Just back from an interesting lunch discussion at JLF. Yes, it is Monday and that means Shaftsbury Society. Today Mr. Diju Raha spoke on the challenges of globalization. Accordingly, he covered the management challenges associated with organizing a work team ? covering design, fabrication, packaging, sales, marketing and myriad other business functions ? that can be physically disparate, even globally scattered. He talked about the need for a well educated workforce and the virtue of a broad ? daresay, classical ? education. I could find no vice his his pursuit of these virtues.

Most of the questions honed in on the challenge Raha sees in how do deal effectively with people who are dislocated by the changes in the economy. Indeed, Raha charged his audience with a moral imperative: ?in the wealthiest nation of the world, Americans must ameliorate the pain of those unprepared for change.?

This is not a new argument and not even what I left wondering about. It seems a simple perversion of the idea of Manifest Destiny. First, I don?t accept that in America one morality applies while in a country of lesser wealth a different morality applies. By definition, moral principles are universal. Therefore, a moral action in Port au Prince would be a moral action in Portland. There are other reasons, but it is enough to say I found this line of argument unpersuasive.

My Problem: Mr. Raha contends that there must be a corporate conscience. This conscience of a corporation should impel firms to willingly ?invest? resources in a public-private insurance program to aid dislocated workers (presumably with new education.) As one attendee of the luncheon mentioned on my way out, individuals can have a conscience but a corporation is only a collection of contracts. I still left wondering about this existential corporate conscience. I?ll grant for argument that it might exist although I doubt it.

Regardless, on what principle would the conscience inform the firm to give some portion of its resources to workers instead of a group of investors? Surely, it would be different if the workers were compelled to take the job in the first place. But since workers have many choices in the labor market ? with corresponding risks and rewards ? why should they be protected more than the investors? And if this firm can think and come to a conscientious position followed by willful action, by what means does it give greater moral weight to the claims of current unemployed workers than to the crop of current employees who would benefit from alternative uses of those same resources (into better pay or working conditions, investment into the firms other capital to stay competitive etc.) To my mind, it cannot. Only an individual may have a conscience.

I ask others to show me the error of my thinking.