His more egregious brothers and sisters in business and politics are far worthier of condemnation, though their behavior is as hard to understand as Owen’s—Kozlowski, Bernard Ebbers, Ken Lay, Martha Stewart, and lately, Phil Bennett at Refco and Jack Abramoff. These people had it all. But having everything wasn’t enough. They became so absorbed by their own sense of entitlement, they ventured into unethical territory in order to have just a little more. To call it greed doesn’t quite evoke the insecurity and blindness at the heart of what’s happening here. The focus on self is all over the map: the exhibitionism of reality television and the cacophony of weblogs and podcasts. Does anyone not think his or her life—and/or voice—is worth a website anymore? All of this straining for attention, but who’s retaining any of this? The supreme irony of life in America right now, is that we’ve never been quite this visible and audible to one another, and yet we’ve also never felt more alone and misled and confused.

There’s a sort of hopelessness at the core of this behavior, a nagging despair at the heart of our post-modern life. We all feel more and more convinced that we’ve reached the end of something a little too big to comprehend. America has entered a long, slow decline, it seems, and there’s nothing we can do about it. What’s our answer? We want more when we ought to be seeing the beauty in what we already have. Everything that once mattered—hard work, spending less than you earn, humility, civility, respect, modesty—seems to be draining away. The global economy has emptied the old work ethic of its appeal: a frugal life of service simply doesn’t add up anymore to a secure old age. Pensions are becoming a thing of the past, as credit cards become a nest egg of debt. The attitude seems to be: get it now while you can, because things are only going to get worse.

My career in business lasted 40 years, and as CEO of Young & Rubicam I worked hard to be of help to leaders of many large organizations adapt to changes in the market. Over those years, I had an inside view of how success, even at the highest levels, became harder and harder to achieve as competition became more ferocious and unforgiving. In that environment, those whose self-esteem rested on ever-shakier economic foundations grasped for shortcuts at the expense of the vast majority of honest, hardworking Americans. Ken Lay’s protestations of moral and ethical innocence make Owen’s antics seem merely childish. Less than a dozen managers at Arthur Anderson destroyed a brilliant, honest enterprise.

Sadly, this blind, grasping behavior has caught on. Business is focusing increasingly on shorter-term realities. Don’t rock the boat if a bonus is at risk. A better way may be fine, some day, but on somebody else’s watch. A brighter future may be imaginable but not at the cost of goodies within grasp right now. The attitude is: if you don’t tie it down now, soon there won’t be anything to secure.

To offer any explanations for such behavior isn’t to make excuses for it, but the causes are everywhere. Increasingly we, as individuals have become un-tethered, separated from the wisdom and support of individuals and institutions in society. The core family has been diminished, the extended family, almost a non-factor. The neighborhood and the community increasingly are taken out of play. Religious institutions have disappointed us and the corporate-employee relationships are becoming increasingly transactional. It’s a relationship of utility: if you aren’t of use to the larger group, you might as well not exist.

This isn’t simply an emotional or spiritual crisis. Our economic viability is at stake. The new powerhouses, the Indias and Chinas with all their current relative disadvantages, have the will, an evolving ethic and clearly the resources to overcome us. We need to retake control of our lives, of our future, of our inheritance to our children.

Some are doing this and quietly looking outward. You can see hints of it especially in the world of business, where some have learned that narcissism—individual or organizational—leads nowhere. Google may soon organize the world. It seems to send out a beta test of a yet another new service every other day. Meanwhile, it keeps connecting people around the world in ways never before possible. People need Google. You can’t call up that website—with its quietly simple and useful design and its unpretentious logo—without feeling a sense of hope about what’s still possible. Our creativity can still generate new value. The same lesson can be found at eBay, or Dell, or Intel, and even old never-say-die stalwarts like General Electric and Xerox.

What ties these enterprises together is creative integrity and an outwardly directed mission—the ability to put aside short-term selfish needs. To do what these companies have done, you have to look beyond your own immediate needs and pay attention to others: other workers, customers, and shareholders. The world of business is where most of us live the bulk of our waking lives. And that’s where we have the power, individually and collectively, to choose in favor of values: to serve others through honesty, trust, integrity, accountability, respect, and a sustainable way of doing things. These qualities are alive and well in many companies these days—both in private and public companies that never seek, and rarely, get media attention. They are the only values that will work in the long term. Once we start forgetting about number one, the other numbers have a way of getting better and better.