IS business becoming harsher and more brutal, or is there still room to play fair, deal straight and make a profit? This, thankfully, if surprisingly, is a question not being ignored in Hong Kong.
In May, the whole question of business ethics, and where they fit into a competitive society, will be aired at a major conference.
This is part of Governor Chris Patten's drive to improve the image of business in Hong Kong, and has now attracted the support of a battalion of trade organisations, and assorted chambers of commerce (The South China Morning Post will also put itself behind the concept).
What will emerge will be a serious look at the local way of doing business, and the effects on Hong Kong's future.
Some of the outside world may see the territory as a single-minded money-making machine, dedicated to making one last fortune, at any cost, by 1997, but that is a story for hit-and-run foreign correspondents.
The true picture is much less simple. Like everywhere else, Hong Kong has the full spectrum of morals - from the blatantly criminal to the rigidly respectable. Of course money talks here, sometimes it swears, and too often the public face of Hong Kong commerce is a Tsim Sha Tsui electronics trader playing ''gouge the tourist''.