iS IT immoral to own a business?

[MooNiNite]

Owning a business structure that results in profiting from others work?

 

Keep in mind, you are being paid for setting up the business and organizing the effort.

 

Is this immortal? Is it possible to create balance?

[Marblehead]

No, it's not immoral.  As long as you are fair with any employees you might have.  And fair with your customers as well.

[Karl]

Owning a business structure that results in profiting from others work?

 

Keep in mind, you are being paid for setting up the business and organizing the effort.

 

Is this immortal? Is it possible to create balance?

 

Are your moral values a product of some external code, or are they determined by rational thought ? If the first, then consult the codes. If they are by the second then the answer is apparent by rigorous, logical thinking. If you can do neither, then you are lost and no one can tell you. Toss a coin.

[MooNiNite]

Are your moral values a product of some external code, or are they determined by rational thought ? If the first, then consult the codes. If they are by the second then the answer is apparent by rigorous, logical thinking. If you can do neither, then you are lost and no one can tell you. Toss a coin.

 

I see your point, but i'm curious if you think it is moral

[Leif]

I'm aware of certain indigeneous island society where it's not moral to own a business or employ people, it's only moral to share and to work together in a cooperative. IIRC.

 

In the west it's completely moral. After all, you are helping those people earn living.

Moral or not moral, could be your actions towards them. Exploitation etc.

 

If you are into business, it's best to stop analyzing from that point of view, otherwise, you could end up with a lot of similar questions that could have serious downside to performance of your business:

 

Is it moral if the business earns money, isn't that profiting from customers by charging more than it cost to produce?

 

Is it moral to offer employees better pay and handling than they would get from their current employer, isn't that stealing of employees?

 

Is it moral to be too good that competition has to close the business and owner and employees face bad times?

 

....and maybe all kinds of other similar questions

 

[Aetherous]

So long as you're providing (for customers, for employees) it's very moral. If the exchange is equal, if you receive in equal proportion that you give, then it's simply a good thing. Customers benefit, employees benefit, you benefit. Fairness is moral.

If you receive beyond what you provide, then perhaps it's beginning to become immoral. For instance, if the customer feels kind of ripped off for what they're getting, and you could have lowered the price but you chose to make a greater profit instead, because you have a kind of monopoly. Or if your employees could be paid what they're worth, but because there aren't a lot of jobs out there, employees will accept your lower paying job because they need to survive. You're earning lots as the business owner and they're barely getting by.

Basically...always try to keep things fair for everyone, and you're a moral business owner. Try to gain more at the expense of others, and you're an immoral business owner.

Providing a person a job but then scamming the employees out of what they're worth doesn't make things fair. Providing a job is good, but ripping people off is bad. It's immoral despite providing.

[vonkrankenhaus]

Morals and ethics change.

 

They change into whatever would be of advantage to those who change them.

 

Business is a thing registered with a municipailty.

 

The municipality is the air space above some stolen land.

 

People are registering so that the use of the stolen land stays orderly for the municipality.

 

The municipality is a company/business itself, started by the people who stole the land.

 

The laws that are taken to govern the municipality are commercial laws.

 

Morality and ethics become more serious lower on the control structure, and less serious higher up.

 

No worries though - it's all imaginary.

 

 

 

-VonKrankenhaus

[Karl]

I see your point, but i'm curious if you think it is moral

 

Most of us are owners of our own businesses if we are net producers. Therefore morality is not a function of the ownership of some specific business structure, but of the man who runs his own business-be that an individual, or larger structure.

 

You are asking about morality and that must begin with a mans own moralality, his values and the way in which he conscientously applies himself to having and holding them. These are his principles. Whatever he does, he will apply those principles.

 

A man with low morals will be a poor businessman, a thief, cheat, conman. He might use the Government to provide protection for his business, to artificially increase his profits by limiting his competitors and so partake in corrupt practices and effectively violence.

 

The business is only as moral as the man who runs it, just as anything in life.

 

If you are searching for morality in the products of man, then you won't find any, only in the man that produced them.

[Perceiver]

No. But it is immoral to want to prevent others from owning a business.

[Astral Monk]

As others have suggested, the answer depends on what moral standard you adopt. There is no absolute answer. But two things you might consider:

 

1) The nature of the business--in Buddhism we are encouraged to have right employment. Generally this means our jobs ought to reflect our value goals. In the case of Buddhism it means supporting the 8-Fold path which itself supports our efforts at liberation (from suffering). It may take a complex multilevel rational assessment of an occupation and its consequences to figure this out, but if it matters to us thats exactly what we need to do.

 

Consider Islamic values, for instance--anything that ultimately runs contrary to Islam is forbidden. You ought not find a Muslim bartender or bacon salesman, for instance.

