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So how will we choose?

by Simon Longstaff

My topic is about a search of sorts that began in Cambridge in 1990.

On hearing of my decision to return to Australia to head up an ethics centre – my normally polite and reserved colleagues dropped all pretence of tact and diplomacy and burst out laughing. The very idea of ethics and Australians seemed ridiculous to them.

What do you have when half a dozen Aussie entrepreneurs are buried up to their necks in sand? Not enough sand!

This may be the echo of hypocrisy ... but that is not the point. Many people in business and those who advise and regulate them have, at the very least, a case to answer.

Anyway, naturally enough, I took exception to this attitude and set out to find the virtuous Australian.

... Soon after I started my new role of Executive Director of St James Ethics Centre in 1991, I was in a taxi heading out to the airport when the taxi driver began a conversation to tell me about his life story. He revealed that he'd only been driving a taxi for a short time and that in the period immediately before he'd driven a concrete truck. This caught my attention because we were having one of our regular Royal Commissions into one form of corruption or another in New South Wales and Roger Giles QC was looking at allegations of corruption in the building industry.

So I said to the cab driver, “Listen, you've worked in the industry – is it right, what goes on?” He replied, “Mate, you know, you're building a hospital somewhere and one of the bosses or one of their mates wants an extension to their house or a swimming pool put in. So the word comes down to divert a few truckloads of concrete and people turn a blind eye with a nod and a wink. After a while there's the extension, there's the swimming pool. It's what happens”.

The taxi driver went on, “But, you know, it's worse than that. I had to get out because of this sort of thing”. So I'm now thinking that I'm going to be told stories of whole buildings being relocated from one part of Sydney to another in the dead of night. “Mate,” he said, “I couldn't stay because, you know, somebody stole $20 from the lockers in the workshop where I used to get changed and I wasn't going to have a bar of that”. So he was driven out of it because of the theft of $20 – but not because of the truckloads of concrete worth thousands of dollars.

We continued the journey and the driver asked, “Mate, what do you do?” So I told him that I run an Ethics Centre and began to explain to him our hopes and aspirations. The more I spoke to him the more his face changed – it lit up. I will go to my grave seeing him thumping on the top of his steering wheel with the heel of his palm saying, “That's what we need mate. An Ethics Centre. That's right. That's what we need”. He could see that somehow or other the existence of this Ethics Centre would mean that no-one would be stealing truckloads of concrete anymore and no-one would be pilfering from the lockers in the workshop.

Now you can imagine my response to this – this is my wildest dream come true. Here I am sitting in a Sydney taxi, talking to a cabbie about ethics and he's getting it. He's bought it. He says it's a good thing to be doing.

So we arrive at the airport and I asked for the receipt for my fare. The driver said, “Now, how much do you want it for?” ...

You might have thought I'd pack in the job then and admit defeat, accepting that my limitations were pretty profound when it came to doing this work. But it left me walking into the terminal wondering how could this have happened.

Three reasons for this outcome occurred to me at the time. It's since been suggested to me that a fourth reason I didn't consider was that this was an incredibly sophisticated person who was doing an integrity test to see if I really was an Ethics Centre director.

However, the first reason that occurred to me was that from his point of view this was a kind of reward that he was giving me for being a good passenger. Secondly, that the reward he was offering was at no cost to himself and the money would not have come out of his pocket if I'd taken advantage of it – it would have been from the petty cash tin at my office.

The final reason is that if I'd said to the driver, “Listen, don't you think that after our conversation it's a bit odd that you should ask me if I'd like to help rip off an Ethics Centre?”, the response would most likely have been, “But everybody does it” or, “But that's just the way we do things around here”.

Such a response is the first and greatest enemy of ethics.

Custom and practice – how does it condition what we do? Do we ever stop to really think about the ethical implications of what we do? Is it enough to say, “That's just the way we do things around here. We've always done it that way”?

Next I looked to Politicians ...

People can see through insincere claims about ethics and values. People look to ensure that actions match the words. Where there is a mismatch then people question the integrity of the speaker.

There is cynicism about all manner of institutions. For example, the professions claim to promote or protect the public good – to set aside self interest ... but do they? Can we believe what people say? Banks, Lawyers, Politicians (lies in the armoury).

