The cartoons vividly depict people in expanding numbers are engaged in open and rampant cheating in business. In the first drawing, a boy has no courage to have dinner in front of delicious foods in that there may exist pesticide pollution or poisonous elements in the foods. In the second picture, the administrative office, salesmen, breeding families and forage shops are laughing at the hanging of a poisonous duck.
Professional dishonesty has a very damaging effect. In the first place, since cheating in business reveals the moral deficiencies as well as the humanity weakness of those businessmen who engage in it, the dishonest practice will ultimately exerts a perverse influence on the whole society. In the second place, it not only puts honest businessmen at a competitive disadvantage, encouraging those who did not cheat to adopt similar practices later, but undermines the very foundation of professional ethics in business.
It is often painful to impose sanctions in a specific case. But it is worthwhile. For one thing, to eliminate professional dishonesty thoroughly, serious forms of punishment for a willful offense—a suspension of the offender from business—should be applied. For another, since the incentives to engage in cheating in business are mainly due to a lack of adequate precautions, drastic actions should be taken to prevent one form of cheating or another.