Money can buy you a lot of nice things, but what about when its power goes beyond the ability to purchase a penthouse or a Porsche? When money allows us to buy non-material goods – such as status, power, or personal advancement – how does it change the way we look at ourselves and how we decide to spend our days? In this episode of the In-House Ethicist, John Paul Rollert draws on a wide array of economists and philosophers to explore what it means to live in a world where money can seemingly buy everything. He considers not only how this changes our understanding of non-material goods, like honor and self-esteem, but also how it shapes the stories we tell ourselves about what really constitutes our self-interest.

Trust is crucial in commercial transactions. We want to know if the people we do business with are reliable, but if we don't know them personally, how can we be so sure that we should trust the individual on the other side of the negotiating table or the shop counter? In this episode of the In-House Ethicist, John Paul Rollert takes up questions of trust in business, a matter he became attuned to after a very unpleasant trip to the dentist. He shares his story and takes an historic look at how early proponents of capitalism dealt with questions of trust. He also examines whether Yelp and other social media services have helped to solve the problem of "buyer beware" in business.

When it comes to marketing, negotiations, and salesmanship, companies seem to tolerate a lot of what we might call "little white lies." Does such permissiveness say something essential about business, or does it say more about the type of people who typically conduct it? In this episode of the In-House Ethicist, John Paul Rollert takes up the role of lying in business. He considers a classic essay on the matter from the Harvard Business Review, and explores whether there is a meaningful distinction to be drawn between a little truth bending and a lot of fraud.