DBA 100

Philosophy of Business

Business as
Property
by:

Evelyn Sanchez
Makadados

Business as Property.
Some philosophers believe.
that a business is essentially someone's
property, and, as such, that its owners
have the right to dispose of it as they see
fit, within the confines of the law and
morality.
they do not believe that workers or
consumers have special rights over the
property, other than the right not to be
harmed by its use without their consent.

In this conception,
workers voluntarily exchange their
labor for wages from the business
owner.
they have no more right to tell the
owner how he will dispose of his
property than the owner has to tell
them how to spend their wages,
which is property belonging to the
workers.

Similarly,
It is assumed that the
business has purveyed its
goods honestly and with full
disclosure, consumers have
no inherent rights to govern
the business, which belongs
to someone else.

Philosophers who subscribe to this

view generally point out that
property owner's rights are nevertheless
not unlimited, and that they are constrained
by morality.
Thus, a home owner cannot burn down his
home and thereby jeopardize the entire
neighborhood.
Similarly, a business does not have an
unlimited right to pollute the air in the
manufacturing process.

Followers of John Locke would

suggest that

first instance of property is the property

that one has in himself, and that one's
labor is an extension of this.

The labor theory of value

suggests that

when one mixes his labor with an

object, he thereby makes it his
property, and that his labor is the
principal means of measuring value.
Many classical economists and
Marxists both subscribe to this view.
They believe that modern production,
which involves many inputs, makes an
equitable division of this property.

necessitates that the state hold

property and the factors of production
in common for everyone.
They assert that labor value provides
an objective measure of economic
activity, compared to price and other
measures which they see as
subjective and fluctuating.

Marxism

The doctrines of Karl Marx and his associate

Friedrich Engels on economics, politics, and society.
They include the notion of economic determinism
that political and social structures are determined by
the economic conditions of people.

Many neo-classical thinkers, for example,

Ludwig von Mises, believe that .

value is subjective and that labor is

incommensurable (e.g., comparing the
labor of a house painter to the labor of
Picasso).

They return to the classical belief .

in practice,asserting the price is objective,
the product of multiple, albeit subjective,
valuations.
Moreover, they assert that what really
matters for assigning ownership is whether
or not property was acquired or exchanged
legally (see Robert Nozick), which is known
as the historical entitlement theory,
whereas Marxists assert that there are no
property rights in the means of production.

Robert Nozick
historical entitlement theory

In his book , Invariances (2001), offers a theory

of objective reality. His other significant
contributions to analytic philosophy
notwithstanding, Nozicks defense of
libertarianism remains his most notable
intellectual mark on philosophical inquiry.

Libertarian socialists, sometimes known as

left-anarchists, hold that
"Property is theft" that is, in reference to the
ownership of productive resources, property is not
the right to use, but the right to keep others from
using it.
Advocates of this philosophy therefore hold the
"institution of property", as they sometimes call it,
to be immoral in itself, so the accumulation of
wealth that includes productive resources,
especially land, is also immoral.
This means that no business can really be ethical,
since the very foundation of business as we know
it is private property.

The business mission

is basically what it does, its principal
objective (e.g., to make cars, sell guns,
provide insurance, sell hamburgers).
One can gussy it up with adjectives, of
course, for example, to make the best,
largest, greatest, etc., but, for our purposes,
we intend only to know the major objective
or objectives of the enterprise without the
fluff or superlatives. The philosophical
question arises, are some missions
immoral?

For example,
if a business intends to manufacture and sell
a recreational drug that is known to be
harmful to the users, is it immoral to do so?
What if the business fully discloses the risks,
and non-users are not put at any
unnecessary risk as a result? One could
easily ask such questions of guns,
motorcycle helmets, dangerous amusement
park rides, and so forth.

Some philosophers would suggest that

a business ought to be allowed to sell virtually
anything that does not harm unwilling, rational
participants (i.e., innocent bystanders), provided the
business fully discloses the dangers to those who
purchase its products.
Others, of course, would say that business and
society have duties to protect people from
exercising poor judgment. A libertarian might say
that such proscriptions are laden with subjective
valuations, and that people have a right to choose
for themselves, that is, as long as they do not harm
others.

Thank you for

listening.