# Capitalist ethics? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 25, 2015, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/capitalist-ethics/715922 "2015-03-25T03:45:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![LinusK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/258eb7/32.png) [@LinusK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LinusK)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2015, 7:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/capitalist-ethics/715922/81 "2015-03-28T07:39:09Z")
> [@Robert163](#): > > Actually a very good explanation. The flip side of the coin is capitalism turns people into commodities and that a lot of hard working people are just one or two or three steps away from homelessness. A couple weeks laid off from work and they are finished. If the don’t have family to help or money saved or a friends couch to sleep on they are homeless. Capitalism is hardly fair to the children of poor people. I’m not sure you can blame it on capitalism directly but it is largely our disregard that allows us leave old people to waste away in the nursing home. People are simply too busy to visit or moved halfway across the country for work. I think racism and sexism are aggravated by sexism since it is a competition and those with power are by definition going to seek to consolidate their power. I think capitalism puts us into a frenzy of consumerism and teaches us to value the wrong things. Life is superficial. We live too fast. We consume too much. Capitalism has polluted the planet to the extent that it will have effects for thousands of years and has given far far too many people diseases like leukemia and cancer. If I tired hard I could probably think of other complaints but that is enough to get us started. > > No one can say your post is false. Only that it is not the whole story. Someone once said you should love people and use things. It seems like we’re moving more in the direction of using people and loving things. “Linked In”, “networking”, “social networking.” Somehow, to me, it seems related to the success of certain people at conflating success, itself with being rich. ---
**Author:** ![LinusK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/258eb7/32.png) [@LinusK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LinusK)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2015, 7:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/capitalist-ethics/715922/82 "2015-03-28T07:48:37Z")
> [@TommyzNR](#): > > [Yes](http://ethisphere.com/worlds-most-ethical/wme-honorees/) I didn’t really spend a lot of time on it, but I noticed a couple of things about that website. One is that their motto is “Good. Smart. Business. Profit.” The other was that the cost of joining was $10,995. Sounds profitable. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2015, 7:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/capitalist-ethics/715922/83 "2015-03-28T07:59:04Z")
> [@LinusK](#): > > Capitalists, on the other hand, make most or all their money by owning. > > [Here’s](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=unZmiEsgzno) a documentary helps make the distinction. It’s free. Ohhhhhhh, I didn’t realize you were talking about _Scottish_ Capitalists. I fear that I am not a True Scottish Capitalist, so I cannot really comment on the subject. ---
**Author:** ![LinusK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/258eb7/32.png) [@LinusK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LinusK)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2015, 8:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/capitalist-ethics/715922/84 "2015-03-28T08:30:43Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > The Capitalist and the worker in the OP could arguably be said to be doing the same thing: maximizing productivity. Which will tend to be a good thing for society. > > It would be detrimental (if it would make any sense at all) to define moral behaviour as taking the biggest risk with the biggest investment for the smallest possible gain. Improving productivity is how you create wealth. But though productivity has gone up, more and more of the resulting wealth goes to the very rich, while wages and salaries stagnate. ---
**Author:** ![LinusK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/258eb7/32.png) [@LinusK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LinusK)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2015, 8:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/capitalist-ethics/715922/85 "2015-03-28T08:56:31Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > A work ethic is just another way of being honest. Say I have a construction business and hire a worker to build a deck for a customer. A worker with a bad work ethic will do nothing and not build the deck. From a societal standpoint that is a bad thing because there is an unfilled need (the deck) and wasted resources (the raw materials and the worker’s salary). If a worker with a good work ethic had taken the job and built the deck society would have been better off since the value of a deck is much greater than the value of the raw materials. > Likewise a capitalist can be dishonest as well. I can hire the worker but then fail to provide the raw materials needed to build the deck. From a societal standpoint this is bad because there is an unfilled need and wasted resources (the worker). > In order to produce wealth both the worker and the capitalist need an ethic to produce what society wants. What you’re talking about sounds like a contractor who hires a carpenter. The carpenter builds the deck. The contractor (as I understand it, I’m not a contractor) makes sure the job gets done properly, according to the customer’s specs. They’re both making money by doing work, not by owning things. A manager may be the boss, but he’s still getting a paycheck for doing a job. To use a different example, if you go to the bank for a loan, a loan officer might be the one who decides whether to lend (provide) the money. But