Condemnation

People condemn each other or each other's ideas because they are fearful of them and most people are fearful of them because they are ignorant. And there is a saying that ignorance is bliss, but I dont believe that is true because ignorance breeds fear. This concept of fear and ignorance arise from the general publics laziness and lack of motivation to learn. Therefore, concepts like Marxism or communism have become "dangerous" words to use in political and social arenas. People were too lazy to learn the ideals of these concepts and, instead, put ultimate trust in their political figures to interpret these puzzling theories. This is completely wrong and is just another demonstration of the bourgeoisie alienating the proletariat through a barrage of misinformation to force the lower social classes to conform to upper class desires.

Is it the fault of education that leads people to become fearful of these subjects? I dont think so. In fact, I think it is the problem of the political figures and heads of industry who are afraid of change and who are scared of something new. If you go around the business community, and I have been told this while look for opportunities of employment in industry, business people like what they do not know and avoid that which they do not. So, in order to avoid what they do not know and, thus, are afraid of, the business leaders exert their power over the innocent cogs of capitalism, the average person, to submit to their desires.

Is there a solution to break free from the chains in which we struggle under the bourgeoisie? I believe so and I also think that it has already begun with the collection of sources and ideas that can be found on the Internet. With the Internet people can read publications from Marx, Hegel, etc. very easily and readily. Once reading through this information the individual can make his own judgments on the matter and if enough people are informed, change one way or another can occur.

Hedonian View of the World

It is a Hedonian view that it is human nature for people to seek pleasure and avoid pain. They also adopt the view that most people hold in America today that work is toil. Therefore, the Hedonians make the connection that work is painful and people naturally will avoid work. I believe that this view is wrong because of a misinterpretation by America of how to run the hierarchy of industry and the Sayers view is a better interpretation of human nature and people's perception of what work is supposed to be. Like Sayers states in his article, humans are productive, creative beings and enjoy being productive and creative while overcoming obstacles in performing a profession. However, the current US economic system is designed much like the feudal system, in that their is a categorization of people into those employed and those who employ. From this the compartmentalization is broken down further into managers and supervisors and workers. This creates alienation within the workplace and this alienation leads to the work becoming toilsome. So, in the context the Hedonian view is correct, but, overall, the view is misguided because of the alienation that occurs within the current US economic system.

Salary as a Report Card and the American Dream

In the early 1900s the Industrial Revolution in America was occurring and captains of industry such as Carnegie and Rockefeller began to create companies much like the companies of today's business world. With the rise of these two men came the rise of the American Dream; of one day rising from poverty to a peak covered in millions of dollars. Many immigrants came to America in search of this dream and many Americans toiled daily in search of this dream. From this dream came an obsession with money and a thought process that money is success. This American Dream was the beginning of the school of thought that one's salary is one's report card for life. After the Industrial Revolution every person was in the fight to make a dollar and that fight was no holds bar. People would disregard friends, family and community just take get rich because people saw money as happiness and the path to being successful. This pattern continued and continues to this day without taking into account the value of family, friends, self respect, helping other, etc. All these things can label one as successful, but it is a more interpersonal form of success. So, with the judgmental, self conscious public out there salary will continue to be a measure of success, which is atrocious and plays directly to the base Americans have created for themselves in the Marxist view of society.

Privatization: A Tool of the Bourgeoisie

With the privatization of the business world individuals have had the opportunity to become independently wealthy and many have taken this opportunity to earn billions of dollars. With incomes this large these people are given great power because, in America and most places around the world, the more money you have the more power and influence you posses. With this power, as we have discussed in class, the bourgeoisie exploits the laborers by setting their wages as low as possible to obtain the most profit. A similar thing has occurred with the privatization of education. Many people have views that a private education is better because public funds cannot cover enough supplies or hire the best teachers. This is seen even locally with the Admissions slogan here at MCLA, "a public college with a private atmosphere..." With these slogans and the effort to privatize our society the elite class is working towards further exploitation of the proletariat. In private schools, administrators are able to charge outrageous prices and set their own guidelines for academic goals. It is thought that the private atmosphere will provide better opportunities because they have more money and better teachers, but this belief is just a phrase that has been ingrained in our minds to help further the oppression. So, by taking more income from the proletariat through private schools and training (educating) people as they see fit, the elite class furthers its oppression of the proletariat by the continued privatization of American society.

The Goal of Business:Profit

All businesses have the same goal, to be as profitable as legally possible. In order to attain this goal companies will go to any length and spend any type of money. As seen with the tobacco industry, it was found that tobacco is a very harmful drug and this threatened the tobacco industry's profit. So, to counter this they created such icons as Joe Camel and the Malboro Man to reach new markets such as children to keep profits up. Then, the talks of banning smoking and banning smoking in certain areas led to more demonstration of power by tobacco industries. The companies hired lobbyists to get in with top Congressional officials and thus influence the way America formed laws. This action to stop for no one in the search for profit and market share corrupts men and corrupts our society. And because of this greed for profit I dont think that ethics will ever hold a high rank within the business world. The greed of so many men and women overpowers the voices of the moral and ethical. The only way to neutralize the power of corruption is through government intervention, which has somewhat occurred with anti-trust laws and laws about fair business practices, but the companies found a new way to get around this, they outsourced and are moving business to China, Indonesia, etc. So, the community of applied ethicists and ethical global community has only one choice, to unite and form a governing coalition of international business. I think this may be the only way because it eliminates the option to hide and if the organization is given enough power business will be forced to back down or be shut down. I fear this is the only hope and that it will take serious, charismatic leadership as well as backing from the major industrial nations to work and eliminate the corruption, greed and total lack of ethics in business.

Taxation

Ever since the Industrial Revolution the business community has used more natural resources than the collective public. Year after year industry consume and destroy the air, water and land resources of the world. Yet, business pays less taxes to the government and has been lagging behind as a "friend of the environment" as so many executives have put it. If the business community had any ethical code at all they should be compelled to give back to the community in which they operate, whether it be through service or monetary compensation. The community that destroys the most natural resources should feel a need to return the favor to the public or at least nature, the source of their exploitation. However, since the business world is not willing to do this, the government should make some sort of legislation to clean up the bad business act. To counter this, business got into the pockets of legislators through lobbying and campaign support and the government officials had no choice but to follow the commands of their supporters. So, I think the only way for an ethical code to be established in business is for the public to take action and force legislators to act justly and follow their morals. Without this the continued exploitation of the communities in which business lives will decline and the world will cease to exist as we know it.

Minimum Wage

As discussed in class today, Marx once compare wage to slavery and his justifications for this claim come about because of his belief that labor is the only good or service in capitalism that is underpaid. My counter claim to Marx's ideas is that perhaps slavery would be favored to wage, more specifically minimum wage. Take for instance the Massachusetts minimum wage of $7.50, multiply that by 40 hours, the length of a normal work week, to get $300 per week, excluding taxes. From this figure multiply by 52 weeks per year to receive $15,600. Finally, multiply this figure by two thirds to obtain an approximation of personal income after government income tax to leave a person with $10,400. This income needs to be able to cover clothing, food, housing, utilities and more, and for the current value of the dollar on today's market that will be a formidable challenge. Also, Massachusetts now requires each citizen to have health insurance, so if one's employer does not provide it the individual must seek this service and pay for its entirety. All of these figures only influence one person and severely limit the possibility of getting married and having a family. So, one might as well pick the life of a slave because food, clothing and housing is taken care of, while the only sacrifice would be personal freedom. And although losing personal freedom may be a big deal in most Americans eyes, one would have to work more than one job to be able to support one self and it eventually amounts to the appearance of slavery just to keep living.

From the above discussion, I hope to raise concern about the need for a concerted effort to bring attention to minimum wage and this farce attempt at equality government and business impose. Companies within the United States generate billions of dollars of income in a single industry let alone the whole market and yet they lack the morals to compensate workers justly. This gap in business ethics must be closed in order to eliminate the claim that wage is just a better form of slavery. Perhaps capitalism must take a fall in order to accomplish this, but in any case, serious reform and action by the business ethics community must be sparked in order to give laborers what they deserve.

Business Ethics?

After the reading for the past Q&A about business ethics it leads to the questions, are there busness ethics or can there ever be business ethics?

Business ethics is clearly lacking in its approach to creating moral codes of conduct for the business field as seen through the hundreds of scandals and controversies each year. I think some of this problem is due to the late beginnings of business ethics (having began around 1960). Business was allowed to progress and took many steps to in its advance towards today's modern business community. However, this is not the only problem business ethics has to overcome. Business ethicists have to overcome the nature of business itself. Business is a machine based upon efficiency and in its quest for ultimate efficiency and desire to be the best, morals are irrelevant. The business community polluted water ways, streets, towns and air for decades due to this quest for perfection. This demonstrates the business giants' total disregard for life, the environment and any set of moral standards and is exactly why ethics in a business setting will never flourish unless some intervention in the business community is made.

The Farce That is a Presidential Race

Like I have mentioned in previous posts and like the class has discussed, the media has taken it upon itself, with the support of corporate America and the Executive Branch, to become a shaper of public opinion. Media has done this by deciding which news items to cover, how to cover each news item, what news actually is and what the public should know.

This new influence that media holds over the common people has greatly disrupted our society and continues to shape our government into a tool of industry, which directly violates the principles set forth by the Founding Fathers at the Constitutional Convention and those present during the drafting of the Declaration of Independence. The influence of the media has extended greatly into the government by severely impacting presidential campaigns. Like Parenti describes in his article "Inventing Reality," the media makes judgments about candidates character and their potential effectiveness as President, as demonstrated with the media's focus upon Hilary Clinton's laugh, Howard Dean's yell and Al Gore's sigh. Using this tactic, the media attempts to downplay the integrity of a candidate, make a deliberate and misguided attack on a candidate's character and blatantly attempt to influence public opinion claiming that the candidate will have lost support due to their action, when in fact the public does not care anything about a laugh, yell or sigh. The media also influences the elections by deciding what is news worthy. In most cases, the media focuses on events such as a candidate going out and kissing babies or something of that nature instead of highlighting a candidate's policy and summarizing a candidate's response in lay mans terms from a debate from the night before.

This disgusting violation of the principles of media should not be tolerated because it is influencing public opinion and changing the way our government works. In the past corporations and government officials would be taken to court and the Supreme Court would rule certain things unconstitutional, but why the lackadaisical attitude towards media? I do not know the answer to that question, but I do know that the actions of today's media are unconstitutional and are changing the frameworks of the American government and without immediate action the election process and government will become a farce.