 2010s can be said to be about the super-rich and the related widening disparity in income and wealth approaching that of the Gilded Age. As for Lagerfeld on politics, he was interested in the news (and it was relevant to fashion), but he could proudly proclaim, “I never voted in any country; I am a free European.” The man who had wanted as a child to be an illustrator when he grew up had in fact grown up to pour his genius perspective into images and cultural critiques.

Source: “Interview with Bridget Foley,” The WWD Apparel and Retail CEO Summit, January 7-8, 2013.

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Facebook: A Distrustful Company Projecting Distrust

Cambridge Analytica, political data firm founded by Stephen Bannon and Robert Mercer, and with ties to U.S. President Trump’s 2016 campaign, “was able to harvest private information from more than 50 million Facebook profiles without the social network’s alerting users.”[1] The firm had purchased the data from a developer (a psychology professor at Cambridge University in the E.U.) who had developed a personality test that Facebook users could take, and whose purpose was supposedly academic. The developer violated Facebook’s policy on how user data could be used by third parties. The data firm “used the Facebook data to develop methods that [the firm] claimed could identify the personalities of individual American voters and influence their behavior.”[2] In other words, Cambridge Analytica used the purchased data to manipulate users to vote for Donald Trump for U.S. president in 2016 by sending pro-Trump messages. Although Facebook had not known of the sale of the data to Cambridge Analytica at the time, the social network, upon learning Cambridge Analytica’s political use of the data in 2015, failed to notify its users whose data had been compromised. Although 270,000 Facebook users took the developer’s personality test, “the data of some 50 million  users . . . was harvested without their explicit consent via their friend networks.”[3] It bears noting here that those of the 50 million users who had not taken the personality test should definitely have been informed. At the very least, Facebook’s management could not be trusted to not only  keep users informed, but also protect users in the first place by adequately enforcing the third-party-use policy. So it is ironic that Facebook’s untrustworthy management could be unduly distrustful of ordinary users.

The psychological-political mixture in Cambridge Analytica’s use of the data is downright creepy. Tapping into a psychology professor’s methodology for inferring personality from data on a social network platform so to be able to send politically manipulative advertising to certain Facebook users  is highly invasive, even for the users who voluntarily took the professor’s personality test online. Regardless of party affiliation, a reaction of disapprobation to such an over-reach could be expected; hence the operation was stealth—which is why Facebook’s management erred so in failing to inform the 50 million users. Facebook’s stock deserved to fall when the story finally did break in March, 2018.

It is odd that Facebook’s management even permitted the developer, the psychology professor who went on to sell the data to Cambridge Analytica, to obtain the data in the first place to develop personality constructs for academic purposes. It is also odd that Facebook’s management had been so naïve concerning a political data firm, and yet so demanding of individual users who displayed no cause for suspicion. Facebook suspended an account I set up because I had sent a link to one of my academic articles to some scholars I knew. I deleted the account. A few years later, I tried again. That time, Facebook demanded that I upload a clear facial picture of myself so I could be identified. Apparently my phone number and email address were not sufficient, even though I had not yet even used the account and thus could not have violated any of the company’s use-policies. I deleted that account rather than supply a picture of myself because I was concerned how the facial recognition software would be used, especially when combined with other basic information I had included in the profile. It turns out I had reason to be concerned, for even if my personality had not been construed and I had not been subject to political manipulation psychologically, the fact that Facebook let a political firm in the door means that other harvesting could have been going on. Furthermore, even if Facebook discovered other extractions, I could not trust that the company would have informed me.

It is telling, in short, that a company so distrustful demanded that I upload a picture of my face so I could be identified—as if I were distrustful. I suspect that the managers and their employees were projecting their own distrustfulness onto innocent users, while giving firms like Cambridge Analytica a free hand. In other words, the folks at Facebook were very bad at determining who is trustworthy. The lesson here is that Facebook was not worthy of its users’ trust, and yet strangely the users did not bolt en mass. It could be that people in modern society had become so used to being distrusted by people working in organizations and to interacting with distrustful companies that the Facebook revelation was a mere blimp on the radar screen.

The philosopher Kant reasoned that promise-making is only valid in a context in which promises tend to be kept; otherwise, promises would simply be dismissed as worthless dribble. If large companies only keep their promises when doing so is convenient to them, such a context could recalibrate just how much worth promise-making justifiably deserves. If so, the business world itself could contribute to a society in which distrust rather than trust is the norm. When I lived in Tucson, Arizona, I experienced such a society. I could feel not only the angst in the air, but also the passive aggression in the distrust itself. Besides the police-state being “beyond the pale” even on the local university’s campus, the guarded watchfulness that was (and surely is still) practiced between strangers on the city streets (as well as between bus drivers and riders) included an inherent aggressiveness. Likewise, Facebook’s refusal to notify users of the “harvesting” and Facebook’s demand that I furnish a photo of my face involved passive aggression—which is inherent in unjustified disrespect. Are companies like Facebook unwittingly turning modern society into Tucsons? If so, the link between distrust and aggression should be made transparent so people can at least be aware of the change.

