This week's comic… Charley goes from rags to riches!
I really think this is what was underlying the whole financial debacle. Until fairly recently, I think that executives at corporations saw it as their job to increase profitability for the company as best they could, but also to safeguard the short, medium and long-term health of the company.
Around the same time that CEO compensation began skyrocketing exponentially, and discretionary layoffs led to a culture of job-shifting and lack of loyalty, executives began to see themselves not as guardians of the corporation, but free agents whose job it is to make as much money for themselves (and, as an ancillary, the company, if the system works) wherever they happen to be employed.
We moved from a community model (which has its own moral problems in the context of corporations) to an individual model. And without a sense of community, morality breaks down. Charley has an instinctive desire to be a loyal member of a tribe, but he learns that in today's corporate world, his tribe is one.