Cowboy Ethics

Cowboy Ethics by James P. Owen, photographs by David R. Stoecklein, has as part of its title, 'What Wall Street Can Learn from the Code of the West.' Shortly after I received my copy from Amazon, I saw an article in the New York Times that seemed to along with the thinking: [The Nanny Nation].

What the book and the article refer to is the mythology of the West, some of which is still true today and some of which was never true but has been part of the American story.

When I think of the cowboys I know, and I know more than a few, they are men who do try to hold to a code whether they always succeed or not. They are men of hard work who often only 'retire' when their bodies give out and that's more likely to be 90 (if they live that long) than 65. They stick to a job because no one else will come along to finish it. They don't expect somebody else can clean up their messes because nobody is there to do it.

The book Cowboy Ethics is as much about the mythical West that John Wayne so often exemplified as it is the real deal. You can go around dressed like a cowboy but have no idea what the job is all about. Real cowboys got a bad rap when Bush rode into the White House on its ethos but really only knew about the expensive home on land that used to be ranch land, the pick-up truck, cowboy hat, and boots.

There weren't a lot of the real cowboys back in the West. There aren't a lot today but the ethic, of which the book speaks, that many of us grew up believing was the right way, that still represents, to me, a good way to live and treat others.

One of the things I hear a lot today is how it doesn't matter what you do or what choices you make-- it all works out. You don't hear a rancher say that. Ranchers know that if you don't feed the cattle, get them wormed, vaccinate when required, pull newborn calves when they are in trouble, build fences the right way, maintain them, shepherd the grass, store enough hay for the winter, build good relationships with neighbors, sell stock at the right time, you won't be in the business long.

When businesses fail at their management, they should lose, but that stopped in our country in 1971 when President Nixon decided Lockheed Martin was too big to fail. From that time until today we see corporation after corporation, bank after bank, that if they are big enough, find the government supporting their mismanagement. It's always done to benefit the country-- or so they say; but it ignores the reason for the problem. It rewards failure for those big enough and slowly erodes a sense of consequences.

Sometimes I think what has gone wrong with us is that we are not connected enough to consequences. Ranchers know about consequences and yes so do some other professions, that are more physically on-the-line with rules of physics that cannot be ignored. You can't tell those kind of people that it doesn't matter what they do, because they know different.

There are absolutes for the rest of us too, and I don't think they come out of any holy book but rather from being taught by our parents, by looking at how life works, making mistakes and learning from them, finding our place in the world. We need a personal code of ethics by which we live and that others know they can count on us to abide by. Here is the Code of the West from the book Cowboy Ethics:

1. Live each day with courage.
2. Take pride in your work.
3. Always finish what you start.
4. Do what has to be done.
5. Be tough, but fair.
6. When you make a promise, keep it.
7. Ride for the brand.
8. Talk less and say more.
9. Remember that some things aren't for sale.
10. Know when to draw the line.

You don't have to be a cowboy to live by that code.