Should businesses do anything they can to make a profit?
It is obviously important for businesses to make a profit. Few people, whether they are the sole owners of businesses or the shareholders of companies, go into business just for the love of it. They go into the businesses to make money.
A profitable business not only makes a living for its owners or shareholders, but it can also make a significant contribution to the economy of a community or a country. For example, a business often employs several members of a community. Thus, a great many people can have a vested interest in the profitability of a business.
Profits should not, however, be made at any price. At the very least, businesses, like other areas of life, should be conducted in accordance with human rights. Too often, the rights of workers are ignored when the minds of management are entirely focused on profit.
It is usually the policy of companies to try to keep their operating and manufacturing costs as low as possible, so that they can sell their products at a cheap enough price to compete with their rivals. That approach is, obviously, good for profits and, within reason, it is quite acceptable.
However, too often the profit motive takes over from all other considerations and that is far from acceptable. Sometimes, companies profit from the misery of others. For example, they employ illegal immigrants at incredibly low wages because they know that these people can do nothing about this. Because they have no legal right to be in the country, they cannot report their employers for their behaviour.
Other companies operate in areas of the world where there is a great deal of poverty and where employment opportunities are extremely scarce. Sometimes, these are local companies and sometimes they are multinationals operating in the same area. However, the result is overall, the same. Large profits are made because of the shockingly low wages paid to the workers. It is an exploitation which is done openly without feeling ashamed and there is nothing the workers can do to defend themselves from it. They are extremely vulnerable and sometimes they are children.
In some countries, efforts are being made by some of their citizens to stop the practice of using what is basically slave labour to make profits. They try to boycott the goods of companies which do this in the way that people boycotted goods from South Africa while that country was still practicing apartheid ( a system formerly practiced in South Africa in which black people had fewer rights than white people and had to go to separate schools, live in different areas from white people etc).
This effort is praiseworthy indeed, but this can only achieve a huge success if it is carried out on a much greater aspect. Besides, it is often difficult to identify which companies are involved. Some overseas companies are too small to be easily identified and the multinationals are so huge that it is difficult to find out just what they make and where they make it.
People with a conscience often also try to boycott investment in companies that deal in commodities which they think are wrong in some ways. For example, they might refuse to invest in companies which deal in arms, because these contribute to bloodshed and terrorism or some might even refuse to invest in companies which are concerned with tobacco because it endangers health. Again, they think that business should not be making profits out of human misery.
The economy of a country relies on the profitability of its businesses and successful businesses are always looking at ways to increase their profitability. However, people come before profits and businesses should exploit them in order to make huge profits.
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