Boeing pays up

Boeing agreed to pay $615 million to settle federal investigations into contracting scandals at the company, but admitted no guilt: a lawyer's settlement. Of course there is guilt.

We do not join the cynics who say that all companies act badly. The "everybody does it" argument is the pet of the crook and cynic alike, and is an excuse for not thinking. Everybody does not do it.

What certain people at Boeing did — to offer a high-pay job to a Pentagon official with power to grant favors, and to steal documents from a competitor — was abnormal. It was illegal. And now the company pays — as it should.

The amount is the list price of about four 787-8s. It is less than 10 percent of the company's cash, making it small enough not to degrade the company's ability to innovate and work. That is important, because the government needs Boeing. The amount is large enough to focus management's attention on corporate ethics.

Technically, the trouble was over law rather than morals, but it is wiser to aim for business to be ethical rather than merely lawful. Law is baroque. You do the best you can with it, and ask your lawyer when you think it is worth his time. Ethics is easy: Don't cheat. Don't lie. Don't steal. Covet not thy neighbor's wife — or his engineering plans.

The culprits at Boeing might have had some uncertainty about when exactly they broke the law, but none about when they were doing wrong.

They knew.

It is important here that consequences fall on individuals. Legally, corporations may be persons with rights, property, obligations and guilt, but we use mental shorthand when we say, "Boeing broke the law." We do not mean the 153,000 Boeing employees did that, or the stockholders did it.

If a law was broken, some person broke it. In the case of the Pentagon corruption, the guilty parties were two. And that was recognized: They went to federal prison.

People inside Boeing will remember this episode a long time. It is to the profit of the company, the community and themselves that they do.