For a business ethics critique of Facebook, see Taking the Face off Facebook

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1. Matthew Rosenberg and Sheera Frenkel, “Facebook Role In Data Misuse Sets Off Storm,” The New York Times, March 19, 2018.

2. Ibid.

3. “Cambridge Analytica: Facebook ‘being investigated by FTC,’” BBC News ( accessed March 20, 2018).

An Anti-Obesity, Anti-Poverty Philanthropist Joins PepsiCo.’s Board: A Case of Reform from Within

In October 2016, Darren Walker, president of the Ford Foundation, became the newest member of PepsiCo’s board of directors. Whereas Walker worked at the time for a more just and equitable society, Pepsi was making the bulk of its money by selling sugary drinks and fatty snacks and there being a well-established link between obesity and economic inequality. Would he be working at cross-purposes? “There’s a risk that he will be viewed as inconsistent,” said Michael Edwards, a former Ford Foundation executive at the time.[1] The company itself could also be viewed as being inconsistent—lobbying against anti-obesity public-health legislation while putting Walker on the board of directors.

To be sure, the Ford Foundation had not funded organizations working to combat obesity or diabetes, so there does not seem to be a direct conflict of interest for Walker.[2] Yet he did acknowledge, “I know that my own credibility and the credibility of the Ford Foundation is tied to this decision. Those of us in philanthropy have to be discerning about the corporate boards we join, and be discriminating to ensure that our service on a board is aligned with our values.”[3]

So rather than there being a conflict of interest, the issue for Walker was whether he could act as a reformer from within. Even though he planned bring the perspective of a social-justice organization and his own perspective “as someone who is deeply concerned about the welfare of people in poor and vulnerable communities,” he would still bear responsibility should PepsiCo’s board go in another direction.[4] He would not, in other words, be chairman of the board. That the company had just pledged to further reduce the amount of sugar, fat, and salt in its products by 2025, however, suggests an appetite for accommodation with Walker’s perspective. Additionally, Walker would not be responsible for the company’s past unethical lobbying against anti-obesity legislation, use of unethical suppliers of palm oil, and deceptive marketing, and the company had since taken steps to remedy these ethical problems.[5]

As in politics, the matter for Walker and the other board-members concerning would be whether together they could wield compromises taking into account both Walker’s vantage-point and the legal and ethical fiduciary duty to act as faithful stewards of the stockholders’ capital. Reform from “the inside,” moreover, can be more productive than merely staying in the philanthropic sphere. In terms of American politics, the analogue would be moving from the Green Party, for instance, to the Democratic Party so as to work toward reform that could actually manifest in legislation. Admittedly, idealism is tested in such a strategy, but consequentialism tells us that even 50% of 10 is more than 0% of 10.

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1. David Gelles, “An Activist for the Poor Joins Pepsi’s Board. Is That Ethical?,” The New York Times, October 28, 2016.

2. Ibid.

3. Ibid.

4. Ibid.

5. Ibid.

Wal-Mart: Political Contributions as Bribery

In September 2005, “a senior Wal-Mart lawyer received an alarming e-mail from a former executive at the company’s largest foreign subsidiary, Wal-Mart de Mexico. In the e-mail and follow-up conversations, the former executive described how Wal-Mart de Mexico had orchestrated a campaign of bribery to win market dominance. In its rush to build stores, he said, the company had paid bribes to obtain permits in virtually every corner of the country. . . . Wal-Mart dispatched investigators to Mexico City, and within days they unearthed evidence of widespread bribery. They found a paper trail of hundreds of suspect payments totaling more than $24 million. They also found documents showing that Wal-Mart de Mexico’s top executives not only knew about the payments, but had taken steps to conceal them from Wal-Mart’s headquarters in Bentonville, Ark. In a confidential report to his superiors, Wal-Mart’s lead investigator, a former F.B.I. special agent, summed up their initial findings this way: ‘There is reasonable suspicion to believe that Mexican and USA laws have been violated.’”[1]

Critics protesting a new Wal-Mart store after the bribery scandal    John Moore/Getty

The full essay is in The full essay is in Cases of Unethical Business: A Malignant Mentality of Mendacity, available in print and as an ebook at Amazon.com.

1. David Barstow, “Vast Mexico Bribery Case Hushed Up by Wal-Mart After Top-Level Struggle,” The New York Times, April 21, 2012.