he’s still just a guy doing a job for a paycheck. The people who own the bank, on the other hand, make way more money than the loan officer. And maybe more than all the people who work at the bank, put together. ---
**Author:** ![LinusK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/258eb7/32.png) [@LinusK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LinusK)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2015, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/capitalist-ethics/715922/86 "2015-03-28T14:18:49Z")
> [@XT](#): > > … > > Yet it’s Capitalism that gives government the funds TO fix problems and deal with issues, give the highly elevated life style we in the western world have and those in developing countries increasingly better lives and access to better goods and services. > > … Sorta depends on what you mean by “funds”. If by by funds you mean wealth, it’s humans doing work that is source of all wealth, however they’re organized. If you’re talking about money, it’s the government that’s the source of money, not corporations. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2015, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/capitalist-ethics/715922/87 "2015-03-28T16:02:21Z")
> [@LinusK](#): > > Sorta depends on what you mean by “funds”. > > If by by funds you mean wealth, it’s humans doing work that is source of all wealth, however they’re organized. > > If you’re talking about money, it’s the government that’s the source of money, not corporations. And yet we had both human work AND governments before Capitalism (and after as well), yet no other system has been able to generate the vast amounts of wealth and standards of living so high for so many across the globe. > [@](#): > > Improving productivity is how you create wealth. But though productivity has gone up, more and more of the resulting wealth goes to the very rich, while wages and salaries stagnate. Well, you would need to look at WHY productivity has gone up. Is it due to the innate abilities of labor, or due to the tools labor has been given to use? Is it because labor is better and more efficient at doing their jobs, or because things like robots and automated and expert systems have been introduced? If labor has indeed been instrumental in the rise of productivity they certainly should enjoy the fruits of that greater productivity…and they would, because if the increase was due to them, collectively, they’d be in a better position to leverage their greater skills to increase their salaries and benefits. Sadly, this hasn’t been the case…automation, expert systems and streamlined and refined processes account for the higher levels of productivity almost across the board. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2015, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/capitalist-ethics/715922/88 "2015-03-28T16:34:47Z")
> [@LinusK](#): > > Improving productivity is how you create wealth. But though productivity has gone up, more and more of the resulting wealth goes to the very rich, while wages and salaries stagnate. Improving productivity is not a requirement for wealth. Production produces…products, i.e. wealth, whether productivity is rising, stagnating or falling. There is an issue of growth in revenues far outstripping growth in salaries in recent years, that’s true. I’m not sure that that speaks of unethical practices, or is just a symptom of various economic forces at the moment. ---
**Author:** ![LinusK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/258eb7/32.png) [@LinusK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LinusK)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2015, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/capitalist-ethics/715922/89 "2015-03-28T17:02:55Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Capitalism is supposed to be about creating value for the individual which in turn will increase aggregate societal value. Capitalism does this better than any other system we have every created but what we have seen in recent decades is the creation of personal wealth at the cost of societal value. What capitalism doesn’t do is allocate that created value most effectively. We used to say that I would be unequally rich than equally poor but this free market fundamentalism has led to wealth allocating paradigms that are destructive to societal value. > > When we allow you to put trillions of dollars of value at risk in order to put a few million in your pocket, then it is a failure of society to regulate the markets. The way we allocate value in our society encourages (or at least permits) people to gain personal wealth at huge societal costs. One thing that should be clear, is that the US is not a capitalist society. Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Obamacare, Unemployment, Disability, and the host of government laws and agencies that prevent corporations from poisoning the air and water, fixing prices and forming monopolies are examples of that. When banks and money managers nearly bankrupted the U.S. financial system in 09, it wasn’t banks or capitalists who stepped in to stop it. It was the US government. If you think US is a success, it’s not because the U.S. is capitalist. If we were purely capitalist, we would have destroyed ourselves many times over by now. ---
**Author:** ![LinusK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/258eb7/32.png) [@LinusK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LinusK)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2015, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/capitalist-ethics/715922/90 "2015-03-28T17:24:08Z")
> [@FasterThanMeerkats](#): > > So you’re attributing a low-probability design/maintenance flaw solely to capitalism(while conveniently ignoring Chernobyl) and using that and a few other cherry-picked examples to label the entire capitalist system flawed beyond usefulness? And are you’re proposing that some new fantasy type of government/economics would have performed better? I’m calling weak sauce on that and your