Business ethics

Business ethics
For the episode from the American television series The Office, see Business Ethics (The Office).

Business ethics (also corporate ethics) is a form of applied ethics or professional ethics that examines ethical principles and moral or ethical problems that arise in a business environment. It applies to all aspects of business conduct and is relevant to the conduct of individuals and entire organizations.

Business ethics has both normative and descriptive dimensions. As a corporate practice and a career specialization, the field is primarily normative. Academics attempting to understand business behavior employ descriptive methods. The range and quantity of business ethical issues reflects the interaction of profit-maximizing behavior with non-economic concerns. Interest in business ethics accelerated dramatically during the 1980s and 1990s, both within major corporations and within academia. For example, today most major corporations promote their commitment to non-economic values under headings such as ethics codes and social responsibility charters. Adam Smith said, "People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices."[1] Governments use laws and regulations to point business behavior in what they perceive to be beneficial directions. Ethics implicitly regulates areas and details of behavior that lie beyond governmental control.[2] The emergence of large corporations with limited relationships and sensitivity to the communities in which they operate accelerated the development of formal ethics regimes.[3]

Contents

History

Business ethical norms reflect the norms of each historical period. As time passes norms evolve, causing accepted behaviors to become objectionable. Business ethics and the resulting behavior evolved as well. Business was involved in slavery,[4][5][6] colonialism,[7][8] and the cold war.[9][10]

The term 'business ethics' came into common use in the United States in the early 1970s. By the mid-1980s at least 500 courses in business ethics reached 40,000 students, using some twenty textbooks and at least ten casebooks along supported by professional societies, centers and journals of business ethics. The Society for Business Ethics was started in 1980. European business schools adopted business ethics after 1987 commencing with the European Business Ethics Network (EBEN).[11][12][13][14] In 1982 the first single-authored books in the field appeared.[15][16]

Firms started highlighting their ethical stature in the late 1980s and early 1990s, possibly trying to distance themselves from the business scandals of the day, such as the savings and loan crisis. The idea of business ethics caught the attention of academics, media and business firms by the end of the Cold War.[12][17][18] However, legitimate criticism of business practices was attacked for infringing the "freedom" of entrepreneurs and critics were accused of supporting communists.[19][20] This scuttled the discourse of business ethics both in media and academia.[21]

Overview

Business ethics reflects the philosophy of business, one of whose aims is to determine the fundamental purposes of a company. If a company's purpose is to maximize shareholder returns, then sacrificing profits to other concerns is a violation of its fiduciary responsibility. Corporate entities are legally considered as persons in USA and in most nations. The 'corporate persons' are legally entitled to the rights and liabilities due to citizens as persons.

Economist Milton Friedman writes that corporate executives' "responsibility... generally will be to make as much money as possible while conforming to their basic rules of the society, both those embodied in law and those embodied in ethical custom".[22] Friedman also said, "the only entities who can have responsibilities are individuals ... A business cannot have responsibilities. So the question is, do corporate executives, provided they stay within the law, have responsibilities in their business activities other than to make as much money for their stockholders as possible? And my answer to that is, no, they do not."[22][23][24] A multi-country 2011 survey found support for this view among the "informed public" ranging from 30-80%.[25] Duska views Friedman's argument as consequentialist rather than pragmatic, implying that unrestrained corporate freedom would benefit the most in long term.[26][27] Similarly author business consultant Peter Drucker observed, "There is neither a separate ethics of business nor is one needed", implying that standards of personal ethics cover all business situations.[28] However, Peter Drucker in another instance observed that the ultimate responsibility of company directors is not to harm—primum non nocere.[29] Another view of business is that it must exhibit corporate social responsibility (CSR): an umbrella term indicating that an ethical business must act as a responsible citizen of the communities in which it operates even at the cost of profits or other goals.[30][31][32][33][34] In the US and most other nations corporate entities are legally treated as persons in some respects. For example, they can hold title to property, sue and be sued and are subject to taxation, although their free speech rights are limited. This can be interpreted to imply that they have independent ethical responsibilities.[citation needed] Duska argues that stakeholders have the right to expect a business to be ethical; if business has no ethical obligations, other institutions could make the same claim which would be counterproductive to the corporation.[26]

Ethical issues include the rights and duties between a company and its employees, suppliers, customers and neighbors, its fiduciary responsibility to its shareholders. Issues concerning relations between different companies include hostile take-overs and industrial espionage. Related issues include corporate governance;corporate social entrepreneurship; political contributions; legal issues such as the ethical debate over introducing a crime of corporate manslaughter; and the marketing of corporations' ethics policies.[citation needed]

Functional business areas

Finance

Fundamentally, finance is a social science discipline.[35] The discipline borders behavioral economics, sociology,[36] economics, accounting and management. It concerns technical issues such as the mix of debt and equity, dividend policy, the evaluation of alternative investment projects, options, futures, swaps, and other derivatives, portfolio diversification and many others. It is often mistaken[who?] to be a discipline free from ethical burdens.[35] The 2008 financial crisis caused critics to challenge the ethics of the executives in charge of U.S. and European financial institutions and financial regulatory bodies.[37] Finance ethics is overlooked for another reason—issues in finance are often addressed as matters of law rather than ethics.[38]

Finance paradigm

Aristotle said, "the end and purpose of the polis is the good life".[39] Adam Smith characterized the good life in terms of material goods and intellectual and moral excellences of character.[40] Smith in his The Wealth of Nations commented, "All for ourselves, and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind."[41]

However, a section of economists influenced by the ideology of neoliberalism, interpreted the objective of economics to be maximization of economic growth through accelerated consumption and production of goods and services.[42] Neoliberal ideology promoted finance from its position as a component of economics to its core.[citation needed] Proponents of the ideology hold that unrestricted financial flows, if redeemed from the shackles of "financial repressions",[43] best help impoverished nations to grow.[citation needed] The theory holds that open financial systems accelerate economic growth by encouraging foreign capital inflows, thereby enabling higher levels of savings, investment, employment, productivity and "welfare",[44][45][46][47] along with containing corruption.[48] Neoliberals recommended that governments open their financial systems to the global market with minimal regulation over capital flows.[49][50][51][52][53] The recommendations however, met with criticisms from various schools of ethical philosophy. Some pragmatic ethicists, found these claims to unfalsifiable and a priori, although neither of these makes the recommendations false or unethical per se.[54][55][56] Raising economic growth to the highest value necessarily means that welfare is subordinate, although advocates dispute this saying that economic growth provides more welfare than known alternatives.[57] Since history shows that neither regulated nor unregulated firms always behave ethically, neither regime offers an ethical panacea.[58][59][60]

Neoliberal recommendations to developing countries to unconditionally open up their economies to transnational finance corporations was fiercely contested by some ethicists.[61][62][63][64][65] The claim that deregulation and the opening up of economies would reduce corruption was also contested.[66][67][68]

Dobson observes, "a rational agent is simply one who pursues personal material advantage ad infinitum. In essence, to be rational in finance is to be individualistic, materialistic, and competitive. Business is a game played by individuals, as with all games the object is to win, and winning is measured in terms solely of material wealth. Within the discipline this rationality concept is never questioned, and has indeed become the theory-of-the-firm's sine qua non".[69][70] Financial ethics is in this view a mathematical function of shareholder wealth. Such simplifying assumptions were once necessary for the construction of mathematically robust models.[71] However signalling theory and agency theory extended the paradigm to greater realism.[72]

Other issues

Fairness in trading practices, trading conditions, financial contracting, sales practices, consultancy services, tax payments, internal audit, external audit and executive compensation also fall under the umbrella of finance and accounting.[38][73] Particular corporate ethical/legal abuses include: creative accounting, earnings management, misleading financial analysis insider trading, securities fraud, bribery/kickbacks and facilitation payments. Outside of corporations, bucket shops and forex scams are criminal manipulations of financial markets. Cases include accounting scandals, Enron, WorldCom and Satyam.[citation needed]

Human resource management

Human resource management occupies the sphere of activity of recruitment selection, orientation, performance appraisal, training and development, industrial relations and health and safety issues.[74] Business Ethicists differ in their orientation towards labour ethics. Some assess human resource policies according to whether they support an egalitarian workplace and the dignity of labor.[75][76][77]

Issues including employment itself, privacy, compensation in accord with comparable worth, collective bargaining (and/or its opposite) can be seen either as inalienable rights[78][79] or as negotiable.[80][81][82][83][84] Discrimination by age (preferring the young or the old), gender/sexual harassment, race, religion, disability, weight and attractiveness. A common approach to remedying discrimination is affirmative action.

Potential employees have ethical obligations to employers, involving intellectual property protection and whistle-blowing.

Employers must consider workplace safety, which may involve modifying the workplace, or providing appropriate training or hazard disclosure.

Larger economic issues such as immigration, trade policy, globalization and trade unionism affect workplaces and have an ethical dimension, but are often beyond the purview of individual companies.[78][85][86]

Trade unions

Unions for example, may push employers to establish due process for workers, but may also cost jobs by demanding unsustainable compensation and work rules.[87][88][89][90][91][92][93][94][95][96]

Unionized workplaces may confront union busting and strike breaking and face the ethical implications of work rules that advantage some workers over others.[citation needed]

Management strategy

Among the many people management strategies that companies employ are a "soft" approach that regards employees as a source of creative energy and participants in workplace decision making, a "hard" version explicitly focused on control[97] and Theory Z that emphasizes philosophy, culture and consensus.[98] None ensure ethical behavior.[99] Some studies claim that sustainable success requires a humanely treated and satisfied workforce.[100][101][102]

Sales and marketing

Main article: Marketing ethics

Marketing Ethics came of age only as late as 1990s.[103] Marketing ethics was approached from ethical perspectives of virtue or virtue ethics, deontology, consequentialism, pragmatism and relativism.[104][105]

Ethics in marketing deals with the principles, values and/or ideals by which marketers (and marketing institutions) ought to act.[106] Marketing ethics is also contested terrain, beyond the previously described issue of potential conflicts between profitability and other concerns. Ethical marketing issues include marketing redundant or dangerous products/services[107][108][109] transparency about environmental risks, transparency about product ingredients such as genetically modified organisms[110][111][112][113] possible health risks, financial risks, security risks, etc.,[114] respect for consumer privacy and autonomy,[115] advertising truthfulness and fairness in pricing & distribution.[116]

According to Borgerson, and Schroeder (2008), marketing can influence individuals' perceptions of and interactions with other people, implying an ethical responsibility to avoid distorting those perceptions and interactions.[117]

Marketing ethics involves pricing practices, including illegal actions such as price fixing and legal actions including price discrimination and price skimming. Certain promotional activities have drawn fire, including greenwashing, bait and switch, shilling, viral marketing, spam (electronic), pyramid schemes and multi-level marketing. Advertising has raised objections about attack ads, subliminal messages, sex in advertising and marketing in schools.