Cardiologists as Ethicists: On Cheney’s Heart Transplant

Former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney had a heart transplant on March 24, 2012, "after five heart attacks over the past 25 years and countless medical procedures to keep him going. Cheney, 71, waited nearly two years for his new heart, the gift of an unknown donor.”[1] At the time, more than 3,100 Americans were on the states’ waiting list for a heart. Of the roughly 2,300 heart transplants performed in 2011, 332 were over sixty-five. On average, heart failure was killing 57,000 Americans a year at the time, so just a fraction of those who could use a heart get one. One might question, therefore, whether the 332 recipients who were over 65, and Cheney, who was 71, should have been allowed to avail themselves of the relatively short supply of available hearts.

 Dick Cheney was noticeably thinner after his 2010 heart attack. 

“The ethicists will get into this case.” Eric Topol, a cardiologist in California, wrote this line in reference to the question of age.[2] Specifically, should someone who could be expected to have ten years left take a heart that could otherwise allow someone else to live twenty or thirty more years?  Over 70% of heart-transplant recipients live at least five years. It could be argued that Cheney had been able to live 71 years so it is not fair for someone who is 50 or 60 to not be able to do likewise for lack of a transplant because someone Cheney’s age has it. On the other hand, Cheney could argue that because people were living into their 80s and even 90s, he could expect to do so as well. In other words, he could look at someone who is 81 and say, “it is not too much to ask to try to live that long.”

To be sure, my primary applications of ethical theory are in business, government, society, and religion. I do not have the background in biology and medicine to be an expert in medical ethics. So this essay can only be cursory. It is odd to me, therefore, when someone who has not even studied ethical theory wades in as a pseudo-ethicist. An undergraduate degree from a medical school (e.g., the M.D.) does not qualify a cardiologist as an ethicist.

Yet William Zoghbi, the incoming president of the American College of Cardiology at the time of Cheney’s transplant, said on that very day concerning Cheney’s age, “It is not too old. Age is really not a factor.” To be sure, he was referring to the medical condition of the patients. However, he went on to overreach, opining “I don’t see any ethical issues here,” given how weak Cheney’s heart had been.[3] Just because a non-ethicist does not think there are any ethical matters involved does not mean that this is so.

From my standpoint as a business ethicist, I believe an ethical issue is indeed involved in hospitals, as businesses, giving hearts to older applicants, especially if they are powerful or wealthy people who can “skip” in line by having a dedicated donor. More generally, using the utilitarian ethical theory of Bentham, it could be argued that giving hearts to older applicants violates the greatest good (in terms of pleasure) for the greatest number. Older recipients tend not to live quite as many years on a new heart, and they have already lived to be a ripe old age while someone with heart disease at 50 has not. Enabling as many people as possible to reach 71 would go a long way in terms of the greatest good for the greatest number.

Admittedly, I must qualify my conclusion due to my lack of medical knowledge. For instance, I do not know how the older recipients fare medically relative to younger ones. Ideally, a doctor of ethics who has an undergraduate degree from a medical school should be decisive here. For a cardiologist without any formal education in ethical theory to venture an ethical conclusion suggests a certain educational immaturity, if not arrogance. I doubt that William Zoghbi had even heard of Bentham’s utilitarian theory and yet the cardiologist presumes that no ethical issues are involved in Cheney’s case.

In a society in which the profession of medicine is valued a lot, people might enable medical practitioners to get away with such an over-reach with impunity. No doubt Dick Cheney really wanted to keep living. This natural urge—the life instinct—can easily succumb to a medical practitioner’s artificial desire to over-reach in terms of what is entitled by the undergraduate degree granted by medical schools.

1. Kasie Hunt, “Dick Cheney Heart Transplant: Former VicePresident Recovering After Undergoing Surgery,” The Huffington Post, March 24, 2012.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.

Congressional Earmarks: A Personal Conflict of Interest

Congressman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) runs his local district office down the hall from where he runs his businesses worth hundreds of millions of dollars. According to the New York Times, his “dual careers” evince a “meshing of public and private interests rarely seen in government.”[1] While advocating for business in Congress, he split his holding company into separate multibillion-dollar businesses, started an insurance company, and retained a financial interest in his automobile-alarm business. At least some of his actions in government have made him richer.[2] Most notably, he secured Congressional earmarks for road widening and other public works projects that runs his local district office down the hall from where he runs  that he owns in his district. For example, earmarks that he arranged made possible the widening of a busy road in front of a medical plaza that he bought for $10.3 million. To be sure, his constituents applaud the easing of traffic, but what if the money would otherwise have been spent to relieve more severe congestion elsewhere? Even if no worse instances existed, that the congressman’s constituents benefitted from the street-widening does not mean that his action was ethical.

The full essay is at Institutional Conflicts of Interest, available in print and as an ebook at Amazon.

1. Eric Lichtblau, “Helping His District, andHimself,” New York Times, August 15, 2011.

2. Ibid.