By Larry Marsh, Kansas City Star Midwest Voices columnist

Fairness and honesty in business and politics is hard work. It takes a lot of time and mental energy to develop the best possible products and policies for the people. It is just so much easier to lie and cheat, especially when you have been taught how to do it at the university.

When I was growing up in the 1950s, everyone seemed to have great respect for America's large companies and our governmental institutions. Great advances in technology brought many new products and large companies seemed to be good guys here to help us. Since television was relatively new, people tended to trust what they saw and heard on their tv.

The mild-mannered and highly respected general who oversaw the defeat of the Nazis was our new president. Under his leadership Congress passed the National Defense Education Act and created our Interstate Highway System. Television shows I Led Three Lives and Dragnet(1951-1959) extolled the virtues of the FBI and the police. We trusted our government to do the right thing for us.

Just as our behavior on the playground is influenced by our family and our peers, our intellectual behavior is influenced by our professors and fellow students. We must rely on them to be honest and open in examining evidence and not to intentionally deceive us by distorting the facts.

In theory universities are the citadels of the ultimate in intellectual integrity. The aim in every field is to tell the truth be it logical or existential. Unfortunately in practice we are sometimes far from the mark.

Sure there are big egos and no one wants to have their favorite theory destroyed by the facts. But in the end we need to tell it as it is and not as we might have wished it to be.

It is certainly understandable, although unfortunate, if a few professors fell off the wagon and fudged some facts here and there. Not just in business and economics, but also in science and medical research, there are always a few who distort the truth. The real problem is much more serious. It is the development by professors of a whole philosophy of deception.

The philosophy of deception goes something like this. There is really no such thing as objectivity. If true objectivity is impossible, why try to pursue the impossible? Consequently, there is no point in tying your hands with restrictive delusions of honesty when your opponents have no intention of tying theirs.

This philosophy proclaims that in the end the only thing that matters is that the best policies emerge victorious. How the people and Congress are persuaded to endorse those policies is of little importance. Everyone lies with statistics so econometrics and epidemiology are just elaborate tools for lying. The end justifies the means.

When I was in graduate school, we were told exactly the opposite. The job of an economist was not to convince a company or the Congress to endorse a particular policy but instead to present what our research revealed about the possible outcomes and implications of different policies. It was up to the company management or our Congressional representatives to make the decisions.

There may be times when our leaders don't want to hear "on one hand this and on the other hand that." Even President Truman longed for a one-handed economist. But ultimately we must let the people and our elected representatives have the last say.

In civil and criminal cases lawyers are chosen to represent either the defense or the prosecution. They are advocates by design and no one expects them to be even-handed, although they must still be honest.

In academics people are expected to be honest and even-handed. The philosophy of deception just feeds the extremes of left and right. Professors are supposed to exert a great deal of mental energy in dealing with very complex problems. Oversimplifying things by choosing sides in advance and demonizing your "opponents" does not exactly teach our students how to be ideal citizens in business and politics.

If professors are dismayed by so much bad behavior exhibited in business and politics lately, some of them have only themselves to blame.

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