ETHICS IN THE MELTING-POT Jack Mahoney & Elizabeth Vallance Professor
Jack Mahoney is Director of the King's College Business Ethics Research
Centre, University of London, and Elizabeth Vallance is Visiting
Professor in Politics at Queen Mary and Westfield College, University of
London. AT lHE START of this century Israel Zangwill wrote of 'the great
Melting- Pot where all the races of Europe are melting and reforming'.
He was, of course, writing about the USA and had the American
immigration experience in mind; but today one need not cross the
Atlantic to see Europe as a melting-pot and its members in a state of
profound flux and mutation. In Western Europe, what began in mid-century
as a largely Franco- German attempt to prevent a recurrence of European
war, by identifying and creating a common industrial policy in coal and
steel, evolved by degrees into an industrial alliance of western
European nations and the creation of a Single European Market.
Originally six, then ten, and currently twelve, the number of member
states of the European Economic Community, more recently the European
Community, is still on the increase, as new countries apply to join and
others consider a future approach.