Defending Jack’s perks: In the Christian Science Monitor, Edwin A. Locke defends Jack Welch’s obscene perks at General Electric. Locke: “Capitalism can't survive without a moral base, as the writer Ayn Rand observed decades ago. The only proper moral basis of capitalism is: man's right to exist for his own happiness, neither sacrificing himself to others nor others to himself. Man has a right to his own life, which includes the right to trade freely with others without government interference (other than to prevent fraud).” ... Hub Blog’s response: Notice how Edwin put that last parenthetical “other than to prevent fraud” clause at the end. Otherwise, some smart smart aleck like, oh, Hub Blog, might have pointed out that capitalism can’t survive with companies such as, oh, Enron, Tyco, WorldCom etc., all of which had CEOs who clearly thought they were entitled to trade freely with others, chiefly amonst close family and friends in secrecy, without government interference and without those pesky shareholders who have their own happiness and moral self-interest to think about.

Postscript: Edwin A. Locke is professor emeritus of management at the University of Maryland at College Park, and a senior writer for -- you guessed it -- the Ayn Rand Institute in Irvine, Calif.
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