Corporate lawyers, according to Huntsman, "make fortunes by manipulating contracts and finding ways out of signed deals. Many CEOs enjoy princely life-styles even as stakeholders lose their jobs, pensions, benefits, investments and trust in the American way."

As if dishonesty was not a big enough problem infecting business, Huntsman also lashes out against corporations for not giving enough to charitable causes and communities.

He recalls resigning from the board of directors of one company because the board would not agree to give back 1 percent of the company's profit to humanitarian and charitable causes.

"We not only have an obligation," Huntsman said, "we have an absolute duty to give back to the communities that helped us build our businesses and helped us build our financial net worth."

Recently, Business Week magazine ranked Huntsman as one of the nation's top "mega-givers." Huntsman has given or pledged $290 million in donations since 2000. And combined with an estimated lifetime of giving reaching $495 million, Huntsman ranks No. 26 on the magazine's list of the 50 Most Generous Philanthropists, giving away 22 percent of his net worth toward charitable causes.

All royalties from the sale of "Winners Never Cheat" will go to the Huntsman Cancer Foundation.

"Life isn't that complicated, and business can be won fairly and squarely on the playing field of life," Huntsman said. "We learned when we were kids certain lessons in the sandbox that were very straight and very honorable. They were playground lessons that weren't complicated, and they were always fair.

"An agreement always was an agreement, and when we told somebody that we were going to do something, our word was our bond."

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E-mail: danderton@desnews.com