Government, corporations and ethics

tolbiny · #1 06-01-2007, 02:35 AM

I see a lot of posts about how companies are profit driven and how they will run over their customers for an extra dime, and it bothers me. It bothers me because my experiences with people I wanted to work with contradict this, and it bothers me that the reasons for this attitude from corporations are rarely explored. In my view this all boils down to centralized control of the state again.

to begin with politicians (on a level the size of the fed in the US) aren't morally consistent people in a democracy. They can't be, the system they sign up for requires that they compromise on many issues, Ron Paul might be an exception, but only because voting no 99 times out of 100 satisfies his morals and demands no compromise. But for your average statesman who thinks the government should be pro actively doing things compromise is a given. If you want funding for better roads or schools or farm subsidies in your state you have to convince others to vote. Other people who want your vote on things in return that you would otherwise not vote for. You have to trade pieces of your conscience to get what you want done. Even if the Democrats get the white house and enough of a majority to push through a national health care program in '08 not one of them will see their ideal passed. There will be single payer plans proposed, multi payer plans, private insurance allowed, private insurance abolished, levels of coverage, amounts of funding. Everyone will have to give up a piece of what they think is right for a chance to get something else that they want.
This extends to corporations. To get to the top of an established industry in the form of a corporation you have to have moral lapses quite frequently. Why? Because the government controls huge amounts of your options- to get X done you have to bribe/donate/promote Y, no matter how you feel about Y. To avoid antitrust lawsuits you need to campaign heavily for your senator (ask Bill Gates about that one), to make sure the EPA doesn't come down to hard on you, make sure your willing to bribe a guy for inspection times (anyone who has worked in restaurant management knows getting information on inspection times is crucial) and better scores. To pass radical change your company needs (in your opinion) you have to convince a board, or trustees, or stockholders. The system they join is one that requires you don't hold to many things so dear to you that you can't turn you back on them when someone else disagrees with you. Its not a shock that there is a perception of greed when the system selects for people who are greedy.

In my life though, this contrasts starkly with the small business owner. In high school i worked summers at a bakery, when I left to work for a different job i ran into money problems. The owners of the bakery got me 30 hours a week the on an already fully packed schedule to help me out on a days notice. They started their business because, though both successful lawyers before, they were tired of having to compromise continually to get things done. This reflected in the way they ran their bakery.
A few years ago I worked for a company that specialized in cleaning industrial waste. The group started when four employees of a company in the same field got tired of the way they were treated. Paychecks were late, they were kept out of the loop of important decisions, ect. They start their own company, at one point several of their clients are late on payments, true to his beliefs one of the vice presidents (one of the original 4) took out a second mortgage on his house as a way to pay reimbursement checks to employees (lots of traveling expenses in that line of work) rather than to try to delay, or stall, or indebt the company to another group he put up his personal assets to do what he thought was the right thing (it worked to, 7 years they were in business before an employee left that company, I was the first after 2.5 years there, my longest tenure at any job ever by ~300%).

phantomlimb · #2 06-01-2007, 02:41 AM

That was a long thought out post, so forgive me for my simplistic one liner question before I head to bed that is only somewhat relevant.

If people can ignore the free market to do good things, won't they ignore the free market to do bad things, and is this a concern for you?

tolbiny · #3 06-01-2007, 02:43 AM

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If people can ignore the free market to do good things, won't they ignore the free market to do bad things, and is this a concern for you?

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In the free market I can decide who i give my money, time and business to. If someone does bad, I can cut away a portion of their funding all on my own, not having to compromise my ethics. When the government does bad I'm in a lot worse position to make even the smallest effect on their funding, power and influence.
Choice my friend.

Richard Tanner · #4 06-01-2007, 03:23 AM

Small business owners can be good and bad (depending on the subjective definition of those words), though I'd think they'd be closer to good. Big business has proven to be a little more "evil" per se.

[ QUOTE ]
In the free market I can decide who i give my money, time and business to. If someone does bad, I can cut away a portion of their funding all on my own, not having to compromise my ethics. When the government does bad I'm in a lot worse position to make even the smallest effect on their funding, power and influence.

