Why business and force don’t mix

Why business and force don’t mix

Available in Audiobook  at:

Available in Paperback, Hardcover and eBook  at:
Buy How to be Profitable and Moral: A Rational Egoist Approach to Business from Amazon

Buy How to be Profitable and Moral: A Rational Egoist Approach to Business from Rowman & Littlefield

Buy How to be Profitable and Moral: A Rational Egoist Approach to Business from iBookstore

Buy How to be Profitable and Moral: A Rational Egoist Approach to Business from Indigo Chapters

Buy How to be Profitable and Moral: A Rational Egoist Approach to Business from Barnes & Noble

 

My recent post on the Pope’s misguided accusation of business for exploiting workers has received some reactions that indicate a misunderstanding of the role of business and the proper role of government. I will focus on these two related issues here.

First, it must be clarified that business firms do not have the power to force workers to accept low wages, no more that they have the power to force workers to work as slaves.  Exploitation of workers or others is only possible through the initiation of physical force (including fraud). Only government can make such initiation of force possible. There are, of course, a myriad of ways that governments themselves in mixed economies initiate physical force and thereby enable businesses to do the same.

Government uses force to limit or eliminate competition among businesses, for example, by granting monopolies (utilities, the postal service) and subsidies to ‘critical’ or ‘strategic’ businesses (the Canadian airplane and train manufacturer Bombardier and the now defunct telecom company Nortel are prime examples), and through taxation. Such government use of force—which prevents some businesses from entering markets and boosts others with money extracted from individual and corporate tax payers—distorts the price system of the markets. By initiating force, the government allows some companies to ignore market prices, those set by undistorted supply and demand, and pay lower (or higher) than market prices, including wages.

Only in markets distorted by government use of force—in statist economies—can workers be paid lower (or higher, as I discuss below) wages than the value of their productive effort in free markets. Absent government initiation of force, companies would be free to set their prices. If they tried to set their wages too low, workers would leave to work for competitors. Absent government use of force, there would be opportunities to create value for customers and shareholders, and therefore, competing companies—and employment opportunities.

When government does not use force to interfere with markets, the demand for employees’ labor would determine their pay level. The higher their productivity, the higher their pay. If companies tried to keep wages artificially low in a vain attempt to maximize their profits, they would lose their most productive employees and therefore their ability to deliver value to their customers and shareholders, undermining their long-term profitability.

Therefore, it is not in a company’s self-interest to pay artificially low wages in a free market where competitors are eager to hire productive employees and pay them what they are worth. A profitable business needs productive, content, and loyal employees—such as Costco Wholesale that compensates its employees according to productivity and therefore incentivizes higher productivity and avoids costly worker turnover.

Government use of force can also distort employee compensation to be higher than what their productivity would warrant in free markets. Companies that are ‘protected’ from competition by government-granted monopoly status, subsidies or bailouts or other government coercion, may pay their employees (including executives) more than they are worth.

Minimum wage laws also force companies pay what government deems to be a ‘decent’ or ‘living’ wage. However, government bureaucrats or politicians are poor substitutes for setting appropriate wage levels. The free market—where the prices represent the summary of the judgments of all those thousands, millions, or billions of individuals and companies trading in it—does it much better, continually adjusting it to supply and demand and rewarding higher productivity with higher pay. Minimum wage laws don’t lead to ‘decent’ wages but to unemployment, particularly among the young, unskilled, and those wanting to work part time, thus taking away opportunities to learn, improve their skills and increase their income levels.

By producing and trading material values, from food and life-saving medicines to productivity-enhancing equipment, insurance policies, and entertainment, businesses enhance our survival and well-being. They are a force for good. Those ‘businesses,’ despite calling themselves that, who exploit others by initiating physical force, do not produce and trade values and therefore do not deserve the title of ‘business.’ They are able to exploit others only because government makes it possible by its own initiation of force or by neglecting to perform its only proper role: protecting individual rights against the initiation of force.

