"To Create Value"

With the fetid stench from Wall Street keeping sane investors as far away as they can get, Harvard has decided to appoint an "ethicist" dean for the Harvard Business School in hopes, perhaps, of restoring "faith" that the new crops of cologned, voracious buzz cut entrepreneurs will enter the world with a commitment to do something besides rape and pillage among taxpayers and consumers.

HBS has even offered an oath (optional) for its future cash hounds, whose alumni range from Jeff Skilling ('79) to Geo. W. Bush ('75). No I Q tests allowed, obviously.

The new MBA Oath has been so purelled that it translates "to make money" into the more wholesome and innocuous "to create value." Which presents a new problem for non-MBAS, perhaps. Since the study of ethics is the study of value among humans, that must mean now, according to HBS, that ethics has been elevated to the study of making money, or "to create value." Of course, that makes perfect sense.

THE MBA OATH

As a business leader I recognize my role in society.

• My purpose is to lead people and manage resources to create value that no single individual can create alone. . . .