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Depends on which industry you're refering too. If you're diabetic and want insulin, you better love Eli Lilly. If you want a meal, well then you have choices.

Cody

AlexM · #5 06-01-2007, 08:21 AM

This effect can be measured directly based on how involved an owner is with their business. It's much worse in giant corporations where everything is completely impersonal and the company is owned by shareholders who have little idea what goes on day to day in the company because there's ultimately no responsibility. Most people who wouldn't do things on their own or for their own benefit are completely willing to do them if it's "just an ugly part of their job." With a corporation, you've got the CEO thinking he's just doing his job (and he is really) to maximize the shareholders' wealth, then everyone else is pretty much just following the CEO's orders. If the shareholders aren't paying much attention (which they rarely do), bad things are gonna happen.

Of course, remove limited liability for corporations and shareholders will damned well pay attention.

iron81 · #6 06-01-2007, 08:25 AM

As a counterpoint, I've worked 3 government jobs comprising the majority of my employment history. They were white collar environmental engineering jobs at the municipal and federal levels. The stereotype of a government employee as a slacker out for number one was wholly untrue.

In my line of work, government employees are paid about 15% less than they could make in the private sector. Part of this is they don't have to work as many hours, but part is that they care about the mission of taking care of the environment. Tolbiny's observation of his bosses being good people isn't anything inherent to the private sector, it is inherent to good, hard working people.

phantomlimb · #7 06-01-2007, 12:31 PM

So you guys acknowledge that the free market does not protect individuals from harm due to the problem that a large number of people will act in a way that does not get them the most money, and therefore can act in directly harmful ways to others reguardless of the consequences...?

What Im getting at, I've seen on here sometimes people have discussed crime in an anarchist-capitalist society... it seems to be that in that situation, there is not enough "control" to do a good job of handeling the more disruptive forces like pedophiles and rapists who do not care about money or anything like that... where as in state you have the police...

Anyway, if you ever get the time to explain to me how they would stop or hinder those people, I'd appeciate it, but it seems like it may be a b it complciated... Wow I got way off topic, sorry heh [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img].

tolbiny · #8 06-01-2007, 02:04 PM

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The stereotype of a government employee as a slacker out for number one was wholly untrue.

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You will notice if you reread the post there was nothing about hard work mentioned, just ethics.

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Tolbiny's observation of his bosses being good people isn't anything inherent to the private sector, it is inherent to good, hard working people.

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When a person goes into politics on a national level, they go in with the knowledge that they have no choice in who they work with (or extremely little). Pelosi pushed for the funding bill for soldiers in Iraq to have timelines for withdrawal included, Bush said no dice. Pelosi is stuck working in a situation where she has to compromise with someone that has opposite viewpoints from her. She has to be willing to ignore her ethics to some degree in order to get things done. A willingness to use a sliding scale of morality is essentially a requirement for large scale politics, and because of the entwinement between business and government the same can be said for high level corporations.
Small business owners in particular are the antithesis of that position. They have a lot more discretion as to who their suppliers are, who their customers are (and the freer the market, the more choices they tend to have) - how they treat their employees, ect.

TomCollins · #9 06-01-2007, 02:52 PM

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The stereotype of a government employee as a slacker out for number one was wholly untrue.

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What about blatant incompetence?

pvn · #10 06-01-2007, 03:36 PM

[ QUOTE ]
So you guys acknowledge that the free market does not protect individuals from harm due to the problem that a large number of people will act in a way that does not get them the most money, and therefore can act in directly harmful ways to others reguardless of the consequences...?

What Im getting at, I've seen on here sometimes people have discussed crime in an anarchist-capitalist society... it seems to be that in that situation, there is not enough "control" to do a good job of handeling the more disruptive forces like pedophiles and rapists who do not care about money or anything like that... where as in state you have the police...

Anyway, if you ever get the time to explain to me how they would stop or hinder those people, I'd appeciate it, but it seems like it may be a b it complciated... Wow I got way off topic, sorry heh [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img].

[/ QUOTE ]

Do you find value in stopping pedophiles and rapists? Do you think there are other people who find value in it?