Mopsos

The McKinsey Quarterly: Exploring business's social contract: An interview with Daniel Yankelovich

The values of the generations that grew up before 1950 are embodied in the concept of enlightened self-interest—not naked self-interest, but enlightened self-interest. Enlightened self-interest is when you make a profit by meeting a need, by fulfilling a social function. The unintended consequence of the shift in moral values during the 1970s has been the ascendance of unenlightened self-interest—winning for yourself; I win, you lose. The Enron psychology was winning for yourself, being out for yourself. The rationalization was, “We didn’t do anything wrong, because we didn’t break the law.” Well, Enron did break the law, but many of the people who are undermining the trust of the public hold the view that morality simply means not breaking the law. To my generation, that’s moral blindness.

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