Production

This area of business ethics usually deals with the duties of a company to ensure that products and production processes do not needlessly cause harm. Since few goods and services can be produced and consumed with zero risk, determining the ethical course can be problematic. In some case consumers demand products that harm them, such as tobacco products. Production may have environmental impacts, including pollution, habitat destruction and urban sprawl. The downstream effects of technologies nuclear power, genetically modified food and mobile phones may not be well understood. While the precautionary principle may prohibit introducing new technology whose consequences are not fully understood, that principle would have prohibited most new technology introduced since the industrial revolution. Product testing protocols have been attacked for violating the rights of both humans and animals[citation needed]

Property

Main article: Private property, and Property rights

The etymological root of property is the Latin 'proprius'[118] which refers to 'nature', 'quality', 'one's own', 'special characteristic', 'proper', 'intrinsic', 'inherent', 'regular', 'normal', 'genuine', 'thorough, complete, perfect' etc. The word property is value loaded and associated with the personal qualities of propriety and respectability, also implies questions relating to ownership. A 'proper' person owns and is true to herself or himself, and is thus genuine, perfect and pure.[119]

Modern history of property rights

Modern discourse on property emerged by the turn of 17th century within theological discussions of that time. For instance, John Locke justified property rights saying that God had made "the earth, and all inferior creatures, [in] common to all men".[120][121][122][123]

In 1802 Utilitarian Jeremy Bentham stated, "property and law are born together and die together".[124][125]

One argument for property ownership is that it enhances individual liberty by extending the line of non-interference by the state or others around the person.[126] Seen from this perspective, property right is absolute and property has a special and distinctive character that precedes its legal protection. Blackstone conceptualized property as the "sole and despotic dominion which one man claims and exercises over the external things of the world, in total exclusion of the right of any other individual in the universe".[127]

Slaves as property

During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, slavery spread to European colonies including America, where colonial legislatures defined the legal status of slaves as a form of property.[128] During this time settlers began the centuries-long process of dispossessing the natives of America of millions of acres of land.[129] Ironically, the natives lost about 200,000 square miles (520,000 km2) of land in the Louisiana Territory under the leadership of Thomas Jefferson, who championed property rights.[130][131][132]

Combined with theological justification, property was taken to be essentially natural ordained by God.[133] Property, which later gained meaning as ownership and appeared natural to Locke, Jefferson and to many of the 18th and 19th century intellectuals[134] as land, labour or idea[135] and property right over slaves had the same theological and essentialized justification[136][137][138][139][140][141] It was even held that the property in slaves was a sacred right.[142][143] Wiecek noted, "slavery was more clearly and explicitly established under the Constitution as it had been under the Articles".[144] Accordingly, US Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger B. Taney in his 1857 judgment stated, "The right of property in a slave is distinctly and expressly affirmed in the Constitution".

Natural right vs social construct

Neoliberals hold that private property rights are a non-negotiable natural right.[145][146] Davies counters with "property is no different from other legal categories in that it is simply a consequence of the significance attached by law to the relationships between legal persons."[147][148] Singer claims, "Property is a form of power, and the distribution of power is a political problem of the highest order".[149][150] Rose finds, "'Property' is only an effect, a construction, of relationships between people, meaning that its objective character is contestable. Persons and things, are 'constituted' or 'fabricated' by legal and other normative techniques.".[151][152] Singer observes, "A private property regime is not, after all, a Hobbesian state of nature; it requires a working legal system that can define, allocate, and enforce property rights."[153] Davis claims that common law theory generally favors the view that "property is not essentially a 'right to a thing', but rather a separable bundle of rights subsisting between persons which may vary according to the context and the object which is at stake".[147]

In common parlance property rights involve a 'bundle of rights'[154] including occupancy, use and enjoyment, and the right to sell, devise, give, or lease all or part of these rights.[155][156][157][158] Custodians of property have obligations as well as rights.[159][160] Michelman writes, "A property regime thus depends on a great deal of cooperation, trustworthiness, and self-restraint among the people who enjoy it."[161][162]

Menon claims that the autonomous individual, responsible for his/her own existence is a cultural construct moulded by Western culture rather than the truth about the human condition.[163] Penner views property as an "illusion"—a "normative phantasm" without substance.[164][165]

In the neoliberal literature, property is part of the private side of a public/private dichotomy and acts a counterweight to state power. Davies counters that "any space may be subject to plural meanings or appropriations which do not necessarily come into conflict".[166]

Private property has never been a universal doctrine, although since the end of the Cold War is it has become nearly so. Some societies, e.g., Native American bands, held land, if not all property, in common. When groups came into conflict, the victor often appropriated the loser's property.[167][168] The rights paradigm tended to stabilize the distribution of property holdings on the presumption that title had been lawfully acquired.[169]

Property does not exist in isolation, and so property rights too.[170] Bryan claimed that property rights describe relations among people and not just relations between people and things[171][172][173][174][175][176] Singer holds that the idea that owners have no legal obligations to others wrongly supposes that property rights hardly ever conflict with other legally protected interests.[177] Singer continues implying that legal realists "did not take the character and structure of social relations as an important independent factor in choosing the rules that govern market life". Ethics of property rights begins with recognizing the vacuous nature of the notion of property.[178]

Intellectual property

Main articles: Intellectual property and Intellectual property rights

Intellectual property (IP) encompasses expressions of ideas, thoughts, codes and information. "Intellectual property rights" (IPR) treat IP as a kind of real property, subject to analogous protections, rather than as a reproducible good or service. Boldrin and Levine argue that "government does not ordinarily enforce monopolies for producers of other goods. This is because it is widely recognized that monopoly creates many social costs. Intellectual monopoly is no different in this respect. The question we address is whether it also creates social benefits commensurate with these social costs."[179]

International standards relating to Intellectual Property Rights are enforced through Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS).[180] In the US, IP other than copyrights is regulated by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.

The US Constitution included the power to protect intellectual property, empowering the Federal government "to promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries".[181] Boldrin and Levine see no value in such state-enforced monopolies stating, "we ordinarily think of innovative monopoly as an oxymoron.[182][183] Further they comment, 'intellectual property' "is not like ordinary property at all, but constitutes a government grant of a costly and dangerous private monopoly over ideas. We show through theory and example that intellectual monopoly is not necessary for innovation and as a practical matter is damaging to growth, prosperity, and liberty" .[181] Steelman defends patent monopolies, writing, "Consider prescription drugs, for instance. Such drugs have benefited millions of people, improving or extending their lives. Patent protection enables drug companies to recoup their development costs because for a specific period of time they have the sole right to manufacture and distribute the products they have invented."[184] The court cases by 39 pharmaceutical companies against South Africa's 1997 Medicines and Related Substances Control Amendment Act, which intended to provide affordable HIV medicines has been cited as a harmful effect of patents.[185][186][187]

One attack on IPR is moral rather than utilitarian, claiming that inventions are mostly a collective, cumulative, path dependent, social creation and therefore, no one person or firm should be able to monopolize them even for a limited period.[188] The opposing argument is that the benefits of innovation arrive sooner when patents encourage innovators and their investors to increase their commitments. Roderick Long, a libertarian philosopher, observes, "Ethically, property rights of any kind have to be justified as extensions of the right of individuals to control their own lives. Thus any alleged property rights that conflict with this moral basis—like the "right" to own slaves—are invalidated. In my judgment, intellectual property rights also fail to pass this test. To enforce copyright laws and the like is to prevent people from making peaceful use of the information they possess. If you have acquired the information legitimately (say, by buying a book), then on what grounds can you be prevented from using it, reproducing it, trading it? Is this not a violation of the freedom of speech and press? It may be objected that the person who originated the information deserves ownership rights over it. But information is not a concrete thing an individual can control; it is a universal, existing in other people's minds and other people's property, and over these the originator has no legitimate sovereignty. You cannot own information without owning other people".[189] Machlup concluded that patents do not have the intended effect of enhancing innovation.[190] Self-declared anarchist Proudhon, in his 1847 seminal work noted, "Monopoly is the natural opposite of competition," and continued, "Competition is the vital force which animates the collective being: to destroy it, if such a supposition were possible, would be to kill society"[191][192]

Mindeli and Pipiya hold that the knowledge economy is an economy of abundance[193] because it relies on the "infinite potential" of knowledge and ideas rather than on the limited resources of natural resources, labor and capital. Allison envisioned an egalitarian distribution of knowledge.[194] Kinsella claims that IPR create artificial scarcity and reduce equality.[195][196][197] Bouckaert wrote, "Natural scarcity is that which follows from the relationship between man and nature. Scarcity is natural when it is possible to conceive of it before any human, institutional, contractual arrangement. Artificial scarcity, on the other hand, is the outcome of such arrangements. Artificial scarcity can hardly serve as a justification for the legal framework that causes that scarcity. Such an argument would be completely circular. On the contrary, artificial scarcity itself needs a justification" [198][199] Corporations fund much IP creation and can acquire IP they do not create,[200] to which Menon and others object.[201][202] Andersen claims that IPR has increasingly become an instrument in eroding public domain.[203]

Ethical and legal issues include: Patent infringement, copyright infringement, trademark infringement, patent and copyright misuse, submarine patents, gene patents, patent, copyright and trademark trolling, Employee raiding and monopolizing talent, Bioprospecting, biopiracy and industrial espionage, digital rights management.

Notable IP copyright cases include Napster, Eldred v. Ashcroft and Air Pirates.

