No quite sure how to phrase this question. Most SDMB members are the product of western cultures. In these cultures various Judeo-Christian religious teachings, and general golden rule oriented social ethical mores instruct people to behave equitably toward each other as an ideal.
For the non-western street vendor or general businessman, what instructs his ethical posture in dealing with his clients?
Buyer Beware.
I have several friends and acquaintances who are Asian or Asian American business owners (mostly Thais, with a few Chinese and Vietnamese).
In dealing among themselves, they tend to espouse and practice what seems to me a variation of the golden rule: if you act honestly, people will trust you, and your opportunities will increase. (In dealng with customers, much of the same ‘karmic’ thinking applies, but the customer is treated more deferentially).
Many even eschew the use of written contracts, asserting that if a person’s word can’t be trusted, there’s no point in doing business with them. I have more than once suggested that things be written down anyway, more as a record than a contract, just so differing memories of the deal (or on-the-fly changes thereto) don’t become matters of dispute.
Well the concepts of things like repeat business are perfectly understood even outside of the western world. If a customer believes he has not received good value for his money he may seek another vendor for that product.
As an athiest and a business owner I find it a offputting that anyones religious values impact their honesty in business dealings. If they need religion to keep them honest rather than a desire to score a repeat customer then they are going to have problems staying in any business for very long. If I had a nickle for every “I had this kid from church fix my computer, he charged me $x and it still didn’t work…took it back to him, paid him $x more, still didn’t fix it”
My bill on 4 out 5 times I have heard that line was less than the initial charge from the kid from church.
So IMHO I question (based on my admitted limited sample) what judeo-christian ethics has to do with good business.
I also resent the “honesty = religion” connection. I know many honest/ethical atheists and dishonest/unethical believers. But even if we were to accept your premise, are you aware that they have religion in the rest of the world, too?
Codes of ethics are common to almost all the world’s religions. If you ignore the ones about who/how/when/what to worship, even the particular ethics themselves are pretty similar: don’t kill, don’t steal, don’t lie, don’t cheat on spouses, etc.
I don’t want to paint with a broad brush, but it’s definately buyer beware in much of Asia. There are of course different ascending levels of trust starting from the lowest 1. complete stranger, 2. a tenuous connection, 3. someone from the same language, 4. same general village, 5. same “clan”, 6. classmates/workmates, 7. close family.
Japanese on a corporate level have known to be scrupulous to a fault, including losing money on deals to protect their name. I’ve seen this in action.
I dunno for the OP. Certainly, for me, it’s the western business ethic where a contract defines the relationship. In China, a contract is generally the first phase of the negotiation. But there are plenty of people that say “it’s a deal” and mean that is an involuble, unbreakable contract. Jacky Chan operates that way.
Also, contrary to some other posters opinion, I was raised by missionaries in the church, and although a complete agnositc I still hold the work ethic and moral convictions dear.
I never understand why fellow atheists don’t get this. In a nutshell, most of the west’s legal and ethical framework is derived originally from British Common Law, which was defined by the ethics of people who were heavily influenced by Christian teaching, which itself is derived largely from Judaism.
Yes, but that doesn’t imply that only ethics that derived from judeo-christian beliefs are valid systems of ethics. For example, the Golden Rule is certainly not confined to Christianity and Judaism!
I wonder about that, is it not possible that the UK and US legal framework derives from Anglo Saxon Law - possibly pre-Christian ?
A good bit of ‘The West’ uses Roman Law as its basis, which is a bit different.
In Asia, at least, social interactions and ethics are heavily influenced by Confucianism. The primary source for the views of Confucius are contained in the Analects. The Golden Rule (in a negative form) appears here explicitly in Saying 15.24: “What you do not desire for yourself, do not do to others.”
The alternative, and in my opinion more likely, hypothesis is that any large successful society will contain ethical principles such as the Golden Rule, which will naturally be reflected in the society’s religion. Religion, however, has a tendency to co-opt and claim credit for the ethical principles of its host society.
…which is itself derived from pre-Judaic morals and codes common to nearly every culture on earth, religious or not. You’ve got cause and effect backwards. I guarantee you that the ideas of honesty, personal property, and treating others with respect or at least self-interest predate any modern religion by fifty thousand years. At least rudimentary forms of these things are necessary to allow humans to live and work together, which we’ve been doing since we were hunter-gatherers.
