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Since 1960, the social science data show a peculiar twist. Population has increased 41 percent; the gross domestic product has nearly tripled; and total levels of social spending by all levels of government measured in constant 1990 dollars have risen from $143 billion to $787 billion--more than a fivefold increase. But during the same period, there has been a 500 percent increase in violent crime; a tripling of the percentage of children living in single-parent homes and in the teenage suicide rate; a doubling of the divorce rate; a drop of almost 75 points in SAT scores; and a 400 percent increase in illegitimate births. In just a few years, illegitimacy will surpass divorce as the main cause of fatherlessness in America.
What accounts for this social regression during a period of prosperity and peace? Moral capital, like tangible forms of capital, is subject to depreciation. It does not last forever; it must be replenished. The source of moral breakdown is the subject of continuing controversy. In his book, "The Revolt of the Elites," Christopher Lasch points to capitalism's identification with self-gratification, and to the elites' indifference or hostility to religion. Gertrude Himmelfarb, a City University of New York professor of history, who authored "The DeMoralization of Society: From Victorian Virtues to Modern Values," argues that we can learn a good deal from the Victorians: not only the importance of such virtues as work, temperance, self-discipline and self-reliance, but the idea of virtue as governing both public and private affairs. A postindustrial economy, she believes, does not necessarily embrace a postmodernist culture, still less a de-moralized culture. The success of William Bennett's "The Book of Virtues," which has sold 2 million copies and celebrates some of these values, attests to the fact that the idea of virtue or morality, in an absolute sense, is being rehabilitated. In his first State of the Union address, President Clinton expressed it this way:
"Let's be honest...Our problems go way beyond the reach of government."
What does this quest for values mean? If business cannot function without a civil society, what role should its leaders play in this quest? What is at risk should this pursuit fail? This is the dilemma we put to CEOs in the following roundtable....