International issues

While business ethics emerged as a field in the 1970s, international business ethics did not emerge until the late 1990s, looking back on the international developments of that decade.[204] Many new practical issues arose out of the international context of business. Theoretical issues such as cultural relativity of ethical values receive more emphasis in this field. Other, older issues can be grouped here as well. Issues and subfields include:

  • The search for universal values as a basis for international commercial behaviour.
  • Comparison of business ethical traditions in different countries. Also on the basis of their respective GDP and [Corruption rankings].
  • Comparison of business ethical traditions from various religious perspectives.
  • Ethical issues arising out of international business transactions; e.g., bioprospecting and biopiracy in the pharmaceutical industry; the fair trade movement; transfer pricing.
  • Issues such as globalization and cultural imperialism.
  • Varying global standards—e.g., the use of child labor.
  • The way in which multinationals take advantage of international differences, such as outsourcing production (e.g. clothes) and services (e.g. call centres) to low-wage countries.
  • The permissibility of international commerce with pariah states.

The success of any business depends on its financial performance. Financial accounting helps the management to report and also control the business performance.

The information regarding the financial performance of the company plays an important role in enabling people to take right decision about the company. Therefore, it becomes necessary to understand how to record based on accounting conventions and concepts ensure unambling and accurate records.

Foreign countries often use dumping as a competitive threat, selling products at prices lower than their normal value. This can lead to problems in domestic markets. It becomes difficult for these markets to compete with the pricing set by foreign markets. In 2009, the International Trade Commission has been researching anti-dumping laws. Dumping is often seen as an ethical issue, as larger companies are taking advantage of other less economically advanced companies.

Economic systems

Political economy and political philosophy have ethical implications, particularly regarding the distribution of economic benefits.[205] John Rawls and Robert Nozick are both notable contributors. For example, Rawls has been interpreted as offering a critique of offshore outsourcing on social contract grounds, whereas Nozick's libertarian philosophy rejects the notion of any positive corporate social obligation.

Law and regulation

Very often it is held that business is not bound by any ethics other than abiding by the law. Milton Friedman is the pioneer of the view. He held that corporations have the obligation to make a profit within the framework of the legal system, nothing more.[206] Friedman made it explicit that the duty of the business leaders is, "to make as much money as possible while conforming to the basic rules of the society, both those embodied in the law and those embodied in ethical custom".[207] Ethics for Friedman is nothing more than abiding by 'customs' and 'laws'. The reduction of ethics to abidance to laws and customs however have drawn serious criticisms.

Counter to Friedman's logic it is observed that legal procedures are technocratic, bureaucratic, rigid and obligatory where as ethical act is conscientious, voluntary choice beyond normativity.[208] Law is retroactive. Crime precedes law. Law against a crime, to be passed, the crime must have happened. Laws are blind to the crimes undefined in it.[209] Further, as per law, "conduct is not criminal unless forbidden by law which gives advance warning that such conduct is criminal.[210] Also, law presumes the accused is innocent until proven guilty and that the state must establish the guilt of the accused beyond reasonable doubt. As per liberal laws followed in most of the democracies, until the government prosecutor proves the firm guilty with the limited resources available to her, the accused is considered to be innocent. Though the liberal premises of law is necessary to protect individuals from being persecuted by Government, it is not a sufficient mechanism to make firms morally accountable.[211][212][213][214]

Implementation

Corporate policies

As part of more comprehensive compliance and ethics programs, many companies have formulated internal policies pertaining to the ethical conduct of employees. These policies can be simple exhortations in broad, highly generalized language (typically called a corporate ethics statement), or they can be more detailed policies, containing specific behavioural requirements (typically called corporate ethics codes). They are generally meant to identify the company's expectations of workers and to offer guidance on handling some of the more common ethical problems that might arise in the course of doing business. It is hoped that having such a policy will lead to greater ethical awareness, consistency in application, and the avoidance of ethical disasters.

An increasing number of companies also require employees to attend seminars regarding business conduct, which often include discussion of the company's policies, specific case studies, and legal requirements. Some companies even require their employees to sign agreements stating that they will abide by the company's rules of conduct.

Many companies are assessing the environmental factors that can lead employees to engage in unethical conduct. A competitive business environment may call for unethical behaviour. Lying has become expected in fields such as trading. An example of this are the issues surrounding the unethical actions of the Saloman Brothers.

Not everyone supports corporate policies that govern ethical conduct. Some claim that ethical problems are better dealt with by depending upon employees to use their own judgment.

Others believe that corporate ethics policies are primarily rooted in utilitarian concerns, and that they are mainly to limit the company's legal liability, or to curry public favour by giving the appearance of being a good corporate citizen. Ideally, the company will avoid a lawsuit because its employees will follow the rules. Should a lawsuit occur, the company can claim that the problem would not have arisen if the employee had only followed the code properly.

Sometimes there is disconnection between the company's code of ethics and the company's actual practices. Thus, whether or not such conduct is explicitly sanctioned by management, at worst, this makes the policy duplicitous, and, at best, it is merely a marketing tool.

Jones and Parker write, "Most of what we read under the name business ethics is either sentimental common sense, or a set of excuses for being unpleasant."[215] Many manuals are procedural form filling exercises unconcerned about the real ethical dilemmas. For instance, US Department of Commerce ethics program treats business ethics as a set of instructions and procedures to be followed by 'ethics officers'.,[31] some others claim being ethical is just for the sake of being ethical.[216] Business ethicists may trivialize the subject, offering standard answers that do not reflect the situation's complexity.[208]

Ethics officers

Ethics officers (sometimes called "compliance" or "business conduct officers") have been appointed formally by organizations since the mid-1980s. One of the catalysts for the creation of this new role was a series of fraud, corruption, and abuse scandals that afflicted the U.S. defense industry at that time. This led to the creation of the Defense Industry Initiative (DII), a pan-industry initiative to promote and ensure ethical business practices. The DII set an early benchmark for ethics management in corporations. In 1991, the Ethics & Compliance Officer Association (ECOA)—originally the Ethics Officer Association (EOA)—was founded at the Center for Business Ethics (at Bentley College, Waltham, MA) as a professional association for those responsible for managing organizations' efforts to achieve ethical best practices. The membership grew rapidly (the ECOA now has over 1,200 members) and was soon established as an independent organization.

Another critical factor in the decisions of companies to appoint ethics/compliance officers was the passing of the Federal Sentencing Guidelines for Organizations in 1991, which set standards that organizations (large or small, commercial and non-commercial) had to follow to obtain a reduction in sentence if they should be convicted of a federal offense. Although intended to assist judges with sentencing, the influence in helping to establish best practices has been far-reaching.

In the wake of numerous corporate scandals between 2001–04 (affecting large corporations like Enron, WorldCom and Tyco), even small and medium-sized companies have begun to appoint ethics officers. They often report to the Chief Executive Officer and are responsible for assessing the ethical implications of the company's activities, making recommendations regarding the company's ethical policies, and disseminating information to employees. They are particularly interested in uncovering or preventing unethical and illegal actions. This trend is partly due to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in the United States, which was enacted in reaction to the above scandals. A related trend is the introduction of risk assessment officers that monitor how shareholders' investments might be affected by the company's decisions.

The effectiveness of ethics officers is not clear. If the appointment is made primarily as a reaction to legislative requirements, one might expect little impact, at least over the short term. In part, this is because ethical business practices result from a corporate culture that consistently places value on ethical behaviour, a culture and climate that usually emanates from the top of the organization. The mere establishment of a position to oversee ethics will most likely be insufficient to inculcate ethical behaviour: a more systemic programme with consistent support from general management will be necessary.

The foundation for ethical behaviour goes well beyond corporate culture and the policies of any given company, for it also depends greatly upon an individual's early moral training, the other institutions that affect an individual, the competitive business environment the company is in and, indeed, society as a whole.

Academic discipline

As an academic discipline, business ethics emerged in the 1970s. Since no academic business ethics journals or conferences existed, researchers published in general management journals, and attended general conferences. Over time, specialized peer-reviewed journals appeared, and more researchers entered the field. Corporate scandals in the earlier 2000s increased the field's popularity. As of 2009, sixteen academic journals devoted to various business ethics issues existed, with Journal of Business Ethics and Business Ethics Quarterly considered the leaders.[217]

The International Business Development Institute[218] is a global non-profit organization that represents 217 nations and all 50 United States. It offers a Charter in Business Development (CBD) that focuses on ethical business practices and standards. The Charter is directed by Harvard, MIT, and Fulbright Scholars, and it includes graduate-level coursework in economics, politics, marketing, management, technology, and legal aspects of business development as it pertains to business ethics. IBDI also oversees the International Business Development Institute of Asia[219] which provides individuals living in 20 Asian nations the opportunity to earn the Charter.

