364 Global Ethics for Leadership
Federal Supreme Judicial Court, confirmed a principle in a case in 1934
that no person has an obligation to pay taxes in accordance with a rela-
tively higher tax standard, and increasing individual tax burdens should
not be perceived as patriotism. Therefore, everyone has the right to pay
as little taxes as possible. In his opinion, paying taxes by the bottom line
set forth by government is not immoral. His opinion comes from the
principle that free will is supreme among equal subjects. According to
the principle, since government is formed through contract based on the
pursuit of private interests by every individual, it differs from parents
who need to be supported generously by their children. Michael Walzer
once said, no matter how great universalism sounds, the effective social
judgment must come from and be aligned with specific time and space
in reality. Although the second wave of corporatism in the 1990s em-
phasized the importance of social responsibility magnifying the scope of
impact by corporate behaviour, it is based on the premise that leaders on
every level perform their duties well.
A leader in state-owned-enterprises appropriates funds to reward a
best performing employee a leisure trip would leave no cause for any
criticism. However, if he does the same thing in the name of response to
the national policy of stimulating national consumption, it turns out to
be morally questionable albeit the grander cause to service the country.
In this perspective, a leader who can behave in line with the interests of
the particular organisation is viewed as moral; otherwise, he is of low
morality in the view of his organisation. For example, if a leader arbi-
trarily donates the benefits of employees for charity, he must be con-
demned as immoral by the organisation. Even if the leader is charitable,
he is still criticized for the purpose of gaining popular recognition in his
own interest by sacrificing the benefits of the organisation.
What’s interesting is that traditional values on morality often focus
on motives and result rather than process. On the contrary, the school of
ethics represented by John Locke and Robert Nozick emphasise on pro-