If ethical obligations exist for individuals, I don't see how they wouldn't also exist for collections of individuals.
I've never gotten how people can say that businesses are amoral and such.
Unless your corporation is run by unfeeling robots, you're still a group of people. And human beings have moral responsibilities.
The abstraction here is that corporations are run by one set of people, but owned by another. To complicate matters, the people occupying each group tend to change over time, while the corporation as an institution remains. The institution is more than the group of specific individuals, so to speak.
One is quite free to create a corporation for non-profit causes, in which case the managers of said corporation are obliged not to seek profit. But to work for a for-profit corporation obliges you toward the cause for which the shareholders have contributed money.
It is still, of course, the case that managers are human beings, and shareholders can only demand so much of them. If the board of directors says "you should invest in $TINPOT_DICTATORSHIP" and the managers go "no, if you demand that, we quit", and the board of directors backs down, then all the free-market ethical obligations have been fulfilled. Likewise if the consumers go "no, if you do that, we'll boycott".
The idea is that there is an ethical obligation not to appropriate something which does not belong to you for your own purposes, in what is distinctly a non-emergency, however ethical the purpose. Of course, if you can maneuver the owner into agreeing, then why not?
If ethical obligations exist for individuals, I don't see how they wouldn't also exist for collections of individuals.
I've never gotten how people can say that businesses are amoral and such.
Unless your corporation is run by unfeeling robots, you're still a group of people. And human beings have moral responsibilities.
The abstraction here is that corporations are run by one set of people, but owned by another. To complicate matters, the people occupying each group tend to change over time, while the corporation as an institution remains. The institution is more than the group of specific individuals, so to speak.
One is quite free to create a corporation for non-profit causes, in which case the managers of said corporation are obliged not to seek profit. But to work for a for-profit corporation obliges you toward the cause for which the shareholders have contributed money.
It is still, of course, the case that managers are human beings, and shareholders can only demand so much of them. If the board of directors says "you should invest in $TINPOT_DICTATORSHIP" and the managers go "no, if you demand that, we quit", and the board of directors backs down, then all the free-market ethical obligations have been fulfilled. Likewise if the consumers go "no, if you do that, we'll boycott".
The idea is that there is an ethical obligation not to appropriate something which does not belong to you for your own purposes, in what is distinctly a non-emergency, however ethical the purpose. Of course, if you can maneuver the owner into agreeing, then why not?
There's a difference between "Corporations should give all their money to charity!" and "Corporations should not cover up that their product kills people to protect their profits, even if they do it legally."
HamHamJ on
While racing light mechs, your Urbanmech comes in second place, but only because it ran out of ammo.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't Friedman also advocate for tons of deregulation? So, isn't what he's saying here effectively that what he wants is a sort of market-ruled society?
Deregulation relative to the 1970s? Well, why not?
From Friedman's last interview, in 2006:
NPQ In the end, your ideas have triumphed over Marx and Keynes. Is this, then, the end of the road for economic thought? Is there anything more to say than free markets are the most efficient way to organize a society? Is it the "end of history," as Francis Fukuyama put it?
Friedman Oh no. "Free markets" is a very general term. There are all sorts of problems that will emerge. Free markets work best when the transaction between two individuals affects only those individuals. But that isn't the fact. The fact is that, most often, a transaction between you and me affects a third party. That is the source of all problems for government. That is the source of all pollution problems, of the inequality problem. There are some good economists like Gary Becker and Bob Lucas who are working on these issues. This reality ensures that the end of history will never come.
Regulation involves making certain things and actions illegal, too, so I'm afraid that you're going to have to contend with that problem in either case.
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The abstraction here is that corporations are run by one set of people, but owned by another. To complicate matters, the people occupying each group tend to change over time, while the corporation as an institution remains. The institution is more than the group of specific individuals, so to speak.
One is quite free to create a corporation for non-profit causes, in which case the managers of said corporation are obliged not to seek profit. But to work for a for-profit corporation obliges you toward the cause for which the shareholders have contributed money.
It is still, of course, the case that managers are human beings, and shareholders can only demand so much of them. If the board of directors says "you should invest in $TINPOT_DICTATORSHIP" and the managers go "no, if you demand that, we quit", and the board of directors backs down, then all the free-market ethical obligations have been fulfilled. Likewise if the consumers go "no, if you do that, we'll boycott".
The idea is that there is an ethical obligation not to appropriate something which does not belong to you for your own purposes, in what is distinctly a non-emergency, however ethical the purpose. Of course, if you can maneuver the owner into agreeing, then why not?
There's a difference between "Corporations should give all their money to charity!" and "Corporations should not cover up that their product kills people to protect their profits, even if they do it legally."
(in fact, isn't it already illegal? Negligence?)
From Friedman's last interview, in 2006:
The problem is that making things illegal is basically closing the barn door after the horses are out.