Religious views

Main article: Religious views on business ethics

In Sharia law, followed by many Muslims, banking specifically prohibits charging interest on loans.[citation needed] Traditional Confucian thought discourages profit-seeking.[220] Christianity offers the Golden Rule command, "Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets."[221] according to the article "Theory of the real economy", there is a more narrow point of view from the Christianity faith towards the relationship between ethics and religious traditions. This article stresses about how capable is Christianity of establishing reliable boundaries for financial institutions. one criticism comes from pope Benedict by describing the "damaging effects of the real economy of badly managed and largely speculative financial dealing." it is mentioned that Christianity has the potential to transform the nature of finance and investment but only if theologians and ethicist provide more evidence of what is real in the economic life..[222]

Related disciplines

Business ethics is part of the philosophy of business, the branch of philosophy that deals with the philosophical, political, and ethical underpinnings of business and economics. Business ethics operates on the premise, for example, that the ethical operation of a private business is possible—those who dispute that premise, such as libertarian socialists, (who contend that "business ethics" is an oxymoron) do so by definition outside of the domain of business ethics proper.[citation needed]

The philosophy of business also deals with questions such as what, if any, are the social responsibilities of a business; business management theory; theories of individualism vs. collectivism; free will among participants in the marketplace; the role of self interest; invisible hand theories; the requirements of social justice; and natural rights, especially property rights, in relation to the business enterprise.[citation needed]

Business ethics is also related to political economy, which is economic analysis from political and historical perspectives. Political economy deals with the distributive consequences of economic actions. It asks who gains and who loses from economic activity, and is the resultant distribution fair or just, which are central ethical issues.[citation needed]