This same argument is brought up when folks argue that our (US, here) laws are based on the ten commandments, and it’s equally incorrect. Only 3 and a half of the commandments are illegal (adultery depends on your state), many of the rest are blatantly unconstitutional (based on the first amendment) if anyone were to attempt to enforce them as laws. The three: Thou shalt not kill, steal, or lie (bear false witness) - arguably the ones that are the least concerned with religion, and certainly the ones most in common with every society on earth.
Again, cause and effect are backwards: these things didn’t come from Christian morality, Christian morality came from these earlier rules.
Agreed. It’s not just odd or bizarre but a catastrophe for world affairs that Christians think that Judeo-Christian ethics are the only moral code or the source of all modern morals. It’s became an issue with some outspoken Congresspeople today re: the Koran, even though the Koran is closer to the Old and New Testaments than many other moral codes.
It is trivially true that Christianity has affected legal and ethical codes in western cultures. The question is to what extent those codes would be different without Christianity and to what extent a secular morality has superseded any specifically Christian provisions.
Those two questions are for GD nor GQ, but my answers would be very little and a great deal.
This is all clearly correct, but regardless of the origins of Judaeo-Christian morality, to state that our own ruleset is Judaeo-Christian (and thus we find people who adhere to it to be ethically “better”) shouldn’t mystify.
From others’ posts, though, I suspect I have confused my position by tacitly accepting the words “good business” in drachillix’s post. “Good business” to us, of course, but not necessarily in other cultures.
Judaism and Christianity have no monopoly on honesty or integrity. To state otherwise is flat out bigotry.
Good business practices will cross over pretty much any religious or cultural boundaries. Value for your dollar/peso/rupee/yen/whatever is a universal concept. Profit margin is still profit margin no matter what your currency. All basic business concepts as I know them are present across all cultures and religions in some way shape or form.
Good businesses are IMHO religiously and culturally neutral, the affilliation of both the customer as well as the company are irrelevant.
If cultural biases or beliefs result in business practices that result in poor value, this is not good business, since that customer will figure out that you are screwing them eventually and will find another business to deal with, they will also tell their friends when they figure it out, adding to the pool of people who will cease doing business with you. Pretty soon, you have fewer customers and eventually, no business.
Whose definition of “good” do you take, though? In recent years, many British companies have been in hot water due to “sweetener” money (aka “bribes”) paid in many other counties to win contract - notably Malaysia and latterly Saudi Arabia. To do business in many Asian countries includes some kind of financial “incentive” to win contracts. This is a clear “bad” practice by our definition, yet standard practice in those other cultures.
I challenge anyone to come up with a statistical correlation between religious faith and honesty. Not anecdotes, not “it stands to reason” bullshit, not dogmatic assertions based on circular logic.
But it isn’t even considered “bad” in all Anglo influenced areas of business, and the practice certainly isn’t an example of violating the “Golden Rule.”
You are evidently quite biased in your assumptions about the relative value of the Judeo-Christian world (which, dammit, includes the Moslem world, which has as its religious theme the same bases as Christianity and Judaism!!), compared to, say, the Buddhist world or the Hindu world. Or, for that matter, to the agnostic world. I would frankly state that much of the world considers American businessmen to have virtually no morals; they consider our reliance on written contracts to be an indication that we simply do not trust each other without them (and they would be right).
I find it amusing that you’re assuming cultural bias here, as I usually get accused of being a whining moral relativist. I am certainly not assigning an absolute value judgement to different cultures’ business practices - I was merely saying how one practice was viewed from within the context of another one. All I was doing was attempting to explain, from one atheist to another, why it’s correct to say we’re a “Judaeo Christian” society. Sheesh.
@Jjimm, interesting how you stirred a hornet’s nest there.
I still reckon that there is a difference between UK and USA law, and that in other European states - the more I think of it as an Anglo Saxon ‘rule based’ system, the more it makes sense to me.
Nonsense. You were responding to a specific question posited by a prior poster, asking what “judeo-christian ethics” had to do with good business practices. Your point appears to be that, since we are a “Judaeo Christian” society, our business practices must reflect that. What everyone else has tossed back at you is your assumption that these are linked; you have been shown that not only are they not necessarily linked, but that even if they are linked, they aren’t necessarily linked in a way that makes our practices “good” (another topic you visited in a later post). :dubious: