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.
4 comments:
I appears that capitalism needs nonmarket, social direction to survive and flourish, even if we imagine that "pollution credits" (a creature of environmental economics that, with governmental control and oversight, internalizes so-called production externalities) are the cure.
I am still a firm believer in the principle of capitalism, however, I think corrupting forces of men such as greed will prevent the proliferation of capitalism as it is meant to be. So, I think a solution would be some social direction, but the influence has to be cast in specific areas as to not disrupt the systematic process of markets, as seen with supply-demand disruptions with government price ceilings/price floors.
I think greed is the very nature of capitalism. Fairness is not built into the system; rather, practices that are ethically and socially unsound, so long as they are in the interest of the corporation, are encouraged. In essence, for a corporation to succeed in a capitalist system is for it to crush its opposition. So the cure for capitalism, to make it more sound for all rather than a few, is to undermine it with the tenets of democracy. Therefore, I have more faith in democracy's ability to wrench capitalism back from the market of inequality (which, in a pure capitalist spectrum, is encouraged) and into a realm of equality, rather than supporting capitalist principles which are, at their core, only superficially in favor of the mutual success of all its country's persons.
the essence of business ethics and it s triple extension definition (i.e. business as ethics, etc.) is that it is a new development, and clearly recognizes the fact of business becoming poised in the market for a role in the decision of morals. We have an effluent tendency to set aside our standards for the road of much more astute genre, but in reality we are most familiar, as our tragedies (911) and expenditures(the defense budget) have brought us to the front lines with, most familiar with the route of business as a mode of achievement. sorry for the run - on!
jesse
Post a Comment