See also

References

  1. ^ Smith, A (1776/ 1952) An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, p. 55
  2. ^ Berle, A. A., & Means, G. C. (1932). The Modern Corporation and Private Property. New Jersey: Transaction Publishers. In this book, Berle and Means observe, "Corporations have ceased to be merely legal devices through which the private business transactions of individuals may be carried on. Though still much used for this purpose, the corporate form has acquired a much larger significance. The corporation has, in fact, become both a method of property tenure and a means of organizing economic life. Grown to tremendous proportions, there may be said to have evolved a 'corporate system'—as there once was a feudal system—which has attracted to itself a combination of attributes and powers, and has attained a degree of prominence entitling it to be dealt with as a major social institution. […] We are examining this institution probably before it has attained its zenith. Spectacular as its rise has been, every indication seems to be that the system will move forward to proportions which stagger imagination today […] They [management] have placed the community in a position to demand that the modern corporation serve not only the owners […] but all society." p. 1.
  3. ^ Jones, Parker & et al. 2005, p. 17
  4. ^ Slavery and the Making of America—Episode 1. Video.google.com. Retrieved on 2010-09-02.
  5. ^ Kingsolver, A. (2008). Capitalism. Encyclopedia of Race and Racism. J. H. Moore. Detroit, Macmillan reference ISBN 0-02-866021-8 pp. 268–271.
  6. ^ Williams, E. (1994 [1944]). Capitalism and Slavery. Chapel Hill, The University of North Carolina Press. "Slavery was not born of racism: rather, racism was the consequence of slavery. Unfree labor in the New World was brown, white, black, and yellow; Catholic, Protestant and pagan"
  7. ^ King Leopold II King of Belgium—King of the Congo. Video.google.com. Retrieved on 2010-09-02.
  8. ^ Robotham, D. (2005). Political Economy. A Handbook of Economic Anthropology. J. G. Carrier. Northampton, MA, Edward Elgar ISBN 1-84376-175-0 pp. 41–58
  9. ^ Berger D., Easterly W, et al. (2010) Commercial Imperialism? Political Influence and Trade During the Cold War. NBER Working Paper No. 15981.
  10. ^ The article A History of Business Ethics by Richard T. De George of Santa Clara University (web page version of DeGeorge, Richard. 2005, "History of Business Ethics", paper delivered at "The Accountable Corporation", the third biennial global business conference sponsored by the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University) as availed on March 30, 2010– observes, on the origin of business ethics discourse, " The Second World War was over, the Cold War was ever present, and the War in Viet Nam fostered a good deal of opposition to official public policy and to the so-called military-industrial complex, which came in for increasing scrutiny and criticism. The Civil Rights movement had caught the public imagination. The United States was becoming more and more of a dominant economic force. American-based multinational corporations were growing in size and importance. Big business was coming into its own, replacing small and medium-sized businesses in the societal image of business. The chemical industry was booming with innovation, and in its wake came environmental damage on a scale that had not previously been possible. The spirit of protest led to the environmental movement, to the rise of consumerism, and to criticism of multinational corporations....Corporations, finding themselves under public attack and criticism, responded by developing the notion of social responsibility. They started social responsibility programs and spent a good deal of money advertising their programs and how they were promoting the social good. Exactly what "social responsibility" meant varied according to the industry and company
  11. ^ Richard T. De George
  12. ^ a b History of Business Ethics. Scu.edu (2005-02-19). Retrieved on 2010-09-02.
  13. ^ Madsen, Essentials of Business Ethics
  14. ^ Velasquez, Corporate Ethics: Losing it, Having it, Getting it, p. 229 as quoted in Cory 2005 Activist Business Ethics The passage quoted is: "Between 1970 and 1980, 11 percent of the largest American firms were convicted of lawlessness, including bribery, criminal fraud, illegal campaign contributions, tax evasion, or price-fixing. Well-known companies with four or more convictions included Braniff International, Gulf Oil, and Ashland Oil. Firms with at least two convictions included Allied, American Airlines, Bethlehem Steel, Diamond International, Firestone, Goodyear, International Paper, National Distillers, Northrop, Occidental Petroleum, Pepsico, Phillips Petroleum, R.J. Reynolds, Schlitz, Seagram, Tenneco, and United Brands. The recent Union Carbide disaster in Bhopal is well-known, as is the E.F. Hutton fiasco, the General Dynamics fraud, and of course, the Wall Street scandals involving Ivan Boesky, David Levine, and Michael Milken... Unethical behaviour in business more often than not is a systematic matter. To a large degree it is the behaviour of generally decent people who normally would not think of doing anything illegal or immoral. But they get backed into doing something unethical by the systems and practices of their own firms and industries. Unethical behaviour in business generally arises when business firms fail to pay explicitly attention to the ethical risks that are created by their own systems and practices."
  15. ^ Richard De George, Business Ethics
  16. ^ Manuel G. Velasquez, Business Ethics: Concepts and Cases.
  17. ^ Moon, Chris Et al.(2001) Business Ethics. London: The Economist:119–132
  18. ^ MBA Institutes & Business school networks: IIMA, IIMB, IIMC, IIML, IIMK, IIMI, ISB, Great lakes, XLRI, JBIMS, FMS. Coolavenues.com. Retrieved on 2010-09-02.
  19. ^ Cullather Gleijeses, pp. 16–37 The entire book discusses unethical business practices and CIA collaborating with each other with appropriate documentary evidence.
  20. ^ Confessions of An Economic Hit Man—What Really Goes on Behind Global Affairs. Video.google.com. Retrieved on 2010-09-02.
  21. ^ Chomsky, N. (1989). Necessary Illusions: Thought Control in Democratic Societies London, Pluto Press ISBN 0-89608-366-7.
  22. ^ a b Friedman, Milton (1970-09-13). "The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase Its Profits". The New York Times Magazine. http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/faculty/dunnweb/rprnts.friedman.html. Retrieved March 11, 2011. 
  23. ^ Friedman, M. (1984). "Milton Friedman responds—an interview with Friedman." Business and Society 84(5)
  24. ^ Bevan, D. (2008).Philosophy: A Grounded Theory Approach and the Emergence of Convenient and Inconvenient Ethics. Cutting Edge Issues in Business Ethics M. Painter-Morland and P. Werhane. Boston, Springer. 24: 131–152.
  25. ^ "Milton Friedman goes on tour". The Economist. Jan 27th 2011. http://www.economist.com/node/18010553?story_id=18010553. Retrieved March 12, 2011. 
  26. ^ a b Duska 2007, p. 11 Contemporary Reflections on Business Ethics.
  27. ^ Cory 2005, pp. 7–34 Activist Business Ethics
  28. ^ Drucker, P. (1981). " What is business ethics?" The Public Interest Spring(63): 18–36.
  29. ^ Cory 2005, p. 9 Activist Business Ethics
  30. ^ Pinnington, A. H. and Lafferty, G. (2002). Human Resource Management in Australia. Melbourne: Oxford University Press ISBN 0-19-551477-7
  31. ^ a b Good Governance Program. (2004). Business Ethics: A manual for managing a responsible business enterprise in emerging market economies. (pp.93–128) Washington DC: Good Governance Program, US Department of Commerce
  32. ^ Hansmann, H., & Kraakman, R.(2000). The End of History for Corporate Law. Georgetown Law Journal(89), 439–468. The article says, "All thoughtful people believe that corporate enterprise should be organized and operated to serve the interests of society as a whole, and that the interests of shareholders deserve no greater weight in this social calculus than do the interests of any other members of society."
  33. ^ Greenfield, K. (2006). The Failure of Corporate Law fundamental flaws & progressive possibilities. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press ISBN 0-226-30693-3. Greenfield observes, "what is good for shareholders is good for corporations, and what is good for corporations is good for society....If this connection existed, the shareholder bandwagon would be attractive indeed. The problem is that advocates for shareholder primacy do not purport to say how the connection occurs or test whether the connection is true. p. 22
  34. ^ Jones, Parker & et al. 2005, p. 5 observe, "when a company with shareholders gives some of the profits it has made to investors who have not been involved in producing the value, this is seen as a reward for risk. But why should the surplus generated by workers be given to someone else who almost certainly already has a lot of money in the first place?"
  35. ^ a b Dobson 1997, p. xvii
  36. ^ Cetina, K. K., & Preda, A. (Eds.). (2005). The sociology of financial markets. Oxford University Press ISBN 0-19-929692-8
  37. ^ Huevel, K. et al., (2009). Meltdown: how greed and corruption shattered our financial system and how we can recover. New York: Nation Books ISBN 1-56858-433-4.
  38. ^ a b Boatright, J. R. Finance ethics[dead link]Frederic 2002, pp. 153–163
  39. ^ Aristotle 1948 Politics E. Barker, trans. Oxford: Clarendon, p. 38.
  40. ^ Smith 1759, p. VI.i.15[dead link]
  41. ^ Smith 1759, p. III.iv.448
  42. ^ Jevons, W.S. 1970 The Theory of Political Economy. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Jevons observes, "The theory…is entirely based on a calculus of pleasure and pain: the object of economics is to maximize happiness by purchasing pleasure, as it were, at the lowest cost of pain" (Jevons, 1970:91). Jevons also noted, "The strength of preferences for a good, measured by individuals' willingness to pay for their satisfaction at the margin, is an indirect measure of subjective states: it is from the quantitative effects of the feelings that we must estimate their comparative amounts" (Jevons, 1970:83). O'Neil on the other hand points out that the ideologists of neoliberalism "do not claim to prove that markets maximize well-being. Rather they claim to show that in certain 'ideal' conditions the market will issue in a state of equilibrium, defined as a state in which, so long as individuals' preferences and productive resources remain the same, any departure from that state will involve a welfare change for the worse for some party, in the sense that a previously satisfied preference will no longer be satisfied. O'Neill 1998, p. 54
  43. ^ Montiel, P. J. (2003). Macroeconomics in Emerging Markets. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (pp. 214–238) ISBN 0-521-78551-0. By the phrase 'financial repression', Montiel refers to the monitoring and regulations on capital inflows and outflows, regulations on free entry and exit of national and international financial institutions, the presence of state run financial institutions, stipulations on cash reserve ratio or liquidity ratio, interest rate ceilings, guidelines regarding priority sector financing, and other measures of monitory regulations.
  44. ^ Wolf, Martin (Tuesday, July 24, 2007). "Wolf: In Defense of Neoliberalism". The Financial Times. http://ipezone.blogspot.com/2007/07/fts-wolf-in-defense-of-neoliberalism.html. Retrieved March 11, 2011. 
  45. ^ welfare in terms of preference satisfaction O'Neill 1998, p. 56
  46. ^ Hayek F.A. 1976 Law, Legislation and Liberty: Volume 2 London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, pp. 15–30.
  47. ^ O'Neill challenges the welfare claim based on the 'preference satisfaction' in the following words: The empirical problem is this—that with all the increase in the variety of goods and services that consumers are able to buy, there is no corresponding reported increase in perceived satisfaction. The total amount of welfare understood as preference satisfaction over dissatisfaction appears to be remarkably static in modern market societies. There appears to be little evidence of any growth in the gap between preference satisfaction and dissatisfaction. Quoting from Lane, he points out, "The assumed positive relationship between markets and wellbeing understood as preference satisfaction is not confirmed by empirical evidence… Indeed, the fact that there is no increase in preference satisfaction over dissatisfaction no longer entails immediately that there is no increase in welfare. Not all dissatisfaction is a sign of a life that has taken a turn for the worse. Indeed, it can indicate the opposite, that a person is exercising capacities that are part of what it is for a life to be improving. Consider a pianist, who starts being greatly satisfied with her initial developments, but who, as she continues to develop technically and artistically, becomes ever more critical of her performance. Her increasing dissatisfaction is a symptom of increasing accomplishment. Or again consider the contented slave, wage earner or housewife who become discontented with their lot: it is better for them that this is so and not just in virtue of other possible improvements this might bring. This is an old point." O'Neill 1998, pp. 56–60
