The Philadelphia Orchestra’s bankruptcy filing is worse than unfortunate. Orchestra management is seeking to dump its pension obligations in the lap of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, and potentially in the lap of of the generality of taxpaying citizens who may be called upon to make up PBGC’s deficit. That’s bad enough, but the move will harm Philadelphia’s musicians and staff first, many of whom are owed more than the federal guarantee allows in pension payments. And the orchestra further seeks to shed its obligation to the American Federation of Musicians and Employers Pension Fund, a move which will harm other orchestras, though Philadelphia management denies that its actions will have that result.

Two principles of present life seem to be involved. The first is that economics trumps ethics, a notion so widely accepted in today’s society as to be axiomatic. And the second principle is that where philanthropic institutions are concerned survival supersedes mission. What is perhaps more interesting than Philadelphia’s crass disregard for the welfare of its musicians and staff is its apparent disregard for the social contracts to which it is party and for its own artistic future. The New York Times quotes Philadelphia’s management as follows:

The Philadelphia Orchestra’s president and chief executive, Allison Vulgamore, took strong exception to the notion that the move might harm other orchestras. “The Philadelphia Orchestra is managing its own situation with choices that are available to it,” she said. “I would not say that anything that is happening translates to other orchestras. I wouldn’t be so presumptuous.”

Choices that are available—no mention of ethics. So again we are confronted by the spectacle of a socially constituted not-for-profit corporate entity, whose actions should be above reproach, behaving like Wal-Mart.

“I would not say that anything that is happening translates to other orchestras. I wouldn’t be so presumptuous,” says Ms. Vulgamore. The issue is not whether other orchestras will rush to shed their own pension obligations in a rash of bankrupty filings, but that other orchestras will now find it difficult to maintain the American Federation pension fund, particularly if the bankruptcy judge allows Philadelphia to default on its $35 million debt to that fund. It’s worse than sad that such cynical business practices should come to represent a once great institution.