 

2) The concept of ownership--what does it imply, how does it work, what are its foundations? All ownership is a form of appropriation. It is an assertion of external power and control backed by threat (real or implied) of force (physical, social, or economic) to defend the claim against others.

 

In this sense, owning a business is fundamentally different than being engaged in an occupation. The former is a fragile social contract that at a minimum requires that everyone leave everyone else's claims alone lest chaos and violence erupt and destabilize social order; the latter is a fulfillment of a functional role where the act of doing the work, the process of working, is the goal and value achieved.

 

--

 

And there are many other considerations and levels to look at. If owning isnt a problem for you, or if it feels like a moral obligation to assert your economic power, then you might want to consider your relationship to clients and employees. What are your professional standards? What public profile do you want to establish and maintain? Is your business supporting the global economy or is it geared towards growing local economies? Does it further the destruction of nature or promote its cultivation?

 

All of these could be questions of moral value that could make or break a job choice for a person. I once quit a job working for a bank because I discovered that they funded a business that manufactured cluster bombs--bombs that kill and main human beings. Although my 'job' and the bank's investment were not directly related, since everything I did ultimately affected the bank's bottom line, and that line created capitol for investments, and those investments went to bomb makers, I was indirectly supporting the killing and maiming of human beings. Now this is against my values as a peaceful humanist and I could feel the karmic weight of it. Once you know what the chain is linked to, you cant avoid the connection. It was, for me, a moral choice to leave that industry entirely, since you just cant know the full range of investments that you could be indirectly supporting.

 

Asking 'is it moral (or immoral)?' is only a basic first step in a more complete value analysis. It leads to a lot more questions and answers that you need to unpack and arrange to discover value relationships.

 

This exercise in rational analysis is important for each person to do, if the consequences of their actions matter to them. IOW, you need to figure out your answer for your specific situation, because only that process will be relevant to you.

 

8)

Edited December 6, 2015 by Astral Monk

[Astral Monk]

 

The municipality is the air space above some stolen land.

...

No worries though - it's all imaginary.

 

As a side, I like this chain of reasoning, but I would argue that there is no such thing as 'stolen land' because land cannot be owned, only occupied. So both the 'theft' and 'original ownership' are imaginary.

 

8)

Edited December 6, 2015 by Astral Monk

[Karl]

As a side, I like this chain of reasoning, but I would argue that there is no such thing as 'stolen land' because land cannot be owned, only occupied. So both the 'theft' and 'original ownership' are imaginary.

8)

 

Depending on the philosophic view point-in a totally practical sense, if land cannot be owned then this means that property cannot be owned. Why and how would any form of trade be possible if no one owned anything ?

 

This would be the tragedy of the commons writ large-there would be no incentive to produce in the first place if everyone claimed the right to consume everything anyone produced. No proper allocation of resource would be possible. It would be as if locusts were eating the land. Humanity would consign itself to the animal world, but worse, they would surrender ownership to anything that demanded it. This would be self sacrifice to the point of mass suicide.

 

 

[thelerner]

Could any of us build the stuff we see around us right now?  The keyboard infront of you passes through at least a dozen owners.  From those who mine the ore, create the plastics, the wires, the coatings, the design, the safety checks, the ink on each key.

 

The keyboard you're using is possible has a dozen or two businesses all with employees, managers, owners.  The same with the lamp, the bulb, the computer.  With every object around you, you're not dealing with one 'owner', you're dealing with dozens. 

 

I owned and ran a business that sold used and obsolete corrugated boxes.  It was worthwhile and nicely profitable.  It probably did much more good then harm in the world. 

Edited December 7, 2015 by thelerner

[Astral Monk]

Depending on the philosophic view point-in a totally practical sense, if land cannot be owned then this means that property cannot be owned. Why and how would any form of trade be possible if no one owned anything ? This would be the tragedy of the commons writ large-there would be no incentive to produce in the first place if everyone claimed the right to consume everything anyone produced. No proper allocation of resource would be possible. It would be as if locusts were eating the land. Humanity would consign itself to the animal world, but worse, they would surrender ownership to anything that demanded it. This would be self sacrifice to the point of mass suicide.

 

It would be interesting to explore this fully, but in its own thread.  Maybe I'll start a topic when I have a moment.

 

8)

[vonkrankenhaus]

Re:

-----

"As a side, I like this chain of reasoning, but I would argue that there is no such thing as 'stolen land' because land cannot be owned, only occupied. So both the 'theft' and 'original ownership' are imaginary."

-----

 

That's what I wrote. All imaginary.

 

But - If a state issues you a summons for some sort of violation of state law, and you ask in court "Is there any evidence of a Plaintiff?", then this issue comes to the forefront.

 

The Plantiff is imaginary.

 

 

 

 

-VonKrankenhaus