Business and Economic Ethics
Dr. Hicks
Final Exam Questions
Instructions: Choose six of the following questions to write upon during the regularly-scheduled,
two-hour exam period. Please do not write anything on this sheet, and bring it with you to the exam.
1. What is money? Include in your answer some discussion of the relative efficiency of money
economies and barter economies.
2. Can money buy happiness? Include in your answer some discussion of Tara Smith’s essay and
lecture.
3. What is greed, and is it good or bad? Include in your answer some discussion of the ABC News
Special Greed.
4. In your judgment, based on your reading of John Allison’s Kaizen interview, what top four business
decisions led to his success with BB&T?
5. Compare James Taggart’s and Dagny Taggart’s leadership style, as presented in Chapter One of
Atlas Shrugged.
6. Atlas Shrugged dramatizes the differences between free-market entrepreneurs like Hank Rearden
and politicized business operatives like Orren Boyle. Using either the “Anti-Dog-Eat-Dog”
agreement, the San Sebastián Mines debacle, or the “Equalization of Opportunity” bill as your
working example, explain the key differences between the two.
7. Defend the following proposition: Lending and borrowing are immoral and economically
destructive, for both are parasitic.
8. Defend the following proposition: Lending and borrowing can be moral and economically
productive.
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