Business and Professional Ethics

BUSINESS AND PROFESSIONAL ETHICS
ASSIGNMENT 2 

1. The main ideal of the essay “I, Pencil” is that there is a connection between everything, even though it is really minor. The process of making a pencil is a combination of various different process.
2. There are more than 250 stores in Macquarie shopping center including numerous famous retailers such as Woolworth, Big W, Target, Myer, JB Hi Fi and David Jones. These provide various types of goods and services. In details, Woolworth sells more than 44,000 different types of products. Therefore, the quantity of products sold in Macquarie shopping center can be more than a million. Due to it providing numerous products, it can maximize the profitability by satisfying customer demands.
3. Friedman asserts that a business should maximize its profits because a business is run for the purpose of making profits for its owners. Revenue can be considered as the first criteria of a company, as no one wants to spend money on something that may not create profits. Moreover, this is the basic rule of free market where people are free to operate a business in their own way to obtain their own objective which is mainly maximizing profitability.
4. According to Friedman Milton, businesses are forced to maximize profits, even if they would rather pursue some other objectives. Firstly, a business is run by a corporate executive who is an employee of company owners. The CEO is using capital of stockholders, so he is required to maximize returns for them. Moreover, if a corporate executive spends money to obtain some social responsibility objectives, this means that he is spending another’s money for his own purpose. For instance, the money using for social issues may be earned by increasing prices and cutting off salaries of staff. Therefore, it can be considered as immoral. As a director of a company, it is more important to satisfy needs of stockholders, customers and staff than solve social problems.
5. According to Marx (as interpreted by Wolff, 2003, p. 29), alienation is defined as a feeling of disorientation. Marx asserted that alienated labour causes depression for human being on over the world. The four forms of alienated labour are alienation from the product, in productive activity; from our species-essence and from other people.
6. The problem of money is that money can control everything in life. People will be loved and admired if they are wealthy. In modern society, things always have prices, so people have to pay for what they did not need to pay in the past.
7. The alienation is an inevitable consequence of capitalism
8. a. Should Julia hire prisoners?

b. In a utilitarian perspective, they should employ US prisoners, because this is a cheap source of staff. This can help reduce costs and increase profits.

c. In a Kantian perspective, they should not employ the prisoners, because the security of the company is at stake. No one can guarantee that prisons do not do any illegal actions to their business, because they used to commit a crime.

d. In a virtue perspective, the prisoners should be employed, because this can help them to fix what they did wrong in the past and improve their future. It is believed that if one can help other people, it will be ethical.