On November 23 of this year, American pharmaceutical powerhouse, Pfizer, announced its plan to perform a merger with the Irish pharmaceutical company, Allergan, creating the conglomerate corporation of Pfizer, plc. This merge is set to be worth approximately $160 billion and will be the third largest merger in history and the single largest pharmaceutical endeavor ever. The new company will establish its shared headquarters in Dublin, Ireland, a country with much lower corporate taxes than those in the States. Though the tax evasion method being used in this situation is not illegal, it is immoral because the express purpose of the merger and moving the company to Ireland is to pad the pockets of the stockholders. Making more money for your stockholders is, in itself, far from morally corrupt, but the means by which it is being accomplished in this case, i.e., pulling billions of dollars out of the US economy, is what makes this such an issue. In an application of the stakeholder theory wherein the stockholders and investors are the most important shareholders, the action is ethically justifiable since it is being done to forward their interests. Furthermore, it can also be claimed that the lessened tax burden on the company(ies) will allow for more funding to go into the research and development of new drugs. However, in spite of those benefits, the obvious deficit will manifest in terms of the lack of tax revenue being taken in by the US government, tax revenue which could very well be used to fund various social programs and infrastructure innovation and renovation throughout the country. This move is, essentially, just selfish and shortsighted and takes billions of dollars away from the masses and programs which would benefit millions and funnels it into the hands of a select few. If everything goes according to plan, by the middle of next year, the ramifications of this merger will begin truly coming to pass. We will just have to wait and see.
The ‘Happiness’ Industry
The standard means of telling a group or individual’s stance in a market is by monitoring and analyzing responses to price change. What Will Davies is suggesting in his book is that soon, with the growth of wearable technology and real-time emotional analysis through facial scanning, people’s intentions, wants, and sentiments will be able to be measured, quantified, and used to replace the litmus test of years prior. Emotion and feeling are being transmogrified from personal experiences into collectible and exploitable data which can then be used to cater specific advertising to people whose emotional data matches parameters determined by businesses.
He goes on to state than businesses are beginning to respond to workplace dissatisfaction and unhappiness, not by changing the way the business is run day to day, but instead by subtly changing employees’ perceptions of their environment so that they are either more willing to accept an unsatisfactory atmosphere or just less aware that things are unsatisfactory in the first place. Not to be overly dramatic, but in a lot of ways this reminds me of Ingsoc in 1984; people are only happy because they are told they should be. That, coupled with the idea of the “womb fantasy” of a smart city, shows a potential move towards the complete sterilization and emotional disconnect of human civilization in the pursuit of happiness. So, let’s try to keep things from spiraling too quickly.
Antoine Bolden
Link to the video: http://www.c-span.org/video/?326601-1/book-discussion-happiness-industry
Thank You For Smoking
Thank You For Smoking is a 2005 satirical comedy starring Aaron Eckhart which chronicles the difficult task of being big tobacco’s main spokesman and lobbyist in a world where smoking is becoming increasingly unpopular.
The yuppie Nuremberg defense is to claim that the only reason one is involved in a morally questionable action is because it pays the bills, thus making it seem as though there is no deeper enjoyment of the job or action in question. It is essentially saying that the task is irrelevant to you, but the money you get from it is relevant. In being so amoral, it neither makes the person using the defense seem like a better or worse person than anyone else; it is simply a means to an end.
When it comes to lobbying to serve the interests of big tobacco, whether or not it is ethically acceptable is not the question, the purpose of the occupation is what should be analyzed. Basically, everything is bad for you: eating bacon, prolonged computer usage, loud music, tight-fitting underwear. But no one is lobbying for those things because there is no money in it for them. Lobbying is just a means by which large companies get to keep themselves in business and brush away bad publicity, no matter how bad it is, by skirting around the issues and maintaining their own relevancy. People who lobby for the oil companies do not get half as much flack as people who do the same for the tobacco industry and yet it can be said that there is no difference between the two. Tens of thousands of people die in car accidents every year, innocent people die in gas station robberies, drunk driving is the leading cause of death in people aged 15-19 in this country and yet oil companies, car companies, and alcohol manufacturers can get away with it no problem. Long-term smoking has been shown definitively to cause several types of cancer and heart disease, but not 100% of the time. Long-term heavy drinking has been shown to cause cirrhosis, renal failure, and heart disease, but not 100% of the time. I find these two to be irrevocably intertwined in their methodology and long-term effects, and yet there are still commercials for alcohol on every channel. Either it is all fine and dandy or it is all morally reprehensible. NAMBLA exists and it has the right to exist. Even if I believe their viewpoint and rationale are morally reprehensible, does that mean that any person or entity should be able to forcibly disband the group? Of course not. Sure, the group’s existence is ethically irresponsible, but I would never say anything is completely ethically unacceptable. Which is mostly because I do not accept a stance of universal morality since the people who tend to be on the side of universal morality also tend to be hypocritical and only care about what directly affects them (e.g., if you say that no matter what, it is wrong to kill, then you should not support any wars and be a vegetarian/vegan.)
Antoine Bolden
Link to the movie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgKqa8u4uJQ
The Consequences of Unethical Business Practices
Chuck Gallagher is a professional speaker, telling his personal story of how lapses in judgement regarding business ethics can, and very often will, have disastrous effects on a person’s livelihood and worldview. The 50-minute long video is full of interesting food for thought, but I will summarize the three points which stood out most to me.
The full gravity of one’s own actions, no matter how minute or how benign or how heinous they are, only really weigh upon the mind and the heart upon the realization that those actions have come back to haunt you and that the consequences will change your life irrevocably forever. To have your world come crashing down upon you is one thing, but the reality is that the immediate crash is just the beginning, but the ripples will follow you to the grave.
At times it seems like the only means by which one can be successful in business is to throw scruples out of the window and accrue value and prosperity through illegal means. This is the type of perception which The further away the direct impact of the wrongful action, the easier it is to go through with that action and when you get away with it the first few times, you feel unstoppable. That feeling of invulnerability completely warps a person’s moral ideology and whether or not something is unscrupulous becomes irrelevant in the light of the potential gains of making that ethical leap.
But even at the lowest point; in that moment when you think the only way out is to hide under a rock, whither away, and die, the fact of the matter is that there is no point of no return. There is always a way to climb back up and find the light. Self-reflection and finding a deeper understanding of who you are, what you stand for, and how your choices have, and will continue to, define you are what it means to create and build up a positive ethical framework around which you live your life and cement your place in the world. Ethical behavior is not just knowing the difference between right and wrong; it is knowing that the only way to live is without regret, without wondering when the police will kick your door down and rip you out of the home you never really felt you earned in the first place.
Antoine Bolden
Source video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FkXAnd_dZtY
A Hippocratic Oath for Bankers?
A 158 word template upon which Dutch bankers are meant to swear an oath to do right by their clientele no matter what. It is an interesting idea, of course, but its efficacy is dubious at best. Where in medicine a doctor and a patient’s desires are one and the same, a financial officer, banker, investor, etc. may have ideals and priorities which are completely different to those of a client or potential partner, leading to a much higher capacity for conflict. The only times where matters of the Hippocratic oath are really brought up is when a doctor has the obligation to provide care to a wounded enemy during wartime and in the ongoing debate about the right to life and doctor assisted suicide. In the business world, ethical debates and conflicts occur on a daily basis with long-term consequences beyond the lives of the people directly involved. Without a doubt, this is a step in the right direction, but perhaps a longer stride is in order.
Antoine Bolden
Full article: http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/12/would-a-hippocratic-oath-for-bankers-lead-to-better-behavior/383867/
The Cabinet of Doctor Costanza 