A story was related to me when I was a student at Calvin College about an Arab Christian student who was taking business classes.[1] During a business ethics class, he questioned why anyone would debate the ethics of making money or how much you make; motives were agnostic and profits axiomatic.
He was wrong, of course. When you consider the impact a product has on jobs, health, or the environment, the picture gets rather muddy.
Consider MAP pricing.
MAP pricing is the lowest price a product may be advertised at; this price is mandated by the manufacturer as a qualification for selling the product. If you advertise below MAP pricing, you'll likely lose the privilege of selling the product. This often affects personal electronics, but may also affect consumables, like electric shaver blades and replacement brushes for electric toothbrushes.
In fact, it's often cheaper to buy an electric razor than new blades.
Now, look at the position I'm in as a consumer:
Buy a new razor?
Then I am contributing to landfills, larger carbon footprints, etc, but maybe also creating a job, since a razor has many parts that probably are acquired and assembled by many people.
Buy the blades?
I can't afford it. That's $30-$40, and that will buy a lot of bread and milk and eggs and fruit and vegetables.
Because I can't know the impact of my purchase, I can't be responsible for the effects.
But there are those who do know and are responsible, and that is a business ethics decision.
c0
[1]
His being Arab has nothing to do with ethics, it just happens to be an interesting detail. He was also very wealthy. When he needed a car to get around Grand Rapids, his father didn't send him the money, he shipped him a new pickup truck.
[2014-07-23]
c0
No comments:
Post a Comment