  48. ^ Schaler, J. A. Corruption.Hamowy, Kuznicki & Steelman 2008, pp. 105–107 What the libertarians consider as corruption is interesting. The author concludes abruptly, "if we reduce what the government does, we also will reduce corruption…. It also may offer a way to identify and understand the moral decline that follows (and fosters) the continual expansion of the welfare state.(p. 107). However, the author is reluctant to admit that private individual/ firm corruption. For instance, he writes, "Paying money for goods or services provided by a public official constitutes bribery and often involves punishment for the parties to the transaction. Why bribery is invariably equated with corruption and condemned? It is not obviously inefficient. Indeed, in highly collectivized nations, paying public officials to allow what would otherwise be normal market exchanges may contribute much to human welfare. (p. 105). He continues, "These standard accounts of corruption and bribery involve efficiency and democratic accountability, not liberty"... "In some cases, government actions that are particularly prone to bribery—like the licensing of economic activity—inherently restrict individual liberty"… "It is possible that bribery might liberalize some parts of society"... However, he presents "in the financing of election campaigns" individuals and groups are simply "contributing to the campaigns of chosen candidates" and observes, "Campaign finance regulations, like the corruption they seek to prevent, actually serve the narrow interests of parties and incumbents instead of the interest voters have in open competition for legislative seats. Thus, campaign finance restrictions may be deemed a kind of corruption". He further points out, "However, as Nathaniel Persily discovered, campaign finance appears to have no real relationship one way or the other to trust in government. In any case, public trust in government tends to reduce, rather than protect, individual liberty (p. 106). In his statement on the primacy of liberty he argues, "But libertarians might recognize that corruption may be more than an excuse to limit liberty".
  49. ^ The neoclassical economists of the first generation in the early 70s, while the impoverished world was still struggling to recover from the adverse effects of the second world war and the consequent cold wars, recommended deregulation of financial systems of the impoverished nations which they termed liberating financial systems from the 'financial repression'. Chili, Uruguay and Argentina were chosen to be the labs of financial experiments. Contrary to the claims the countries experienced severe economic and financial setbacks of soaring interest rates, waves of bank failures and other bankruptcies, extreme asset price volatility and extensive loan defaults, the real sector entered deep and prolonged recessions contrary to what had been projected by the ideologues (Grabel, I., 2008). Global finance and development: false starts, dead ends and social economic alternatives. Davis, J. B.; Dolfsma, W., eds. The Elgar Companion to Social Economics (. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. pp. 498, 501. 
  50. ^ Lewis, P.; Stein, H. (1997). Shifting fortunes: the political economy of financial liberalization in Nigeria. 25. 5–22. 
  51. ^ Grabel, Ilene (2003), 'International private capital flows and developing countries', in Ha-Joon Chang (ed.), Rethinking Development Economics, London: Anthem Press, pp. 325–45
  52. ^ Eichengreen, B. (2001). "Capital Account Liberalization: What Do Cross-Country Studies Tell Us?". The World Bank Economic Review 15 (3): 341. doi:10.1093/wber/15.3.341. 
  53. ^ Valdez, J. G. (1995). Pinochet's Economists: The Chicago School in Chili Cambridge University Press ISBN 0-521-45146-9
  54. ^ Samuels, W., J (1977). Ideology in Economics In S. Weintraub (Ed.), Modern Economic Thought (pp. 467–484). Oxford: Blackwell.
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  56. ^ Duska 2007, pp. 51–62
  57. ^ O'Neill 1998, p. 55
  58. ^ Salinger, L. M., Ed. (2005). Encyclopedia of White Collar Corporate Crime. California, Sage Reference ISBN 0-7619-3004-3.
  59. ^ Dembinski, P. H., Lager, C., Cornford, A., & Bonvin, J.-M. (Eds.). (2006). Enron and World Finance: A Case Study in Ethics. New York: Palgrave.
  60. ^ Markham, J. W. (2006). A financial history of Modern US Corporate Scandals. New York: M.E. Sharpe ISBN 0-7656-1583-5
  61. ^ Escobar, A. (1995). Encountering Development: The Making and Unmaking of the Third World. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press ISBN 0-691-00102-2.
  62. ^ Ferguson, J. (1997). Anthropology and its Evil Twin: Development in the Constitution of a Discipline. In F. Cooper & R. Packard (Eds.), International Development and the Social Sciences: Essays on the History and Politics of Knowledge (pp. 150–175). Berkeley: University of California Press ISBN 0-520-20957-5.
  63. ^ Frank, A. G. (1991). The Underdevelopment of Development. Scandinavian Journal of Development Alternatives(10), 5–72.
  64. ^ Graeber, David (2002). "The Anthropology of Globalization (with Notes on Neomedievalism, and the End of the Chinese Model of the Nation-State): Millennial Capitalism and the Culture of Neoliberalism. Consumers and Citizens: Globalization and Multicultural Conflicts. The Anthropology of Globalization: A Reader". American Anthropologist 104 (4): 1222. doi:10.1525/aa.2002.104.4.1222. 
  65. ^ Smith, D. A., Solinger, D. J., & Topik, S. C. (Eds.). (1999). States and Sovereignty in the Global Economy. London: Routledge ISBN 0-415-20119-5.
  66. ^ Bribery committed by large companies and multinational corporations—social problems and systematic, pervasive government corruption—Peter Eigen—government, corruption, bribery, social, problems, large, companies—sciencestage.com Political science. Sciencestage.com. Retrieved on 2010-09-02.
  67. ^ Fisman, R., & Miguel, E. (2008). Economic Gangsters: Corruption, Violence and the Poverty of Nations. Princeton: Princeton University Press ISBN 0-691-13454-5.
  68. ^ Global Corruption Report 2009: Corruption and Private Sector. (A Report by Transparency International) (2009). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press ISBN 0-521-13240-1.
  69. ^ Dobson 1997, p. ix "Experts of finance tend to view business firm as, 'an abstract engine that uses money today to make money tomorrow'
  70. ^ Miller, M. H. (1986). "Behavioral Rationality in Finance: The Case of Dividends" (p. 452). Journal of Business 59: 451–468. doi:10.1086/296380. 
  71. ^ Dobson 1997, p. xvi In this regard Dobson points out, "An apologist for the finance paradigm might defend its conceptual rigidity as follows. Although there are undoubtedly motivations other than wealth maximization that influence, and should influence, behaviour, the assumptions of the finance paradigm provide a reasonable approximation of agents' behaviour over a broad spectrum of business environments. The firm is an economic mechanism and agents act within the firm for fundamentally economic reasons. In addition, the construction of mathematically robust models requires simplifying assumptions. Like perfect-and-frictionless capital markets, wealth maximization is one such simplifying assumption. All disciplines have their conceptual boundaries, and any value-based normative consideration of human behaviour simply lies beyond finance's conceptual boundary. Indeed, if finance were to stretch this boundary in an attempt to encompass such questions, mathematical rigor would be lost. Finance would be set adrift in the scientifically unnavigable sea of moral philosophy. Wealth maximization provides a secure anchorage from which a rigorous theory of financial-market behaviour can be built. Says Norman Bowie, "Like perfect information and zero transaction costs, psychological egoism [i.e., wealth maximization] is one of the simplifying assumptions needed for the mathematics of equilibrium analysis"
  72. ^ Dobson 1997, pp. xvi, 142
  73. ^ Armstrong, M. B. (2002). Ethical Issues in Accounting. In N. E. Bowie (Ed.), The Blackwell guide to business ethics (pp. 145–157). Oxford: Blackwell ISBN 0-631-22123-9
  74. ^ Walsh, A. J. HRM and the ethics of commodified work in a market economy. Pinnington, Macklin & Campbell 2007, pp. 102–118
  75. ^ Kuchinke, K. P. (2005). The self at work: theories of persons, meaning of work and their implications for HRD Elliott & Turnbull 2005, pp. 141–154
  76. ^ Dirkx, J. M. (2005). To develop a firm persuasion: Workplace learning and the problem of meaning.Elliott & Turnbull 2005, pp. 155–174
  77. ^ Terkel, S. (1974) Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do, New York: Ballantine. Terkel introduces the work conditions in the following words: "This book, being about work, is, by its very nature, about violence—to the spirit as well as to the body. It is about ulcers as well as accidents, about shouting matches as well as fistfights, about nervous breakdowns as well as kicking the dog around. To survive the day is triumph enough for the walking wounded among the great many of us", p. xii.
  78. ^ a b Introduction: ethical human resource management Pinnington, Macklin & Campbell 2007, pp. 1–22
  79. ^ Duska, R. Employee Rights.Frederic 2002, pp. 257–268
  80. ^ Koehn, D. (2002). Ethical Issues in Human Resources. In N. E. Bowie (Ed.), The Blackwell guide to business ethics (pp. 225–243). Oxford: Blackwell ISBN 0-631-22123-9.
  81. ^ Watson, I., Buchanan, J., Campbell, I., and Briggs, C. (2003). Fragmented Futures: New Challenges in Working Life. ACIRRT, University of Sydney, NSW: The Federation Press.
  82. ^ Smith, N. H. (1997). Strong Hermeneutics: Contingency and Moral Identity. London: Routledge.
  83. ^ Machan 2007, p. 68 Machan observes, "It is futile to deny that owners have and exercise considerable economic power. Such power is the ability to make what one wants actually happen. When a worker wants to keep a job but the owner does not want to employ him or her, the worker loses out, usually, although on a larger scale this doesn't hold true. Of course, if the worker wants to quit, he or she will win, but that is often the less visible situation. Just consider the worry about downsizing. It is also often true that employers are able to find replacements for workers more readily than workers can find new jobs on their own terms. Even when this is not the case, the worker's situation is deemed to be more dire because of the often greater wealth of the employer. Whether this imbalance of bargaining power is justified or not is what ultimately must be addressed by those who believe that there is greater merit in a free market system than in one that is regimented by government—say, via a workers' democracy.
  84. ^ Machan 2007, p. 67
  85. ^ Legge, K. The ethics of HRM in dealing with individual employees without collective representation]. Pinnington, Macklin & Campbell 2007, pp. 35 ff
  86. ^ Morehead, A., Steele, M., Stephen, K., and Duffin, L. (1997). Changes at Work: The 1995 Australian Workplace Industrial Relations Survey. Melbourne: Longman
  87. ^ Reinhold, R. (2000). 'Union Membership in 2000: Numbers Decline During Record Economic Expansion', Illinois Labor Market Review, 6.
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  92. ^ Guest, David E (1999). "Human resource management—the workers' verdict". Human Resource Management Journal 9 (3): 5. doi:10.1111/j.1748-8583.1999.tb00200.x. 
  93. ^ However, weakening of labour unions, what they call 'notorious,' is celebrated as a victory of 'free market' by moralists bent towards neoliberal ideologyMachan 2007, p. 29
  94. ^ Machan justifies his displeasure with unions, "So, unions are notorious for promoting featherbedding, making jobs that have no real function any longer. A most recent case reported involved a new urinal that doesn't require flushing. Don't ask me for the details—it's a baffling idea. But, the story goes, when in Philadelphia it was recently introduced, the plumber's union negotiated a deal whereby despite the fact that it wasn't needed, plumbing was supplied so that plumbers wouldn't have to find new employment. This kind of thing used to be routine with the railroads, when locomotives were upgraded and unions secured deals whereby the same number of people would continue to man the engines.Machan 2007, p. 29
  95. ^ Desai, M. (1991). Issues concerning setting up of social work specializations in India. International Social Work, 34, 83–95
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  97. ^ Storey, D.J. (1985). "THE PROBLEMS FACING NEW FIRMS [1]". Journal of Management Studies 22 (3): 327. doi:10.1111/j.1467-6486.1985.tb00079.x. 
  98. ^ Ouchi, William G. (1981). Theory Z. New York: Avon Books. ISBN 978-0380594511. 
  99. ^ Pinnington, Macklin & Campbell 2007, p. 3 Introduction: ethical human resource management
  100. ^ Schneider, B., Hanges, P., Smith, D., and Salvaggio, A. (2003). 'Which Comes First: Employee Attitudes or Organizational Financial and Market Performance?', Journal of Applied Psychology, 88: 836–51.
  101. ^ Guest, D. E., Michie, J., Conway, N., and Sheehan, M. (2003). 'Human Resource Management and Corporate Performance in the UK', British Journal of Industrial Relations, 41(2): 291–314.
  102. ^ Boxall, P., & Purcell, J. Strategic management and human resources: the pursuit of productivity, flexibility, and legitimacy Pinnington, Macklin & Campbell 2007, pp. 66–80
  103. ^ Murphy 2002, pp. 165–185
  104. ^ Jones, Parker & et al. 2005, p. 3
  105. ^ Murphy 2002, pp. 168–169
  106. ^ Brenkert, G. K. Marketing ethics.Frederic 2002, pp. 179
  107. ^ Marcoux, A. (2009). Business-Focused Business Ethics. in Normative Theory and Business Ethics. J. Smith. Plymouth Rowman & Littlefield: pp. 17–34 ISBN 0-7425-4841-4
  108. ^ Fisher, B., 2003-05-27 "Ethics of Target Marketing: Process, Product or Target?" Paper presented at the annual meeting of the International Communication Association, Marriott Hotel, San Diego, CA
  109. ^ Groucutt, J., P. Leadley, et al. (2004). Marketing: essential principles, new realities. London, Kogan p. 75 ISBN 0-7494-4114-3
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  111. ^ Free as in Freedom: Table of Contents. Oreilly.com. Retrieved on 2010-09-02.
