The Value of Ethics

In Cheney et all, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is described as "the desireability of managing business practices in consonance with larger societal issues and to contribute to the well-being of cultures and communities in which they are embedded" (p. 413). The definition resonates for me in the context of current financial downturn in the home loan market. American consumers are bombarded with subliminal and overt messages that exhorting them to live the upscale lifestyle depicted, in the media, as being the middle class norm. Uneducated consumers may respond to such marketing by taking out credit cards and easy mortgage loans, to finance the lifestyle they are told they "deserve". Once in trouble, consumers are blamed entirely for not taking "responsibility" for their spending. Similary, fast food companies market large quantities of unhealthy food at very low prices, only to insist they bear no responsibility for contributing to the obesity epidemic.
Ethical corporate behavior dictates that products (financial and otherwise) be marketed in a transparent manner, so that risks can be assessed by producers and consumers alike; both have a responsibility to each other as well as the community at large.