other arguments (it is Great Debates after all). > > -Medicine is progressing at a prodigious rate from what I understand mainly because of Big Pharma R&D by that evil capitalist USA. > -Energy and computing and communication technology is progressing extremely well (Silicon Valley?). > -And the admittedly unwelcome ocean-garbage patch may get cleaned up at some point or maybe not, but the world will still be in undeniably better shape than it was. > -Non-Evil companies? Try Johnson & Johnson and Google to name a few big ones. And frankly who cares if companies are profit motivated? They enable better reallocation of resources for everyone else. Every charity is better for having Microsoft Office and Apple’s OS available. The network externalities are amazingly beneficial. And the Gates Foundation is probably doing more for charity and human health that any non-capitalist country ever did. > > If you can show another practical system on whole that has provided a better benefit/cost ratio to global society I’m all ears. Capitalism with some guiding although hotly debated regulations and boundaries seems to be doing a darn fine job in the real world. Things are getting better and will continue to do so. > > p.s. I apologize to global dopers for my U.S. centric examples, it’s what I know best. Since you mentioned J & J, I’m going to plug [Born Rich](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=unZmiEsgzno) again. It was made by one of the heirs. Big Pharma is too big a topic for me right now, but I can’t help mentioning the millions of children who die from easily treated diseases, while Pharma pours billions into give old men hard-ons. One is a money-maker. The other is not. You said things are getting better, and will continue to do so. I’m guessing you’re talking about '09 until now. Does the President get any of the credit? ---
**Author:** ![LinusK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/258eb7/32.png) [@LinusK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LinusK)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2015, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/capitalist-ethics/715922/91 "2015-03-28T17:46:08Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > I find it incredible the thread would even proceed without pointing out that these statements are ludicrously false. > > A capitalist is, by definition, a person who owns means of production. How those means of production are put to use will depend on the capitalist and her/his personal assessment of how to derive utility from the means of production. “The greatest profit for the least risk” is inherently nonsensical, because some capitalist will deliberately take on greater risk for greater profit, and some will take on less risk for less profit. “The greatest profit for the least risk” means there’s a risk/reward decision involved in every investment decision. The goal is to make as much profit for as little risk as possible. There’s nothing nonsesenceable about it: in fact I agree with you. Some investors have a low risk tolerance. Others are willing large risks, if they think the payout is big enough. I would add, that among the truly rich, few manage their own money. That’s what money managers are for. > [@](#): > > A worker is, by definition, someone who works. Nothing else. Workers and capitalists can be the same people. How much they choose to work is wholly dependent on their personal utility decisions. I find it mind boggling that an adult human being would assume all workers seek to work less and maximize income when \*\*they must personally know all kinds of people who don’t do that. \*\* I mean, I’m assuming, LinusK, that you’re not actually a hermit living in the middle of the Gobi Desert who somehow got Internet access. You MUST know people who have chosen jobs that pay less, or jobs that require more work for the same pay, for any number of reasons - they like/dislike a given job, they prefer to be home more, or travel more, or like working for charity, or any number of things. I’m not sure what your point is. If you’re saying there are good people in the world, I agree with you. My question was, if the work ethic is “work hard, whether someone’s watching or not,” (or however you want to put it) what’s the capitalist’s ethic? ---
**Author:** ![LinusK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/258eb7/32.png) [@LinusK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LinusK)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2015, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/capitalist-ethics/715922/92 "2015-03-28T19:41:42Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Small quibble. Not the least risk, the least risk for a desired return, understanding that greater returns involve greater risk. > None of the things in your link have much to do with the sense I have of work ethic, which is working hard instead of slacking off. I’d call them more ethical working. > Every company says out loud that employees should be ethical. Their actions may say something else. I’ve worked at companies which were really ethical and others which talked the talk but had no problem bending the rules. > The traditional work ethic is an attempt by employers to get most work out of employees for the least pay. They’ll yell “don’t slack off!” but when raise time comes they’ll plead poverty. > > Not even conservatives believe in the work ethic. Remember all the threads that mention how if you raise taxes on CEOs they will immediately stop working so hard? > > To answer the question, pure capitalist ethics exactly says that it is wrong to do the things you can’t get away with. If you can, and it makes money, it is okay. Very few pure capitalists around, of course. In my strictly limited experience, there re two kinds of workers. Those who do the work, and climbers. Climbers mostly want to find to find the right people to be friends with, so they can get ahead. The second strategy seems more successful. Not to say there aren’t still plenty of workers still around. If there weren’t, the work wouldn’t get done. Funny how the same people who say CEOs will slack off if they don’t get $100 mil also say the sky will fall if shelf stockers get $10 an hour. I agree with your last statement. ---
**Author:** ![LinusK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/258eb7/32.png) [@LinusK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LinusK)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2015, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/capitalist-ethics/715922/93 "2015-03-28T19:55:03Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > Sounds like capitalism doing what capitalism does best. 