Business Ethics From The 19th Century To Today: An Economist’s View

David George Surdam Business Ethics from the 19th Century to Today An Economist’s View Business Ethics from the 19th Century to Today David George Surdam Business Ethics from the 19th Century to Today An Economist’s View David George Surdam Department of Economics University of Northern Iowa Cedar Falls, IA, USA ISBN 978-3-030-37168-5    ISBN 978-3-030-37169-2 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-37169-2 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland Acknowledgments This book had its origins in conversations with my late dissertation advisor, Nobel Prize winner in Economics Robert W. Fogel. For years after I graduated from the University of Chicago, Bob (as he insisted his graduated students call him) would graciously take time from a busy schedule to discuss my latest work. He encouraged me to investigate topics in business ethics, and I attended his class on the subject at the Graduate School of Business at Chicago. He emphasized the historical phenomenon of changing views of what was ethical in business. I later taught courses in business ethics at Loyola University of Chicago and the Graduate School of Business, University of Chicago. Many of the ideas for this book emanated from these courses. As with most authors, many people helped me along the way. The following paragraphs are among the most pleasurable ones for me to write. I thank graduate assistants Caroline Mutonyi, Madiha Ahsan, and Shanaya Alvares at the University of Northern Iowa, for processing thousands of the note cards and looking up articles and books. Undergraduate Kobe Diers provided help with a particularly tedious task (deleting 2102 superscripts representing endnotes). Matt Goodwin helped compile the citations and the bibliography. There are plenty of friends in academia to thank. David Galens