Erickson was right when he said that there is too much ego identity because it is the subculture that makes people believe that their way of doing thing is the right way. The need for identity has taken the United States culture with greed. Indeed the economic and non economic dreams of the United States are based on the need for identity which has brought with it greed. The greed has been good in making the America as a country to practice a form of dishonesty. In addition, it is this greed to achieve the economic and non economic dreams that has made the American citizens to be dishonest.
According to Williams and Houck (35), Americans have fostered to be honest in their dealing but this has proved inefficient due to the practices set by the American society structures. These structures have hindered people from obtaining moral values and virtues. For instance structures like the capitalism have not promoted good morals within the society but instead they have promoted greed and ways of addressing self desires. These structures have been the backbone for the creation of the current dishonesty that exists in the society. This implies that there are many ways to be dishonest. However, the Americans have fallen in one of dishonesty traps, the economic dishonesty. Economic dishonesty sometimes can result to fraud, which is not acceptable in any country. Many Americans have got great confidence in their leaders and business lords. However when this confidence is tricked and the people feel deceived, this amounts to dishonesty. Economic dishonest do not only occur when leaders commit economic fraudulence, but it also takes place when employees embezzle company assets. In this case employees take advantage of their positions and use the company assets without integrity. This act of deceiving the company by taking the assets, either directly or indirectly amounts to economic dishonesty (Skeen, para. 20).
Additional, the company, management team can be involved in acts of dishonesty to feel that they are identified by the good virtues which are expected of the organization. This constitute to management fraud. Because the management team will attempt to manipulate the financial statements and in so doing they will manage to convince the investors that their company is the most worthwhile to do business with. By making investors believe that the organization is worth more than what it should be the management team shall have displayed big form of dishonesty, a trend that is common within the American culture. Sincerely, how can you convince the investors that your organization is the best for doing business with, and yet you are covering some aspects by manipulating the financial statements? Americans are also known to be dishonest people in the way they convince the investors to buy worthless investments. One can wonder how sensible business people convince investors to buy worthless investment. Worse still, the individual involved in fraud end up knowing that the fraudulent act will go unidentified.
Therefore, economic dishonesty, a form of deceit that Americans are really good at is not the best to talk about. Another form of fraudulent that is identified with the American culture is the vendor dishonesty. Here the vendors take advantage of their clients and overcharge the goods that they offer. Also the vendors can order for shipment of goods and then fail to pay the shipment cost as agreed. This kind of deception is what contributes to dishonesty. This is because if you are not dishonest you can only be honest. However you can’t be honest without having integrity. Honesty and integrity goes together, thus without honesty you are going to lack the good morals that are needed to propel individuals to greater heights. Hence, to reach these heights people are sometimes tempted to add some form of fraudulent. Additionally, customer dishonesty where customers don’t honor their promises to pay for the purchased goods in time or as per the agreement is another form of dishonesty that is common with the Americans. Lastly, there are other forms of fraud which the American do involve in. this is the miscellaneous fraud, where the Americans seek to gain financially in other ways that are not discussed above (William and Houck, 40).
These fraudulences take place due to the legitimate functioning of the business and they are sometimes called the white collar crime. This is because these means Americans use to gain wealth are dependent on the individual confidence game. People have often concentrated on the property offenders as the most dishonest people however, white collar crime where an individual steal from others by the confidence games and cheating is the worst and most common amongst the Americans. A closer study of the source of the dishonesty prevalent with the Americans reveal that most of these people are tempted to engage in fraudulence in order to meet some form of social pressures and society fit in. these pressures that results in economic dishonesty are categorized into four. They include, work related pressures to conform, the vices to fit in and financial desire to match the most effluent in the community.
Work Cited
Skeen, James, ed. “Fraud and Economic Dishonesty: A Course on Our Society”. Quodibet Journal: Vol. 6(1). Jan to March 2009. http://www.quodlibet.net/articles/skeen-fraud.shtml
Williams, Oliver, and John, Houck, ed. “A Virtuous Life in Business”. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 2010, pp. 33-41