😉 > > The problem with Fukushima was that Tokyo Electric skimped on all manner of safety procedures and then engaged in [institutionalized lying](http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/28/us-japan-nuclear-tepco-idUSBRE99R0KR20131028) to try to cover it up. > > Look, here’s my basic view on the OP. There is no such thing as “capitalist ethics”. There may be “ethical businesses”, there may be corporations that genuinely adhere to ethical codes of conduct, but those are tangible organizations that may choose to follow ethical practices or choose not to. Capitalism itself is an abstraction of an economic system that neither requires nor precludes ethical behaviors. > > That said, I would argue that capitalism’s goals of making the most possible money for its controlling interests tends to reward and encourage unethical behavior unless sufficiently and responsibly regulated. Transferring the most possible money from your pocket to theirs is the reason they exist – the _ **only** _ reason, regardless of the blather of corporate “mission statements”. A few of them even manage to do it ethically. I agree, but what about capitalists, as opposed to capitalism? Why is “work ethic” built into our vocabulary, but “capitalist ethic” is not? Is there any ethic for a capitalist other than transferring as much money from your pocket to theirs? ---
**Author:** ![LinusK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/258eb7/32.png) [@LinusK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LinusK)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2015, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/capitalist-ethics/715922/94 "2015-03-28T21:59:51Z")
> [@XT](#): > > And we have powerful lobbyist and PR groups working in the opposite direction as well, plus other groups working for myriad other interests and vertical (or even horizontal) goals. This is less about capitalism (or ethics) than it is about politics and how a democracy works. One of the problems of a great concentration of wealth in a small number of hands is that wealth is power. Poor people have very few lobbyists. They can’t afford them. The Kohn brothers may have politicians at their house on a regular basis, but nary a one has been to mine. ---
**Author:** ![LinusK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/258eb7/32.png) [@LinusK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LinusK)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2015, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/capitalist-ethics/715922/95 "2015-03-29T01:03:49Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > I think the central problem with this debate is people are looking for morals in capitalism. It isn’t there. Capitalism is just an economic system. You should no more go looking for moral guidance in economics than you should in chemistry or algebra. Some people say capitalism is inherently good and some people say capitalism is inherently bad - and both views are nonsense. As long as we’re talking about 'isms, socialism stands for taking care of everyone, including the old, the sick, and the disabled. Capitalism stands for everyone for himself: getting as much as you can, with the rest getting by on handouts (or not). Is there really no moral choice there? ---
**Author:** ![LinusK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/258eb7/32.png) [@LinusK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LinusK)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2015, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/capitalist-ethics/715922/96 "2015-03-29T01:18:54Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > Ohhhhhhh, I didn’t realize you were talking about _Scottish_ Capitalists. > > I fear that I am not a True Scottish Capitalist, so I cannot really comment on the subject. Sorry, I don’t understand. So far as I remember, no one in the doc so Scottish. There is one guy who’s Eropean royalty, but he’s German-Italian, if I remember right. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2015, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/capitalist-ethics/715922/97 "2015-03-29T01:40:41Z")
> [@LinusK](#): > > As long as we’re talking about 'isms, socialism stands for taking care of everyone, including the old, the sick, and the disabled. > > Capitalism stands for everyone for himself: getting as much as you can, with the rest getting by on handouts (or not). > > Is there really no moral choice there? Capitalists would argue that they advocate a system of production efficiency and wealth creation in which everyone benefits. In that respect capitalists – and socialists, too – are like two of the characters in the parable of the blind men and the elephant. Both of them are partly right, yet without acknowledging the value of the other side, both of them are wrong. To reiterate the two main points I and others made before: - Unless capitalism is regulated, ultimately the only ones who really benefit are the capitalists themselves, and only the most powerful and dominant ones at that. The rest of us end up exploited, and the world we live in trashed and poisoned. The purpose of regulation is to allow the benefits of capitalism to flourish while preventing it from turning into a den of thieves. - Capitalism – i.e.- free markets – is not the answer for everything. The economic dynamics that allow private enterprise to build better widgets with marvelous efficiency doesn’t automatically make it best suited for doing leading-edge scientific research or providing universal health care or a national transportation infrastructure. There are many instances where the profit motive and the public interest are diametrically opposed. One of my greatest frustrations with conservative ideology is the idea that free enterprise can solve any problem – that just because Acme Corporation can make a terrific can opener I should entrust them with arbitrating my health care. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2015, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/capitalist-ethics/715922/98 "2015-03-29T02:16:48Z")
