government regulation. In other cases, however, self-regulation is posited as a viable way to solve serious social (as well as business) problems. Arrow, for example, notes that businesses could develop self-regulatory mechanisms for ensuring product safety. Arrow is suggesting not simply that individual corporations establish rules or goals that they (or their employees) will follow, but that firms in an industry develop rules for all of the corporations in the industry to act on. I shall argue for the appropriateness of industry wide self-regulation, but only after sweeping away some general miscon ceptions about the possibility of such regulation. Self-regulation, in any form, is often discussed in conjunction with codes of ethics. Many occupations and a number of corporations now have such codes, and there are significant differences among them in terms of content, goals, and degree of detail. If self-regulation is to work, there must be something like a code of ethics established; that is, there must be some statement of rules that must be followed. The mere existence of a code of