Callahan builds his thesis by exploring a variety of avenues in our society. People obtain free cable by hooking onto somebody who pays full fare, auto mechanics raise car concerns to conduct unnecessary repairs, many think it OK to fudge a little (and some a lot) on their tax forms, doctors accept bribes from drug companies concerning which medicines to recommend, young lawyers overbill their clients, athletes take steroids or other illegal drugs to improve their competitiveness, teens download games, music, and movies for free, pharmaceuticals lie about the need and the effectiveness of drugs they wish to sell, cheating on exams and plagiarizing papers are at epidemic proportions at universities, and of course, CEOs lie about their financial condition. These charges resonate with news accounts and with our life experiences.

Callahan posits four reasons for this "seismic change" in our society. One, there is more focus on money and the bottom line. Second, the income gap between the haves and the have-nots has increased dramatically. Third, the government's role as a "referee" has been attenuated, although he doesn't tell us by whom (that's the usual problem of passive-voice sentences). Four, our character has changed as we have moved, for example, from individualism to selfishness.

Callahan then conjectures four reasons that these transformations lead to greater cheating: new pressures, bigger rewards for winning, temptation, and trickle-down corruption.

On the one hand, these explanations by Callahan are laughable, as they place no responsibility on the individual. Everything is society's fault; if the society goes bad, then so does its people. This account might reduce our level of guilt, but turns ethics on its head. How convenient and how wrong.

Worse, it sounds too much like Marx who reduced all phenomena to economic structures and then created his own nirvana by calling for the destruction of existing economic institutions. We know his theory is false because it does not eradicate the reality of scarce resources, the desire to have and enjoy things, and the need to make tough decisions about money and leisure and how to consume one's resources.

Some noneconomic variables that one should at least examine include changes in the family, the impact of television, the consequences of drugs, the decline in the quality of schools, the rise of abortion and euthanasia, and the decline of religion. While these are controversial areas, to be sure, each factor has proponents who claim that its existence has caused a decline in integrity and ethics. Callahan should confront these allegations head on instead of sloughing them off in favor of economic determinism.

Callahan's solution is likewise naïve and incorrect, though it at least follows from his analysis. He offers four suggestions. (I presume his marketing agent thinks the number four mystical at least when selling books.) First, we need to make work pay by increasing wages. Note that he ignores the influence of the global economy, and he ignores the fact that prices are always relatives and never absolutes.

Second, he wants to expand the access to higher education. I don't see why since so much of the educational community is committed to the liberal arts instead of producing skills fit for the workplace. Knowing more about deconstruction or existentialism will not increase one's wages—thankfully!

Third, he wants "to help people build wealth and personal assets." His suggestion of a birth endowment for each child shows how socialistic he is.

Lastly, Callahan covets the reduction of insecurities in our life. At this point in the reading, I had to recheck the title to determine whether this book was the latest installment of Mission Impossible. While I would like to eliminate the vicissitudes of life, I'm adult enough just to accept their reality.

I began reading The Cheating Culture as a means to understand better the quantity and the attributes of recent accounting scandals. Unfortunately, David Callahan did not deliver. He merely blathered on and on. We shall not understand the spate of accounting frauds until we personalize the issue and place responsibility on those who perpetrated the crimes and on those who aided and abetted the crimes either by increasing the incentives to cheat or by refusing to investigate managerial behavior.