Challenges from the RIGHT This challenges stems from those who believes the foremost duty of a business is profit making.
Adam Smith argued that a
marketplace where people are free to seek their own self interests, the forces of competition produces the goods essential to civil society. This view was advocated by Milton Friedman who put forward the view : KEEP THE GOVERNMENT OUT OF THE MARKETPLACE This results in the forces of demand & supply to act as an invisible hand that restrains individual greed and enhances productivity. Today, when everyone is after profit making, its hard to argue against a free market. Friedman argue that individual freedom and economic freedom go hand in hand. Moreover, he says social responsibility is not a part of business. Business should adhere to there actual mission which is profits and leave social welfare to others. He agrees to Hobbes idea to keep govt. out of marketplace by conforming their activities to Ethical Problems
It is said that profits to business acts the same way
as oxygen to body. But excess causes damage! Too much profit, that is profit maximization without consideration of other elements in the businesss equation can cause problems just as too little profit. If the focus is solely on profit maximization, the customer can be ignored or given secondary consideration. This can lead to poor management decisions resulting in cutting corners on safety, service, or product performance. Profit maximization can cause organizational toxicity . Fashion is dramatically changing and so is the negligence of owners of large corporations.
For instance big clothing brands like H&M,
ZARA, forever21 and many more have gone so far in profit making that they deny the existence of dangers to the poorly paid employees working in the garment factories in Bangladesh for incredibly long working hours in harsh conditions. When the workers voice out there demands, they are beaten to death . Rana Plaza Collapse 2013 CHALLENGES FROM THE LEFT Critics of business activity on the left of the political spectrum often see business as inherently immortal. Karl Marx based his analysis on the desperate plight of workers in the industrialized countries. Unusual long working hours Meager wage (2-3$ /day) Complete lack of job security Dangerous working conditions Marx set about to discover the causes of the misery & expresses three criticisms with respevt to his analysis. 1. Inevitability of the class struggle (Bourgeoisie and the Proletariate) 2. Surplus value theory of labour 3. Alienation of the workers For Marx alientation of the labour includes three things: 1. Workers are isolated from the products that they make from there own labour. 2.Capatalist converts the surplus labour into more capital. 3.Workers are isolated from each other in the struggle to fulfill there basic necessaties. Ethical problems An organization where employees are treated as non existant is too low on ethics because the precious lives are overlooked in the greed of capitalism and if they protest, they are tortured and not listened to. Still the helpless people seek work in such places because of extreme poverty despite of harm to there physical and mental health. A powerful Silent message.