  112. ^ Labelling of GMO Products: Freedom of Choice for Consumers. Gmo-compass.org. Retrieved on 2010-09-02.
  113. ^ EUROPA—Food Safety—Biotechnology—GM Food & Feed—Labelling. Ec.europa.eu (2003-09-22). Retrieved on 2010-09-02.
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  115. ^ Brenkert, G. K. Marketing ethics Frederic 2002, pp. 178–193
  116. ^ Murphy 2002, p. 165
  117. ^ Borgerson, J. L. and J. E. Schroeder (2008). Building an Ethics of Visual Representation: Contesting Epistemic Closure in Marketing Communication. in Cutting Edge Issues in Business Ethics. M. P. Morland and P. Werhane. Boston, Springer pp. 87–108 ISBN 1-4020-8400-5
  118. ^ Online Etymology Dictionary. Etymonline.com. Retrieved on 2010-09-02.
  119. ^ Davies 2007, p. 25
  120. ^ Locke, John (1690),Sec. 25 Of Property (chapter 5), in Second Treatise on Government: "God, who hath given the world to men in common, hath also given them reason to make use of it to the best advantage of life, and convenience. The earth, and all that is therein, is given to men for the support and comfort of their being. And tho' all the fruits it naturally produces, and beasts it feeds, belong to mankind in common, as they are produced by the spontaneous hand of nature; and no body has originally a private dominion, exclusive of the rest of mankind, in any of them, as they are thus in their natural state: yet being given for the use of men, there must of necessity be a means to appropriate them some way or other, before they can be of any use, or at all beneficial to any particular man. The fruit, or venison, which nourishes the wild Indian, who knows no enclosure, and is still a tenant in common, must be his, and so his, i.e. a part of him, that another can no longer have any right to it, before it can do him any good for the support of his life." He continues in sec.27, "Though the earth, and all inferior creatures, be common to all men, yet every man has a property in his own person: this nobody has any right to but himself. The labour of his body, and the work of his hands, we may say, are properly his. Whatsoever then he removes out of the state that nature hath provided, and left it in, he hath mixed his labour with, and joined to it something that is his own, and thereby makes it his property. It being by him removed from the common state nature hath placed it in, it hath by this labour something annexed to it, that excludes the common right of other men: for this labour being the unquestionable property of the labourer, no man but he can have a right to what that is once joined to, at least where there is enough, and as good, left in common for others.
  121. ^ Harris, J.W. (1996), "Who owns My Body", Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, 16: 55–84. Harris finds this argument a 'spectacular non sequitur,' '[f]rom the fact that nobody owns me if I am not a slave, it simply does not follow that I must own myself'(p. 71)
  122. ^ Day Patrick, (2002) The Self-Ownership Thesis: A Critique. Locke founded his notion of property rights on the premise of 'self-ownership' of course excluding the slaves from such ownership. Day critiques Locke's ontology saying, "The answer to the question is to be found in Locke's ontology. There exist God, Divine Artifacts and Human Artifacts. God owns Himself. All makers own what they have made, so that God also owns Divine Artifacts. There are Direct Divine Artifacts and Indirect Divine Artifacts. The unique Direct Divine Artifact is Land, which God made out of nothing. He made Indirect Divine Artifacts by mingling His Labour with Land. Among these are wild plants, wild animals and Man (Adam and his descendants). God gave Land 'and all inferior creatures' 'to men in common'" (Day, 2002:)
  123. ^ Day, P. J. (1966). "Locke on Property". The Philosophical Quarterly 16 (64): 207–220. doi:10.2307/2218464. JSTOR 2218464. 
  124. ^ Bentham, J. (1931), Theory of Legislation, London: Kegan Paul, p. 113 ISBN 978-1-103-20150-1
  125. ^ Proudhon in his essay on property asked, "If property is a natural, absolute, imprescriptible, and inalienable right, why, in all ages, has there been so much preoccupation with its origin? For this is one of its distinguishing characteristics. The origin of a natural right: Good God, whoever inquired into the origin of the rights of liberty, security, or equality?" Proudhon, P.-J. ([1840] 1969). What is property, p. 69 ISBN 1-60680-212-7
  126. ^ Davies 2007, p. 27
  127. ^ Blackstone, W. (1766), Commentaries on the Laws of England, Volume II, Of the Rights of Things, Oxford: Clarendon Press.
  128. ^ Ely, J. W. (2008). The Guardian of Every Other Right. Oxford: Oxford University Press ISBN 0-19-532332-7. Ely notes, 'In 1740 South Carolina declared slaves "to be chattels personal, in the hands of their owners and possessors ' Because slaves were property, they could be purchased, sold, inherited, taxed, or seized to pay the master's debts… The slave codes also minutely governed the slaves' activities, prohibiting them from assembling, running away, owning goods or livestock, or using fi rearms. Moreover, it was unlawful to sell liquor to slaves or to teach them to read and write. Finally, crimes committed by slaves received harsher punishment than did equivalent offenses by free persons (p. 15).
  129. ^ Wishart, D. J. (1994). An Unspeakable Sadness The Dispossession of the Nebraska Indians. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press ISBN 0-8032-9795-5
  130. ^ "Jefferson's Instructions to Lewis, June 20, 1803" Letters of the Lewis and Clark Expedition with Related Documents, 17831854, ed. Donald Jackson (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1978) 1: 6166.
  131. ^ Robertson 2005
  132. ^ Michael, J. (2008). Identity and the Failure of America. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Michael observes that Thomas Jefferson, in spite of all his freedom speeches, was himself a slave owner, owning slaves as his property, p.45
  133. ^ In this regards Ross (1994:14) notes, "within the liberal context the private nature of property is naturalized and universalized, as though other forms are somehow less ethically defensible"
  134. ^ Rose 1994, p. 58 Rose observes, "What is the purpose of property under this . . . understanding? The purpose is to accord to each person or entity what is 'proper' or 'appropriate' to him or her. Indeed, this understanding of property historically made no strong distinction between 'property' and 'propriety', and one finds the terminology mixed up to a very considerable degree in historical texts. And what is 'proper' or appropriate, on this vision of property, is that which is needed to keep good order in the commonwealth or body politic"
  135. ^ Jefferson wrote, "[W]hile it is a moot question whether the origin of any kind of property is derived from nature at all, it would be singular to admit a natural and even an hereditary right to inventors. It is agreed by those who have seriously considered the subject, that no individual has, of natural right, a separate property in an acre of land, for instance. By an universal law, indeed, whatever, whether fixed or movable, belongs to all men equally and in common, is the property for the moment of him who occupies it, but when he relinquishes the occupation, the property goes with it. Stable ownership is the gift of social law, and is given late in the progress of society. It would be curious then, if an idea, the fugitive fermentation of an individual brain, could, of natural right, be claimed in exclusive and stable property." Jeferrson's Letter to McPherson in, Boyle, J. (2008). The Public Domain: Enclosing the Commons of the Mind. New Haven: Yale University Press ISBN 0-300-13740-0.
  136. ^ Daykin, Jeffer B. (2006). ""They Themselves Contribute to Their Misery by Their Sloth": The Justification of Slavery in Eighteenth-Century French Travel Narratives". The European Legacy 11 (6): 623. doi:10.1080/10848770600918117. 
  137. ^ Gordon, D. (2009). Gender, Race and Limiting the Constitutional Privilege of Religion as a Haven for Bias: The Bridge Back to the Twentieth Century. Women's Rights Law Reporter, p. 30.
  138. ^ Sandoval, Alonso De. (2008). Treatise on Slavery: Selections from De instauranda Aethiopum salute. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc. pp. 17, 20
  139. ^ Bay, M. (2008). Polygenesis Versus Monogenesis In Black and White. In J. H. Moore (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Race and Racism (Vol. 1, pp. 90–93). Detroit: Macmillan Reference:91
  140. ^ Baum, B. (2006). The Rise and Fall of the Caucasian Race: A Political History of Racial Identity. New York: New York University Press, ISBN 0-8147-9892-6 p. 35
  141. ^ Skinner, D (2006). "Racialized Futures: Biologism and the Changing Politics of Identity". Social Studies of Science 36 (3): 459–488. doi:10.1177/0306312706054859. JSTOR 25474453. 
  142. ^ Jensen, E. M. (1991). The Good Old Cause': The Ratification of the Constitution and Bill of Rights in South Carolina. In R. J. Haws (Ed.), The South's Role in the Creation of the Bill of Rights. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi.
  143. ^ Following a bitter debate over the importation of slaves from abroad, Congress was denied the authority to prohibit the slave trade until 1808. The rendition of escaped slaves was also a priority for southerners. Accordingly, the fugitive slave clause declared that persons held to service or labor under state law "shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due." (Ely, 2008:46)
  144. ^ Wiecek, W. M. (1977). The Sources of Antislavery Constitutionalism in America, 1760–1848. New York: Cornell University Press:63
  145. ^ Tom Bethell "Private Property" Hamowy, Kuznicki & Steelman 2008, pp. 393
  146. ^ Digital History. Digitalhistory.uh.edu. Retrieved on 2010-09-02.
  147. ^ a b Davies 2007, p. 20
  148. ^ "Property is something we must collectively define and construct. It is not given to us whole; it does not emerge fully formed like Athena from Zeus's head. It is closer to a piece of music that unfolds over time. Like music, property gets its sense of stability from the ongoing creation and resolution of various forms of tension. The tensions that inform property are the tensions inherent in social relations. The solutions to the problems of property conflicts lie in understanding the connection between property and human relationships. Relationships sometimes form stable patterns, but they are also ongoing and constantly renegotiated. cultural norms. It is argued that there is no simple definition of property that can be posited without making controversial value judgments about how to choose between conflicting interests"—Singer 2000, p. 13
  149. ^ Singer 2000, p. 9
  150. ^ Cohen, M. R. (1927). Property and Sovereignty. Cornell Law Quarterly, 13, 8–30. Cohen commenting on the power dimension of property noted, "we must not overlook the actual fact that dominion over things is also imperium over our fellow human beings" p. 13
  151. ^ Rose 1994, p. 14
  152. ^ "'Property' has no essential character, but is rather a highly flexible set of rights and responsibilities which congeal in different ways in different contexts" Davies 2007, p. 20
  153. ^ Singer 2000, p. 8
  154. ^ Cooter, R. and T. Ulen (1988). Law and Economics. New York, Harper Collins.
  155. ^ Honore, A. M. (1961). Ownership. In A. G. Guest (Ed.), Oxford Essays in Jurisprudence. London: Oxford University Press.; Becker, L. (1980). The Moral Basis of Property Rights In J. Pennock & J. Chapman (Eds.), Property. New York: New York University Press..
  156. ^ However, some scholars often use the terms ownership, property and property rights interchangeably, while others define ownership (or property) as a set of specific rights each attached to the vast array of uses accessible by the owner. Ownership has thus been interpreted as a form of aggregation of such social relations—a bundle of rights over the use of scarce resources . Alchian, A. A. (1965). Some Economics of Property Rights. Il Politico, 30, 816–829
  157. ^ Epstein, R. A. (1997). "A Clear View of the Cathedral: The Dominance of Property Rules". Yale Law Journal 106 (7): 2091–2107. doi:10.2307/797162. JSTOR 797162. http://www.questia.com/googleScholar.qst;jsessionid=M1sW1nylSWKQJzZnVYGGY3ZCLG0shFGz4Bjj8YTLjNjFKRGv92Ym!-1814198305!558324302?docId=5000440763. "Bundle of rights is often interpreted as 'full control' over the property by the owner" 
  158. ^ Merrill, T. W., & Smith, H. E. (2001). "What Happened to Property in Law and Economics?". Yale Law Journal 111 (2): 357–398. doi:10.2307/797592. JSTOR 797592. http://www.yalelawjournal.org/the-yale-law-journal/content-pages/what-happened-to-property-in-law-and-economics?/. 
  159. ^ Property has been conceptualized as absolute ownership with full control over the owned property without being accountable to anyone else Singer 2000, p. 29.
  160. ^ Demsetz, H. (1988). A Framework for the Study of Ownership. In H. Demsetz (Ed.), Ownership, Control, and the Firm (Vol. I, pp. 12–27). Oxford: Blackwell. Further, it is held, the ownership goes beyond what is describable. Demsetz claims that the notion of "full private ownership" over assets is "vague", and "[i]n one sense, it must always remain so, for there is an infinity of potential rights of actions that can be owned […]. It is impossible to describe the complete set of rights that are potentially ownable.
  161. ^ Rose 1996, pp. 329–365 Property as the Keystone Right? Notre Dame Law Review 71
