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.