Article August 8, 1977 Issue

Better than Bribes

GERTRUDE BAYLESS

Government officials in Europe, South America, and Asia, we find, have accepted bribes from multinational corporations in the United States. One corporation has apparently given away two and a half million dollars, another ten times that, to influence government officials. Some of these officials have been indicted, others put out of office, and some top executives of the corporations involved have been forced to resign.

Shocked by such reports, people are asking, Is it possible for multinational corporations to follow a single, high ethical standard and compete successfully in a world of many cultures and differing traditions of what is right and what is wrong?

Some corporations are devising their own codes of ethics to help guide their employees in doing the right thing. And this is good. But an ethic based on human tradition has the bias of that tradition and may have only limited appeal. In the long run only a system of ethics based on absolute Truth can fulfill the common good and draw all people into one moral community. Christian Science offers such a system, firmly founded on the Ten Commandments, the Beatitudes, and on the oneness of God, Spirit. Mary Baker Eddy, the Discover and Founder of Christian Science, writes: "One infinite God, good, unifies men and nations; constitutes the brotherhood of man; ends wars; fulfils the Scripture, 'Love thy neighbor as thyself;' annihilates pagan and Christian idolatry,—whatever is wrong in social, civil, criminal, political, and religious codes; equalizes the sexes; annuls the cures on man, and leaves nothing that can sin, suffer, be punished or destroyed."^{Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 340;}