Moral business leaders welcome, but no substitute for good government

While “moral business leaders’’ certainly have a role to play in the community, we must never allow them to replace the role of government in advancing the public interest (“How business leaders can be moral leaders,’’ Opinion, March 15). Business can certainly “move quickly’’ to do good, but it can move just as swiftly to do evil, as the history of labor and environmental struggles shows.

Furthermore, the op-ed by Dana H. Born and Josh A. Goldstein is based on assumptions about Donald Trump and government that beg for scrutiny. Does Trump really serve as an example of “government’’? His proposals, policies, and Cabinet selections suggest that he is a puppet of big business who does not understand or care about the purpose of representative government. Therefore, the authors are prescribing the wrong medicine for an ailing society. By all means, encourage the moral business leaders within their own domain, but in no way can they, nor should they, replace a government accountable to the citizens it represents.

Dana Franchitto

South Wellfleet

Is this what we’ve come to — begging big business to save us?

The op-ed “How business leaders can be moral leaders’’ shows just how desperate our situation has become. When we need to call upon the very people most responsible for our most dire existential problems (gun proliferation, both local and global; climate change; money-driven politics) to act against their own best interests (maximizing profits and minimizing externalities — that is, health or climate costs of doing business) because our current government has either eviscerated the publicly funded agencies charged with addressing these problems (Health and Human Services, Environmental Protection Agency) or used those funds to exacerbate them (by funneling billions to companies through the Defense Department), we know our backs are against the wall and there’s nowhere else to turn.

It’s tantamount to the powerless farmer begging the wily fox to take mercy on his luckless chickens.

Sad.

George Chigas

Acton