If we want to prevent exploitation by ‘business’ and to protect life-enhancing value creation by legitimate business, we must recognize their cause and demand government to stop initiating physical force, free the markets, and protect individual rights of business—its freedom to pursue profits without initiating physical force against others.

Share this:

Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Email

Share this:

Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Email
Subscribe via Email

Enter your email address to receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 1,363 other subscribers

4 Responses

  1. Thankyou for making excellent points:
    – businesses cannot force people to buy from them nor to work for them.
    – government can force people
    – government must protect individuals against initiation of force (which fraud is a form of).

    In 1957 a now famous novel was published, describing the possibilities of government coercion:
    – producers forced to deal with substandard providers of materials and services, to prop them up (didn’t work).
    – employees forbidden to quit jobs (but those who could live off of the land quit anyway).
    – favouratism by government
    – failure of central planning
    – reduced safety due political pressures
    It has increasing become true.

    My article http://www.moralindividualism.com/monopol3.htm walks readers through how a monopoly can or cannot be created, and gives many references including examples of businesses starting small and succeeding in the face of established competition. Yet one confused business person recently said, while wearing his municipal council hat, that Uber drivers would be stealing from the monopolist taxi drivers. But the concept of stealing depends on ownership – businesses do not own customers!

  2. Examples of wage considerations include recent introduction of automated hamburger flippers in fast-food restaurants in the US (automated tortilla rollers have long existed), and automated ordering stations in fast food restaurants.

    McDonald’s had a lesson on wages a few decades ago – couldn’t get enough good employees because they thought the minimum wage was a competitive wage. And weren’t competitive in Tokyo either.

    Agricultural quotas are another case of government interference.
    For example, a union that was on strike on Vancouver Island purchased a truck load of potatos in the Fraser Valley, to help feed their families economically. Police chased them toward the ferry terminal, then apprehended them on the other side. Potatos are a restricted commodity, as are eggs and dairy products.
    (If you want to produce eggs in quantity you have to buy a quota. OTOH, while Canada props milk prices up, the US subsidized farmers – leading to the humorous situation that Canadians who bought milk in the US at much lower prices were getting a benefit from US taxpayers. I wonder if anyone in the US suggested export controls on milk, as was enacted on soybeans. :o)

  3. Good for them!

    One state official has demanded that Alex Epstein reveal all confidential/private/secret correspondence with Exxon. He told her to “get lost”, and wrote an article for Forbes: “First the Government Went After ExxonMobil, Now They’re Going After Me” in which he calls it an attack on freedom of speech, and challenges Al Gore to debate climate with him. (You may have to persevere with Forbes’ troubled web site, watch for browser notification of a slow-running script.)

    Defense takes staying power (strong convictions and deep pockets), and very good lawyers. Chevron won a judgement against US activists who arranged a phony court case in a South American country. A judge there claimed his young clerk wrote much of his judgement against Chevron, but Chevron showed it was written by a law student in the US. (A company Chevron later absorbed had paid locals for some kind of harm, the country government reneged on its payment in the deal, then Chevron was sued despite having paid. It’s another example of government force, apropos your recent article, a corrupt government whereas in the US the process was objective.)

Leave a Reply

Jaana Woiceshyn teaches business ethics and competitive strategy at the Haskayne School of Business, University of Calgary, Canada.

She has lectured and conducted seminars on business ethics to undergraduate, MBA and Executive MBA students, and to various corporate audiences for over 20 years both in Canada and abroad. Before earning her Ph.D. from the Wharton School of Business, University of Pennsylvania, she helped turn around a small business in Finland and worked for a consulting firm in Canada.

Jaana’s research on technological change and innovation, value creation by business, executive decision-making, and business ethics has been published in various academic and professional journals and books. “How to Be Profitable and Moral” is her first solo-authored book.

%d bloggers like this: