Ethics and Social Responsibility

The bare minimum anyone must adhere to is the law (government regulation and legislation). In almost every profession, there is then a code/statement of ethics that practitioners are expected to adhere to: the one for the American Marketing Association, for example, can be found here. These codes represent the minimal acceptable behaviors within the field. Organizations and companies often have their own code as well. Above all of those resides the ethics of the individual - what will they do when confronted with a gray area. From a Biblical perspective, Proverbs 22:1 speaks to this better than any other verse.

Social Responsibility was addressed by Milton Friedman in his landmark paper, "The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase its Profits" in the New York Times (September 13, 1970). A copy of it can be found here. While the entire paper is wonderful, to me the best issues can be found early on in the first, second and fourth paragraphs.

Chapter One Misc.

The quote from Dicken's when Marley is told he was a good man of business:
"Business?! The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance and benevolence were all my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business.”

Words to definitely know from within the chapter (this does not mean you do not need to know others, but you would be remiss in not being very familiar with these):
Capitalism
Business
Profit
Free Enterprise
Capital
Natural Monopoly
Equilibrium
GDP
Inflation
Deficit

Chapter One additional terms

Two terms that were not in Chapter One, but should be (and that you will be expected to know for the exam):
1. Loss - you don't always get a profit when you subtract expenses from revenue
2. Arbitrage - the discrepancy that exists, and the ability to capitalize upon it, between market prices. I can buy generators cheap in Michigan and sell them here for much more the day after an ice storm knocks out everyone's electricity.

Syllabus finalized!

The syllabus is finalized and can be found at http://facultyweb.anderson.edu/~eadulaney/SYLLABUS_1050.htm. A hard copy was distributed in class. Chapter 1 will be discussed in class next week (Tuesday and Thursday) and the one question I want you to ask is "What is business?"

Next week, and throughout, you are encouraged to bring current articles that relate to business that you would like to discuss to class. Sometimes you can get far more out of current events than you can out of textbook articles.