UnethicalFollow

Defining things as "ethical" or not is tricky; many discussions boil down to whether or not a given action is moral in the context presented, but morals and ethics are not the same thing.

The tobacco industry is not itself unethical. However, many of the actions taken by major players are - such as falsifying study data, withholding risk information, and intentionally targeting children with advertising.

I wouldn't go so far as to call Big Tobacco the least ethical of industries. I reserve that for the hope peddlers - astrologists, psychics, lawyers, psychologists, and sometimes doctors.

Sure. But two points are being missed:

1. That's the same for *all* businesses. Not just big ones. In fact, I'd argue that you're far more likely to get screwed by your boss in a small business because odds are he's the owner, so every penny he spends on you is a penny out of his pocket. In large corporations, no one "owns" the business. The question of "should I give this guy a raise, or go play the horses with the money I save by not giving it to him" does not ever come up.


2. The bottom line argument is only bad for the employees by necessity if the bottom line for the company is not affected by worker contentment. The Liberal response to that is to create situations in which the government forces the business to pay set wages for set hours (higher minimum wages, unionized workforces, etc). The Conservative approach is to allow market forces to tailor the labor force to the demands of the economy. If there's a demand for what you do, then there's a profit margin involved in you working for your company. They'll reward you for that. And the rates of success by companies regularly listing on the top "most enjoyable workplace" lists seems to bear that out. Employees that feel that they are rewarded for their labor and that they have a path of advancement in their chosen career will work harder for their employers. By and large, this works.


There's nothing that says that it's not a smart business decision to pay your employees well. In fact, in competitive markets, it's often the deciding factor between success and failure. Companies that treat their employees like crap tend to end up with crap employees (because everyone who can do better will move to a company that rewards them for it). Over time, this will kill the bottom line more then anything else. And the CEOs and boards of directors for these large corporations know this very well.

Again. Contrast health benefits and advancement opportunities between large corporations and small businesses. It's night and day. Corporations by far treat their employees better then small privately owned businesses do. Until you've worked for significant amounts of time in both environments, you simply don't understand how different they are.



He's right. To a point. It's a simple fact that you can't have an economy made up all of bosses. You've got to have some workers in there somewhere, right? Your teacher is wrong in his result though. Burgers would not cost 50 dollars. That would require that there be some rule that required a minimum payment to someone based on degree. But in a free market, you get paid what your current labor is worth. No one's going to pay 50 bucks for a burger. Not without significant devaluation of the currency, in which case it's not *really* 50 bucks, is it? You've really just devalued the PhD, not increased the cost of a burger, since (barring some kind of massive government intervention in the market), no one could afford to pay 100k/year to a burger flipper since that salary is by necessity based on the value of flipping the burger which is a direct relation to the relative cost of a burger in the first place.

He's got the relationship right, he's just expressing it backwards. The cost of a burger wont go up, the value of a PhD will go down. Afterall, the number of people with PhD's doesn't make that burger any more valuable to the market. It's still just a single meal. The ultimate concept that not everyone can be "rich" is still valid. Afterall, wealth is a relative concept. Technically, if you have a buck in your pocket, you are "wealthy". Just not *very* wealthy. But if you were surrounded by people who only had a penny, you would be "ultra rich" in comparison.

It's all relative...

Hah. I see where you're coming from but the problem is not the fact that a burger could ever be $50-- that's obsurd. He was merely pointing out that if everybody is a doctor, NO ONE will flip burgers. NO ONE will mop floors, shine your shoes or even cut your hair. Well maybe cutting your hair is a lot more advanced scientific skill than I know, but that's besides the point.

In Israel there are an abundance of well educated citizens which make is increasily difficult to both, find jobs as a doctor and get work to the point where you are successful(because of the amount of doctors) and to find PEOPLE to fill those manual labour jobs. For example, there is 100 architechs designing some of the finest buildings in the country and doctors, politicians, etc are financing the project, however, NO ONE is building it. There are blue prints but not 2x4's.

Ok. That still doesn't explain how they find workers to do manual labour jobs. Unless you're going to argue that everybody has a dual-citizenship with Israel.