The Detroit Three Hearings: An Ethics Lecture

The Detroit Three auto execs and the UAW leader didn't drive any of their cars from Detroit to Washington, DC this week. Instead, they flew. In corporate jets, in the case of the execs, and on a commercial flight, in the case of the UAW leader.

What are we to learn from the Detroit Three's attempts to secure a bridge loan from the government this week, based on their appearance before Congressional committee hearings?

In addition to confirming loud and clear that Detroit, as a symbol of old industry, and the auto companies and unions, as symbols of obsolete business models, we can learn a great deal about the use and abuse of ethical assumptions to cover for political decisions.

For many of the members of Congress and some commentators in the media (not to mention many Americans who voiced their views through polls and blogs about the subject of the hearings), the request for help was all about character. That is the poor character the American auto industry had shown during the last decade, for example, when it did not change its gas-guzzling cars and trucks to match the imperatives of energy independence and for the sake of the environment.

The lectures from several Senators touched on the traditional...and old... character flaws of arrogance, greed and the various corrupt practices they engender (such as assuming that flying in a corporate jet is an entitlement), as well as the usual nods toward deception and lack of transparency by the auto industry and its executive management. To be sure, more than a few Senators should be able to recognize these character traits quite easily, given the long history of self-dealing in the halls of Congress.

What I found more striking, however, were the admonitions bristling with ethical indignation over the industry's sluggishness and slowness to change, and most notably, its lack of efficiency.

Slowness and inefficiency seem to have transformed into two of the worst character flaws these days. To be sure, they are serious problems for businesses; that they are character flaws, and doom businesses and the people who work for them to penance and punishment are debate-worthy questions.

And punishment was also a key to the hearings. Here, the unions were included. They were pilloried for getting paid for not working (this is an interesting idea, given that Congress is going to adjourn this week and take two months off with pay) and for getting paid too much. Their rigidity and failure to sacrifice were also suggested as being moral omens for their upcoming downfall.

For their part, the auto execs and the labor leader were prudent enough to stay away from charging their senatorial questioners with the moral vice of hypocrisy. After all, they came to Washington in the spirit of the holiday season, to beg for a gift of sorts. And anyone who knows about getting a gift, knows the gift relationship is morally charged. The power that dripped from the gift giving power brokers in the hearing room was similarly charged.

So, the auto execs and the labor leader chose to deal in the ethics of harm. What will happen if one or more go down? Irreparable harm to the people, the economy and the nation.

For most of the discussion, they stuck to the consequentialist side and to the risk and dangers accompanying their failure. They talked about the loss and harm done when almost 3 million jobs vanish; they put into context the crucial beneficial role of the auto industry in our economy; they warned that without a manufacturing base on American soil, that we were placing our national security in harm's way.

Some commentators have said that had the executives and the labor leader apologized (a very credible ethics tool) that the Senators would have been more amenable to listening to their moral views about the potential and real harm that will result from their going down.

But saying you are sorry for what you have done also has a long history in the halls of Congress; and for the most part, politicians are better at assigning blame, another moral category that is most often used to decide in the end who will go down...and not who should...go down.