“The sad news is, nobody owes you a career. Your career is literally your business. You own it as a sole proprietor. You have one employee: yourself. You are in competition with millions of similar businesses: millions of other employees all over the world. You need to accept ownership of your career, your skills and the timing of your moves. It is your responsibility to protect this personal business of yours from harm and to position it to benefit from changes in the environment. Nobody else can do that for you.”
Excellent. My only question: Should that be sad news or empowering news?
* Three moral types: Carly, Tonya, and Jane.
* Six questions in ethics.
* Egoism, Altruism, and Predation.
* Entrepreneurial ethics: entrepreneurial success and virtue.
* Why hasn’t the case for liberty convinced everyone?
* Entrepreneurial ethics in contrast to historical codes: hunter-gatherer, aristocratic, and monkish.
My essay is now available at Amazon in Kindle e-book format. It was for awhile on the Social Science Research Network’s “Top Ten” list of papers in the Entrepreneurship Research & Policy Network. It has also been translated into Serbo-Croatian translation.
Here’s the abstract: “Entrepreneurship is increasingly studied as a fundamental and foundational economic phenomenon. It has, however, received less attention as an ethical phenomenon. Much contemporary business ethics assumes its core application purposes to be (1) to stop predatory business practices and (2) to encourage philanthropy and charity by business. Certainly predation is immoral and charity has a place in ethics, neither should be the first concerns of ethics. Instead, business ethics should make fundamental the values and virtues of entrepreneurs - i.e., those self-responsible and productive individuals who create value and trade with others to win-win advantage.”
I’m giving two talks later this week in historic Alexandria, Virginia, at the Free Minds 2010 conference, co-sponsored by The Atlas Society and the Free Minds Institute.
On Friday I’ll speak on “Ayn Rand’s Entrepreneurial Ethic,” and on Saturday I’ll speak on “CEE’s Mission and Strategy.”
Posted 1 year, 7 months ago at 8:49 pm. Add a comment
I will be giving a pair of talks next week at Loyola University Chicago. Both talks will be on business ethics, focusing on the ethics of entrepreneurship.
I received an email from the Social Science Research Network — the huge online database of scholarly journal essays in economics, law, management, and related fields — with the delightful subject line: “Your Paper Makes SSRN Top Ten List.”
The article is a relatively brief nine pages. The abstract:
“Entrepreneurship is increasingly studied as a fundamental and foundational economic phenomenon. It has, however, received less attention as an ethical phenomenon. Much contemporary business ethics assumes its core application purposes to be (1) to stop predatory business practices and (2) to encourage philanthropy and charity by business. Certainly predation is immoral and charity has a place in ethics, but neither should be the first concerns of ethics. Instead, business ethics should make fundamental the values and virtues of entrepreneurs—i.e., those self-responsible and productive individuals who create value and trade with others to win-win advantage.”
Posted 2 years, 7 months ago at 11:37 am. 6 comments
“The sad news is, nobody owes you a career. Your career is literally your business. You own it as a sole proprietor. You have one employee: yourself. You are in competition with millions of similar businesses: millions of other employees all over the world. You need to accept ownership of your career, your skills and the timing of your moves. It is your responsibility to protect this personal business of yours from harm and to position it to benefit from changes in the environment. Nobody else can do that for you.” 
I will be giving a pair of talks next week at Loyola University Chicago. Both talks will be on business ethics, focusing on the ethics of entrepreneurship. 
My approach to the topic will be based on my essay 
I received an email from the Social Science Research Network — the huge online database of scholarly journal essays in economics, law, management, and related fields — with the delightful subject line: “Your Paper Makes SSRN Top Ten List.” 
My essay on 
