A Class with Drucker - Headway | Work on yourself

112 ■ A CLASS WITH DRUCKER
The Law Versus Ethics
“You are saying that something is unethical because it is illegal. You are confusing
the law and ethics,” <strong>Drucker</strong> said. “Until the 1860’s, slavery was legal
in the United States. Moreover, in the Dred Scott decision of the late 1850’s,
the Supreme Court ruled that no African-Americans, not even free blacks,
could ever become citizens of the United States. According to the law, the
Declaration of Independence did not refer to them, nor did the U.S. Constitution
offer them any protection. So, if you maintain that the law and ethics
are the same, you would have to say that if you in any way attempted to subvert
the law to award Constitutional rights to African-Americans in those
days, you would not only be in violation of the law, you would be unethical.”
<strong>Drucker</strong> gave another example. “In this century,” he said, “Hitler’s
Germany passed the Nuremberg Laws, which denied German Jews the
rights of German citizenship, and passed other restrictions on them. As a
German citizen, if you attempted to circumvent these laws or violate them
directly—say, by marrying a Jew, officiating at such a marriage, observing
a Jew practicing a profession, or failing to report any violation of the laws
to the authorities, you would be sent to prison or worse. Were those who
violated these laws unethical? Of course not! We can expect to be punished
if we fail to obey a law whether it is a good law or a bad one, but it
has nothing to do <strong>with</strong> ethics.”
The Legal Dilemma
“But let’s return to our earlier discussion,” Peter went on. “I asked if you
felt that a company doing business in another country must follow their
practices and laws, since clearly the view of what is and what is not ethics
may vary from culture to culture and country to country. You agreed that
they must. That, for example, the Japanese president must not provide
rewards to U.S. government officials after their retirement from government
service, as he himself decided, because of our laws and ethical values.
Then, by the same logic, shouldn’t American companies “bribe”
foreign officials to obtain contracts, when this is expected and is the custom
and is not considered unethical?”
There was silence at first in the room. No one seemed particularly eager
to respond. Finally, someone said, “But this is our law.”
“Correct,” responded <strong>Drucker</strong>, “and because it is our law, we
Americans must obey it, even though it may not be considered unethical
or be against the law in a foreign country.”