From the link social responsibility in the menu
Unedited Ntes
1/8/11Social Responsibility
What the small business owner has that the corporate community is rarely seen to possess is a sense of social responsibility sufficient to attract a local following and survive and flourish by acknowledging social conventions instead of exploiting them.
At the heart of the meaning of social responsibility is the idea that each individual in the society is responsible for his or her actions; that they, as good citizens, abide by the conventions, the morals, laws and ethical codes of the land. Every person from early childhood is taught moral right and wrong, laws, customs and conventions. Everyone knows what cheating is and they are expected to be honest. In contrast to this are powerfully influential economic theories promote the idea that a business is not a person, therefore is not subject to the ethics and morals of society. In effect it is as if owning business grants a person license to break the rules of convention and ignore ethical and moral codes, all in the belief that it it for the better economic good of the nation. Ethical standards exist to bring peace, stability and prosperity to the world. To suggest that business owners have license to break the rules and profit by that advantage is an illogical and self-serving assertion. If an individual exploited the rules of social convention the same way large corporations have they would be deemed to be a sociopath. In other words this Darwinian "Red Tooth and Claw" approach to reasoning economic theory is based on the principle of "profits before people." Here, cheating is good because it stimulates the economy. Such economic theory might be more accurately thought of as elegant nonsense.
There are good reasons as to why this predatory state of affairs exists overlayed on more civilized aspects of twenty-first living.. The civilizing process works in stages. One of the later stages called capitalism refines the savage impulses of humans to exploit one another into an orderly system of commerce (although not a totally fair one). The relative peace capitalism engenders inspires a high level of social cooperation and productivity. It is a system that mitigates the turbulent conflicts that lead to systemic inefficiencies. Capitalism is an efficient model of an economic system. It promotes "peace prosperity and productivity," and avoids considerable social "pain, suffering, and death." This is not difficult to see when comparing a prosperous capitalist system with a third world social and economic system.
As an economic system comes near the end of its useful life it begins to be dragged down by its own inefficiencies; inefficiencies that have gradually and almost imperceptibly grown. This is a natural process leading to another stage of economic development. And, in the next stage of social and economic growth the culture more and more must be governed by reason and not self-serving theories that benefit the few at the expense of many. Cheating is more often than not accompanied by elegant rationalizations. The notion that businesses can be irresponsible while individuals must needs to go. A climate of responsibility and trust certainly can engender a social harmony far greater than what capitalism provides in the twenty-first century. Economist have long taken it upon themselves to redefine social morality when it comes to issues of money and fairness. As the issue of social responsibility comes more and more to the forefront of human thinking the economist's role of the arbiter of ethical standards will be wrested from them.
The foundation of ethics ultimately rests on actions and their consequent reactions. This extends to inactions that themselves inspire reactions and the political and social forces that shape the world and influence the human spirit to produce and prosper. "The Evolution of Ethics."
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Dianic Publications
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