Corporate ethics under the President-elect Donald J. Trump’s administration may become selective and allow exceptions towards certain and possibly illegal practices that are committed by the future presidential cabinet, writes Professor Carl Rhodes.
In an article published by Independent Australia, ethics teacher Professor Carl Rhodes of the University of Technology discusses what business ethics could be like when Trump takes over. It looks like this: a Trump administration wherein advisers to the president are exempt from the law and rules that govern and protect the interests and welfare of society.
It looks like a country that is run by a controlling and dictating sovereign instead of a president of a democracy. Gone would be the rule abiding politicians that are meant to lead by example.
This is what Trump acolyte, Newt Gingrich, wants to see. He proposed that advisers who break the rules must be offered pardon by the president.
For Professor Carl Rhodes, this means that the Trump administration would be above the law and would deny its liability for any action that might be against the law. It would mean that certain business interests would be immune, that politicians who are also at the same time businessmen can get away with anything they like.
This is very much the opposite of what business ethics is about, which is adhering to the basic rules that safeguard society while still being able to make a profit. This definition by Milton Friedman would not apply any longer to the White House.
According to Professor Carl Rhodes, it is the rise of extreme neoliberalism that has made this scenario—what he calls an equivalent of a State of Exception—possible. Ever since Trump’s election, this dangerous kind of neoliberalism is slowly being legitimized.
The President-elect is to be inaugurated on Jan. 20, and it is yet to be seen whether or not this kind of selective business ethics will be really upheld in the Trump administration.
