Comments on: Personal Morality vs Business Morality http://www.kpkaiser.com/entrepreneurship/personal-morality-vs-business-morality/ Agile Development, Entrepreneurship, Mindhacks Wed, 07 Dec 2011 10:22:51 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: K.P. Kaiser http://www.kpkaiser.com/entrepreneurship/personal-morality-vs-business-morality/#comment-5 K.P. Kaiser Mon, 28 Jun 2010 17:51:26 +0000 http://www.kpkaiser.com/?p=10#comment-5 James, <br /> First of all, thanks for your response. <br /> Second of all, I agree, we do not have any direct democracies in current working governments. Our governments are something much different, and yes, very much broken. That being said, I'm not saying markets know best when it comes to moral situations. Instead, I'm saying markets could care less about morals, except to the extent with which prices can be raised based upon a "good" image. <br /> As business owners, we <i>cannot</i> impose our own morality on what the markets decide is worth money. Our business dies, and we don't get anywhere. Governments must create the atmosphere that defines what context within which business must be run.<br /> <b>Like it or not, trade on the open market is how society has decided to distribute power. </b>This can be a beautiful thing. <br /> I'd much rather have more small business owners aware of how the world really works, and create a distributed model of influence and power, than one in which people from above dictate where power and influence end up. This is what the market (potentially) gives us. James,

First of all, thanks for your response.

Second of all, I agree, we do not have any direct democracies in current working governments. Our governments are something much different, and yes, very much broken. That being said, I’m not saying markets know best when it comes to moral situations. Instead, I’m saying markets could care less about morals, except to the extent with which prices can be raised based upon a “good” image.

As business owners, we cannot impose our own morality on what the markets decide is worth money. Our business dies, and we don’t get anywhere. Governments must create the atmosphere that defines what context within which business must be run.
Like it or not, trade on the open market is how society has decided to distribute power. This can be a beautiful thing.

I’d much rather have more small business owners aware of how the world really works, and create a distributed model of influence and power, than one in which people from above dictate where power and influence end up. This is what the market (potentially) gives us.

]]> By: James Sanders http://www.kpkaiser.com/entrepreneurship/personal-morality-vs-business-morality/#comment-4 James Sanders Mon, 28 Jun 2010 14:43:59 +0000 http://www.kpkaiser.com/?p=10#comment-4 To my knowledge, there are no direct democracies in current working governments. We use representative or republican systems instead, with those we represent being empowered to make better (or at the very least, different) decisions than the masses. In your analogy, the heads of companies are the representatives and the public votes through their decision to spend money on your company or another. Your beautiful-market, profit-knows-best argument is equivalent to representatives acting upon the word of the majority of their voters verbatim at all times, at which point it has become a direct, rather than representative, democracy, and there are reasons we don't do that. Why do companies have a moral imperative to act otherwise? This is a typical, and typically thoughtless, moral rationalization for just wanting to make money and not have to think about all that troublesome stuff. To my knowledge, there are no direct democracies in current working governments. We use representative or republican systems instead, with those we represent being empowered to make better (or at the very least, different) decisions than the masses. In your analogy, the heads of companies are the representatives and the public votes through their decision to spend money on your company or another. Your beautiful-market, profit-knows-best argument is equivalent to representatives acting upon the word of the majority of their voters verbatim at all times, at which point it has become a direct, rather than representative, democracy, and there are reasons we don’t do that. Why do companies have a moral imperative to act otherwise? This is a typical, and typically thoughtless, moral rationalization for just wanting to make money and not have to think about all that troublesome stuff.

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