> [@LinusK](#): > > One of the problems of a great concentration of wealth in a small number of hands is that wealth is power. Poor people have very few lobbyists. They can’t afford them. > > The Kohn brothers may have politicians at their house on a regular basis, but nary a one has been to mine. Right, social spending is not advocated for by powerful lobby groups in the US or other western nations for education or social spending, for unions or for the elderly or myriad other programs or issues touching on the poor, and really it all comes from unicorn wishes and fairy tears! 😛 Get real. If there were no such lobbies or advocacy groups there wouldn’t be any social spending and no one (i.e. neither of the big two parties) would bother with even making token attempts at addressing their issues in any election…ever. Even if you don’t believe that the US has such things (having slept in a cave for the last 4 decades or so) it’s incredible that you believe this about every ‘Capitalist’ nation out there, which include pretty much every single western European nation, Japan, Australia, Canada and a bunch of others. Of course, you seemingly focus solely on the US as perhaps the only ‘Capitalist’ country out there, so you can say off the wall and hyperbolic horseshit and no one calls you on it because they are all nodding without actually thinking through what you are spouting. ‘Yeah, the US is sure evil and they sure don’t have any lobbyists or advocacy groups supporting the poor. Oh, damn, I almost forgot to send in my donation this month to AARP and the Auto Workers Union…’ ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2015, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/capitalist-ethics/715922/99 "2015-03-30T18:02:53Z")
> [@LinusK](#): > > As long as we’re talking about 'isms, socialism stands for taking care of everyone, including the old, the sick, and the disabled. Well, no, it does not. Socialism is an economic system whereby the means of production are owned through some sort of collective system, rather than being held by private interests. “Taking care of everyone” is not an idea particular to any given dominant economic system. > [@](#): > > “The greatest profit for the least risk” means there’s a risk/reward decision involved in every investment decision. The goal is to make as much profit for as little risk as possible. This is, I cannot stress enough, neither true nor even meaningful. Whose goal? Who says that’s the goal? For that matter, why is it not the goal of a socialist system? Logically, your definition here must also apply to a socialist country. If the People’s Republic of Arstztroka decides to build a new shoe factory, are they not seeking the greatest profit for the least risk? The profit might be socialized, but someone in the Economic Planning Ministry is still looking to maximize return over risk. > [@](#): > > My question was, if the work ethic is “work hard, whether someone’s watching or not,” (or however you want to put it) what’s the capitalist’s ethic? If we’re just making up platitudes it can be whatever you want it to be. I personally don’t care about platitudes, as they rarely describe the real world. ---
**Author:** ![Human\_Action](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@Human\_Action](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Human_Action)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2015, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/capitalist-ethics/715922/100 "2015-03-30T18:45:59Z")
> [@LinusK](#): > > Until or unless downsizing would increase profitability. If the employee doesn’t work at a firm anymore, the firm doesn’t have to worry about treating them right to keep them motivated, no. And there’s no more an obligation for a firm to keep someone employed (outside of contracts, of course) then there is an obligation for a worker to never quit his job to take another. > [@LinusK](#): > > Or moving profits overseas. Or doing basically anything that would increase profits for the owners, regardless of its effect anyone else. Well, no. A satisfied, motivated workforce, itself, tends to increase profits for the owners. Some firms may throw that away for a short-term boost, but many others do not. If by “moving profits overseas” you mean tax havens or something, that’s not something thing that affects the individual workers. > [@LinusK](#): > > I’d argue that “ethics” itself means that you’re doing something for someone or something other than yourself. Often it means sacrificing your own interests for someone or something other than yourself. I have never heard of that definition of ethics, I’m familiar with ones like [these](http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/ethics?s=t), variations on “systems of moral principles”. Cite? Or is it original to yourself? > [@LinusK](#): > > Louis CK tells a joke about sitting First Class and watching a soldier struggling by to go sit somewhere in the back of the plane. It says something about our society that we call them heroes. We just don’t let them sit in the front part of the plane. It says we don’t apportion seats on planes according to military service. Sounds fine to me. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/capitalist-ethics/715922.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/capitalist-ethics/715922.md?page=6)