Higher Education and Business Standards

The essay argues that business should be understood as part of the common life and must adopt standards that promote national welfare, urging higher education and public policy to cultivate long-term thinking and moral responsibility in business practice. Using an anecdote of a child's short-sighted use of a garden to illustrate immediate gratification versus stewardship, the author critiques narrow notions of efficiency and the mixed legacy of efficiency experts, and calls for educating business leaders to balance productivity, ethical restraint, and social responsibility so that enterprise contributes reliably to general welfare rather than to short-term private gain.