I looked to the past

Justice and benevolence = mateship and a fair go:

That general determination – to stand by one's mate, and to see that he gets a fair deal whatever the cost to oneself – means more to Australia than can yet be reckoned ... Whatever the results (and they are sometimes uncomfortable) may it long be the country's code.

CEW Bean (1910) On The Wool Track, London.

But was this a reliable account or is it a romantic vision of a time that we have either abandoned or never really experienced?

Is it a myth? And if so ... does it matter, for such a myth may provide something distinctive that reinforces positive trends.

I looked around again – and found ordinary people

• People working hard decent lives
• People who haven't surrendered themselves to despair and cynicism
• People who set a daily example and look to their leaders to do the same

I think that I may have found my virtuous Australians. They are all around us. But they are looking for leadership. And this call to demonstrate leadership is something that Rotarians should listen to very seriously.

One ideal of the role of rotary has been provided by Sir Charles Court, who delivered the Sir Angus Mitchell Memorial Address in Perth 1991:

Leadership

The big challenge is that Rotarians will be acknowledged leaders of today and tomorrow in the return to basic values and the practise of sound ethical conduct.

A tall order? Not really if we are genuine. It is no more challenging than the great work that has been done by campaigns such as polio plus, rotary foundation, exchange students and the like.

It might not seem as dramatic and appealing as the polio plus type campaign. But measured in terms of long term effect on our community, it could be even greater in its final effect.

There is a high degree of urgency. It is later than you think.

It's against the background of these challenging words that the results of the Vocational Service Scoreboard need to be assessed. So how does our club fare?

The results indicate that the club's members see themselves (and believe that they are seen by others) to be a socially responsible and ethical group of people. Such a finding should not be surprising.

There is, however, one result that might give some grounds for concern. This is that close to 34% of those surveyed believe that questions about ethics rarely, if ever, “have an explicit and practical impact on the decision-making process” of their business or profession.

Extrapolating from the survey, this would indicate that there may be as many as 120 members of the club who would appear to exclude ethical considerations from the realm of day-to-day decision-making.

Perhaps there is a need to encourage reflection about this. It may be done in conjunction with a serious and thoughtful discussion of the relevance of the Four Way Test. After all, close to 20% of the respondents think the Test to have little or no relevance.

Rotarians are called upon to lead in difficult times. Rotary provides many of the resources that one might need to rely on when mounting such a project. And one of the most important of these is the Four Way Test.

The four way test

• Is it the truth?
• Is it fair to all concerned?
• Would it build goodwill and better friendships?
• Would it be beneficial to all concerned?

In the current social environment there are many who would argue that such a test is to be considered an unrealisable ideal. That it can't really be applied in practice. That it is old fashioned, only useful in a different era. Others would argue that such a test retains its relevance and that we suffer because it is so infrequently applied.

The problem is that the Four Way Test assumes the existence of a society and not just an enterprise association. What is the difference between these two types of social organisation?

We might imagine a city founded purely as a trading post. The laws of the city will reflect its original purpose, and have to be understood in relation to this purpose. Contracts will be vigorously enforced however unreasonable or unjust, because it is of the highest importance to retain the confidence of those with whom the city trades. Indeed, the notion of a contract being 'unjust' will have no meaning. All education will be subordinated to the need to produce an ‘enterprise culture’, and no subject will be studied as an end in itself. The rulers of the city will regard themselves essentially as the managers of the enterprise. Their tasks will be to maximise wealth and promote trade.

Casey, J, (1990), Pagan Virtues, Cambridge, CUP

Is this so very far away from what we now experience? Some may say that this is an accurate and even attractive picture. But does such a view of 'society' miss something of vital importance? For example, does society exist simply to “facilitate the exchange of commodities” or is there something more? Is there, for example, a need to value friendships, to realise that other people can make a claim on us? Is living in a society only possible when we recognise that each individual is bound to others within a network of formal and informal relationships?

The challenge facing us today is to make a choice about which alternative we want. Do we want a society of citizens in which something like the Four Way Test makes sense? Or do we want the enterprise association in which each of us is little more than a purveyor or consumer of commodities? A place where the Four Way Test seems strange and alien?

The choice is ours. So how will we choose. And when we have chosen, then what will we do?

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