  162. ^ "Property itself is fragile—much more so than one would think from its sheer persistence. A central feature of this fragility is this: property entails the cooperation of others. You cannot have property all alone. Even the rule of First Possession, seemingly so quintessentially individualistic, depends on the recognition and acquiescence of others; they must know what you are claiming, and tacitly agree to let you hold it—even against their own interests.… No trust, no property" Michelman, F. I. (1982). Ethics, Economics, and the Law of Property. In J. R. Pennock & J. W. Chapman (Eds.), Nomos: Ethics, Economics, and the Law (Vol. 24, pp. 3–40). New York: New York University Press.
  163. ^ Menon observes, "Atomy, in short, is selfishness and free fulfillment of sovereign self at the cost of the other. Atomy is reified as if it were autonomy within the social construction of the mythology of individuality". p. 15 Menon, Madhu (2008). Suicide as unfreedom and vice versa. Norderstedt: GRIN Verlag ISBN 3-640-18334-7
  164. ^ Gray, Kevin (2009). "Property in Thin Air". The Cambridge Law Journal 50 (02): 252. doi:10.1017/S0008197300080508. 
  165. ^ Penner, J. E. (1997). The Idea of Property in Law. Oxford: Clarendon Press ISBN 0-19-826029-6 In explaining the identity crisis of 'property' Penner wrote, "'You see', property will say, 'now I am not even my own idea. I'm just a bundle of other concepts, a mere chimera of an entity. I'm just a quivering, wavering, normative phantasm, without any home, without anything to call my own but an album full of fading and tattered images of vitality and consequence and meaning. I'm depressed." p. 1
  166. ^ Any space may be subject to plural meanings or appropriations which do not necessarily come into conflict: pastoralists and Indigenous people may have quite different understandings of rural landscapes reflected in different types of property interests, which can—ideally—coexist legally. A nominally open public space may have 'private' or limited meanings imposed upon it—for instance religious meanings (Urban spaces such as privately owned but publicly accessible shopping malls are increasingly of a 'quasi'-public nature. At the same time, intrusions of public norms into personal proprietary spaces through, for instance, zoning, heritage, and environmental regulations, militate against seeing 'private' property as entirely private. Social transitions which transgress neat liberal distinctions put the theory under strain in key points: where the owners of a quasi-public space like a shopping mall try to enforce a dress code or standards of behaviour, private proprietorial power intrudes into the public sphere Davies 2007, p. 11
  167. ^ AJ van der Walt notes, "forced removals and the restrictions upon free movement and economic activity that accompanied state-enforced racial segregation, helped to secure white privilege while at the same time politically and economically marginalising millions of black South Africans. Walt, AJ. (2009). Property in the Margins. Oxford: Hart Publishing, ISBN 1-84113-963-7 p. 2
  168. ^ Fischbach, M. R. (2003). Records of Dispossession: Palestinian Refugee Property and the Arab-Israeli Conflict. New York: Columbia University Press ISBN 0-231-12978-5. In this book Fischbach discusses on forceful dispossession of Palestinian property by Israel
  169. ^ Robertson observes, "In this country and, to a great extent, in other former British colonies, the legal rule justifying claims to indigenous lands discovered by Europeans traces to the 1823 decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in Johnson v. M'Intosh. Johnson contained the "discovery doctrine, which answered the question: What rights did Europeans acquire, and indigenous peoples lose, upon the discovery of the New World? The answer, according to the Court, was ownership of all discovered lands. Discovery converted the indigenous owners of discovered lands into tenants on those lands. The underlying title belonged to the discovering sovereign. The indigenous occupants were free to sell their "lease," but only to the landlord, and they were subject to eviction at any time. More than 180 years later, the discovery doctrine is still the law". Robertson 2005, pp. ix–x
  170. ^ Sax, J. L. (1971). "Takings, Private Property and Public Rights" (see pp. 149, 152). Yale Law Journal 81 (2): 149–186. doi:10.2307/795134. JSTOR 795134. 
  171. ^ Singer 2000, p. 6
  172. ^ Hohfeld, W. (1913). "Some Fundamental Legal Conceptions as Applied in Judicial Reasoning I". Yale Law Journal 23 (1): 16–59. doi:10.2307/785533. JSTOR 785533. 
  173. ^ Hohfeld, W. (1917). "Some Fundamental Legal Conceptions as Applied in Judicial Reasoning II". Yale Law Journal 26 (8): 710–770. doi:10.2307/786270. JSTOR 786270. 
  174. ^ Miunzer, S. R. (1990). A theory of property. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 17
  175. ^ Bryan, B. (2000). Property as Ontology: on Aboriginal and English Understandings of Property. Canadian Journal of Law and Jurisprudence, 13, 3–31. In this article Bradley Bryan claimed that property is about much more than a set of legal relations: it is 'an expression of social relationships because it organizes people with respect to each other and their material environment' p. 4
  176. ^ Arendt, H. (1958). The Human Condition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, p. 7
  177. ^ Singer 2000, p. 16
  178. ^ "The legal realists understood property rights as relationships only in the formal sense. They acknowledged that rights impose duties on others and that liberties impose vulnerabilities on those affected by the exercise of those liberties. In deciding whether those duties and those vulnerabilities were fair, they suggested that lawmakers balance the interests of those harmed by entitlements against those who benefit from them. This balancing solution did not take seriously the idea that legal rules both respond to and shape the contours of social relations. They did not, in other words, take the character and structure of social relations as an important independent factor in choosing the rules that govern market life. Economists may similarly fail to give sufficient attention to the moral and customary underpinnings of market societies. The idea of balancing interests is a useful one, but it does not quite get at what is at stake in constructing property law. What is at stake is a vision of social life" Singer 2000, p. 11 Singer further states, "Problems emerge when abstract property concepts meet the disputes over property that arise between people in the real world. The ownership model fails to acknowledge the substantial limitations on property rights that are necessary to protect the interests of both owners and nonowners harmed by the exercise of those rights. Conflicts among owners are quite prevalent. In some cases one owner's exercise of her lawful property rights interferes with other owners' rights in their own property. We also need to restrict property rights in situations where they impinge on nonproperty rights we hold as dearly". (p. 31)
  179. ^ Boldrin & Levine 2008, p. 10
  180. ^ Drahos and Braithwaite write, "When in 1994 we interviewed a former US trade negotiator, he remarked that 'less than 50 individuals' were responsible for TRIPS. Less than 50 individuals had managed to globalize a set of regulatory norms for the conduct of all those doing business or aspiring to do business in the information age" Drahos & Braithwaite 2002, p. 73
  181. ^ a b Steelman, A. Intellectual Property.Hamowy, Kuznicki & Steelman 2008, pp. 249–250
  182. ^ We shall see that when monopoly over ideas is absent, competition is fierce—and that, as a result, innovation and creativity thrive. Whatever a world without patents and copyrights would be like, it would not be a world devoid of great new music and beneficial new drugs." They substantiate their argument by showing instances of key innovation in software industry prior to 1981, before the advent of patent protection … The best evidence that copyright and patents are not needed and that competition leads to thriving innovation in the software industry is the fact that there is a thriving and innovative portion of the industry that has voluntarily relinquished its intellectual monopoly—both copyright and patent. Boldrin & Levine 2008, pp. 10, 16–17
  183. ^ Välimäki, M. (2005). The Rise of Open Source Licensing: A Challenge to the Use of Intellectual Property in the Software Industry. Helsinki: Turre Publishing ISBN 952-91-8769-6.
  184. ^ Hamowy, Kuznicki & Steelman 2008, p. 249
  185. ^ The South African Medicines and Related Substances Control Amendment Bill and TRIPS. Academic.udayton.edu. Retrieved on 2010-09-02.
  186. ^ Orsi, F., Camara, M., & Coriat, B. (2006). AIDS, TRIPS and 'TRIPS plus': the case for developing and less developed countries. Andersen 2006, pp. 70–108
  187. ^ The authors of the book "Information Feudalism" state: Generally speaking, when a large pharmaceutical company develops a therapeutic compound, it surrounds that compound with a wall of intellectual property protection. Patents are taken out on all aspects of the compound, including the compound itself, dosage methods and processes of making it. Some knowledge is held back and protected under trade-secret law, brand name identity is protected through trade mark law and a lot of written information is protected by copyright. The whole point of building this wall is to ensure that protection lasts well beyond the term of any single patent and keeps cheaper generic manufacturers out of the market for as long as possible. For people in developing countries living on one or two dollars a day, the price of anti-retroviral therapies represented a king's ransom. In some countries such as South Africa, some treatments were in fact more expensive. As an aside we might note that the phenomenon of patented medicines being more expensive in developing countries is not unusual. The logic of patent monopoly is to have a safe and secure distribution system aimed at selling smaller numbers of expensive medicines to a wealthy class, rather than trying to distribute large numbers of cheap medicines at a few cents a day to the many poor. When large pharmaceutical companies speak about 'growing the market' in developing countries, it is the wealthy segment of the market they have in mind" Drahos & Braithwaite 2002, p. 6
  188. ^ Andersen & 2006 pp109–147
  189. ^ Roderick Long in Hamowy, Kuznicki & Steelman 2008, pp. 249–250
  190. ^ Machlup, F. (1958). An Economic Review of the Patent System. Washington D.C.: US Government Printing Office, p. 80. Expressing similar concern Fritz Machlup wrote, "It would be irresponsible, on the basis of our present knowledge of its economic consequences, to recommend instituting [a patent system]."
  191. ^ Proudhon (1847), Chapter VI in The Philosophy of Poverty.
  192. ^ The Sherman Act of 1890, was passed in America to stop rampant cartelization and monopolization in the American economy, followed by the Clayton Act of 1914, Federal Trade Commission Act of 1914,[1] and the Anti-Price Discrimination Act of 1936. In recent years, "antitrust]" enforcement is alleged to have reduced competition. E.g., "antitrust is anticompetitive" writes Boudreaux Antitrust.Hamowy, Kuznicki & Steelman 2008, pp. 16
  193. ^ Mindeli, L. E.; Pipiya, L. K. (2007). "Conceptual aspects of formation of a knowledge-based economy". Studies on Russian Economic Development 18 (3): 314. doi:10.1134/S1075700707030100. 
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  195. ^ Kinsella, S. (2008). Against Intellectual Property. Alabama: Ludwig von Mises Institute. Kinsella writes, "Ideas are not naturally scarce. However, by recognizing a right in an ideal object, one creates scarcity where none existed before" p. 33
  196. ^ Andersen 2006, p. 125
  197. ^ David, P. (2001, 22–23 January). Will Building 'Good Fences' Really Make 'Good Neighbours'. Paper presented at the Science, report to European Commission (DG-Research) STRATA-ETAN workshop on IPR aspects of internal collaborations, Brussels.
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  199. ^ Andersen 2006, p. 109 "Capturing value from intellectual capital and knowledge-based assets has become the new mantra. The battles are not for control of raw materials, but for the control of the most dynamic strategic asset, namely 'productive knowledge'"
  200. ^ Macmillan, F. (2006). Public interest and the public domain in an era of corporate dominance. Andersen 2006, pp. 46–69
  201. ^ The spatial-distantiation is globalization and the temporal distantiation is futurization. Futurization futurizes the present and globalization globalizes the local. Combined, they drive away politics out of place and time, reducing life into bare life. Moreover, the stretching of time and space as it has brought global to the local it has also brought the future to the present. In the earlier times it was the past that directed the present in the form of tradition and culture. With the shift in spatio-temporality, it is no longer the past, but the future that pulls human destiny, of course in increasing degrees. The social-time, if left in its present course of direction and acceleration it would incessantly outdate not only the people living in the present but also destine those yet to be born. The velocity of movement towards the future through speculative investment by the power elite, if unconstrained, indeed would invert the social time and space into irredeemable black hole and refuse politics for everyone not yet born. Menon 2008 Suicide as unfreedom and vice versa
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  • business ethics — standards governing commercial relationships …   English contemporary dictionary

  • Religious views on business ethics — Many faiths have extensive literature and legal code on the accumulation and use of wealth; and many businesses rely on these ethical guidelines, both as a result of the religious beliefs of owners and managers, and as a way of ensuring that… …   Wikipedia

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